Australian Football

Christened William, but more usually referred to as ‘Joe’, Bushell commenced his senior league career with North Fremantle where he made a favourable impression as a dashing, purposeful defender. In 1908 he was selected in the Western Australian squad for the inaugural Australasian championship series in Melbourne, and although not actually selected to play in any of the state’s matches, he found himself the focus of attention in another sense when Arthur Thomas, secretary of the Sturt Football Club, sought to procure his services. The upshot was that Bushell spent the 1909 season with Sturt and the following year at St Kilda without really managing to do himself justice in either case. In 1911 he returned home to Western Australia with his football career clearly at the crossroads. 

He ended up joining his brother Harry at Subiaco, which, like Sturt a couple of years earlier, was just beginning to flex its economic muscles in a bid to establish itself as a bona fide league force for the first time. By 1912, with Joe Bushell proving an outstanding success as a hard running, creative half back flanker, the Maroons had started to display many of the hallmarks of greatness, a status they confirmed by taking out that season’s premiership with a hard fought 5.8 (38) to 4.5 (29) Challenge Final defeat of East Fremantle. Bushell was a significant contributor to Subiaco’s victory that day, as he was a year later when another premiership was secured, this time at the expense of Perth. When Perth were vanquished again in the premiership decider of 1915, Harry Bushell could claim the rare distinction of having contributed to each of the Maroons’ first three flag successes. 

He continued playing regularly until 1919, albeit making a brief comeback in 1923. By the time he did retire he had amassed just short of 150 senior games, and, in the process, emphatically obliterated the memory of his somewhat stuttering early progress in the game.

Author - John Devaney