Australian Football

Pacy, courageous and highly skilled, Stan 'Pops' Heal was one of Australia's finest wingmen of the 1940s. His WANFL career with West Perth comprised 180 games between 1939 and 1953, with a break for the war.

In 1941 he accomplished the rare feat of playing in two premiership sides in different states in the same season. Whilst temporarily stationed in Victoria, Heal lined up with Melbourne, and was on a wing as the Redlegs defeated Essendon in that year's VFL Grand Final. A week later he was back home in Perth completing the second half of an exceptional double as West Perth accounted for East Fremantle in the WANFL Grand Final. This time Heal played as a rover, but it was as a wingman that he achieved his greatest notoriety.

The West Perth teams of the half decade or so following World War II were among the finest in the club's history, and Heal was very much a lynch-pin, both as player and coach. He played in two premiership sides for the Cardinals, and won their fairest and best award in 1947. He coached the victorious Grand Final teams of 1949 against Perth and 1951 versus South Fremantle. Heal was also a regular interstate representative (18 appearances) winning a Simpson Medal against South Australia in 1949 and leading the Sandgropers at the Brisbane carnival the following year. In October 2000 he was named (more or less inevitably one ventures to presume) on a wing in West Perth official 'Team of the Century'.

Author - John Devaney