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In 1970, Barry Cable, having already achieved virtually everything in football that was open to him - Tassie Medal, dual All Australian status, two Sandovers, five successive club champion awards, and participation in three premiership teams - moved from Perth to North Melbourne. Former Collingwood identity Lou Richards, then a media commentator, and renowned for his 'Kiss of death' predictions, famously contended that Cable, who 'lacked pace' would end up languishing in the back pocket for North's reserves.

Cable duly added a North Melbourne best and fairest award to his list of achievements, besides running fourth in the Brownlow, while Lou Richards went on doing what he did best, and most entertainingly - shooting himself repeatedly in the foot.

The contention that Cable lacked pace was not without some justification. Certainly he was slower than some of the other great rovers of the time, like Bill Walker, Bob Skilton and Keith Doncon. However, what he may perhaps have lacked in pace he more than made up for in other areas. Few players in the history of the game have matched Cable's uncanny ability for being where the ball was. Moreover, his disposal skills by hand and foot were little short of impeccable. Small wonder he attracted the attention of umpires - for the right reason - when Sandover or Brownlow votes were being allocated.

On returning home to Perth in 1971 Cable carried on more or less where he had left off, winning yet another club fairest and best award. Two years later he did it again, and added a third Sandover for good measure.

As far as Barry Cable was concerned, there was only one major ambition remaining, and he needed to return to Victoria, and North Melbourne, in order to achieve it. That ambition, needless to say, was involvement in a VFL premiership, and in his second stint at Arden Street he managed this not just once, but twice, in 1975 and 1977.

Returning home once more in 1978 Cable surprised many observers by accepting an offer to coach East Perth. Yet again, however, it proved to be an informed decision as, after a tentative start to his coaching career, he took the Royals to the 1978 Grand Final, where they duly won a titanic tussle against, of all teams, Cable's old club, Perth. Seriously inconvenienced as he was by a strained leg muscle and a broken bone in the hand, Cable's experience and calmness were nevertheless vital during a tempestuous final term in which East Perth had to hang on for dear life, eventually scraping home by just 2 points.

Cable played on for one further season, eventually retiring after 383 senior club games (225 for Perth, 115 for North Melbourne, and 43 with East Perth). For the majority of his career he had been a genuine superstar, and if the game over its history has seen any finer rovers it would be hard to imagine them being countable on the fingers of more than one hand.

As a non-playing coach Cable experienced significantly less success than as a player, although he did at least manage to get North Melbourne into the finals in two of his three full seasons in charge during the early 1980s.

Barry Cable was catapulted back into the headlines as a sixty-three year old in July 2007 when the Western Australian Football Commission decided to retrospectively award him a Simpson Medal for his performance in Western Australia's defeat of Victoria in the inaugural state of origin match at Subiaco Oval in 1977. The decision served to reinforce Cable's status as one of the all time great players in football history as it meant that he had now won the award a record five times.

A June 2023 decision in the District Court of Perth found that Cable repeatedly sexually abused a Perth girl at the height of his playing career. Later that month, the AFL stripped Cable of his Legend status and his place overall in the Australian Football Hall of Fame. North Melbourne also followed suit, removing him from the club Hall of Fame. The unanimous decisions followed a move by the AFL Commission earlier in 2023 to alter the Hall of Fame charter to allow for the removal of any inductee for conduct which brings any of the league, sport, clubs or fellow inductees into disrepute.

Author - John Devaney