Australian Football

Fiercely tenacious and competitive, Malcolm Atwell was said during his playing career to be the West Australian player the Victorians most respected and feared, presumably because his approach was so similar to their own. He made his interstate debut in 1960, and the following year was a member of the Western Australian party which travelled to Brisbane to contest the Australian championships.

After playing at full back in the opening game against Tasmania, which the Sandgropers won by 111 points, he was dropped to the bench for the clash with South Australia, only to be recalled for the decisive match against the Big V after a two-point loss to the croweaters was felt to necessitate a re-shuffle.

At half time of the crunch encounter, the VFL led 11.3 to 5.8, and looked ‘home and hosed’. During the second half, however, the West Australians, to a man, raised both their tempo and their intensity, forcing the Vics onto the back foot. With Atwell in near impassable form at full back, West Australia rallied to get within three points at the final change, before clinching victory with as potent and devastating a last quarter as you could wish to see.

For the 23-year-old Atwell — the best player afield in the estimation of most observers — it was a vital and significant lesson, one from which he would extract much benefit in years to come.

Malcolm Atwell began his league football career at all conquering East Perth in 1958, and had the good fortune of participating in premiership wins in both of his first two seasons. Thereafter, however, things began to go wrong for the Royals, who despite being perennial finals contenders would not manage to procure another flag until 1972, by which time Atwell had been retired as a player for three years and was coaching South Fremantle.

Prior to that, between 1966 and 1971, Atwell undertook the task for which he is best remembered, steering persistent under-achievers Perth to a position of greatness in Western Australian football. In so doing, he implemented many of the lessons he had learned in the interstate arena, particularly against the VFL, and most especially in that memorable Australian championship year of 1961. 

Perth under Atwell combined what might be termed a traditional West Australian approach to the game, rooted in skill, pace and fluent movement of the ball, with a heightened awareness of, and concentration on, elements like shepherding, backing up, spoiling, talking, pressurising the ball carrier, and tackling — cornerstones, it might be said, of the typically Victorian approach to football. All in all, it was a heady and compulsive mixture, and it earned the Demons three successive flags, all courtesy of wins over Atwell’s old club, East Perth.

Between 1966 and 1969, Atwell continued as a player, adding 76 games to the 162 he had played with the Royals. He continued as non-playing coach in 1970-71, but other clubs, notably ‘Polly’ Farmer’s West Perth, and ‘Hassa’ Mann’s South Fremantle, had by then wised up to Atwell’s approach and devised effective counter measures, and he was unable to add to the club’s haul of premierships.

In 1972 and 1973 he oversaw a rebuilding programme at South Fremantle which eventually saw the club re-emerge as a force from 1975 onwards. It is for his impact at East Perth and Perth, however, that Malcolm Atwell is best remembered today, a fact endorsed by his selection in official ‘best of’ combinations for both clubs, the Royals’ 1945 to 2005 side in the back pocket, and the Demons’ ‘Team of the Century’ as coach.

Author - John Devaney