Former Eagles coach, Australian Football Hall of Famer John Todd dies, aged 86

Todd, who passed away on Tuesday morning at the age of 86, won his Sandover Medal in 1955 at the age of 17 – in a full strength state league competition, polling votes in 10 of 20 games to beat AFL Hall of Fame Legend Graham Farmer by four votes.

He was younger than the kids who will be drafted into the AFL system at the end of this year. At 16 on debut, he was a full two years younger than West Coast prodigy Harley Reid was when he made his AFL debut this season against Port Adelaide.

From Deanmill – near Manjimup in WA’s lower south west region, Todd had honed a raking and deadly left foot by taking aim at a picket on a fence at the local oval.

He had been rushed into South Fremantle’s reserves grand final team in 1954 as a 16-year-old and had lived up to the considerable hype around him as a schoolboy star by kicking seven goals.

The second extraordinary feat is that he made his All-Australian team in 1961 as a wingman – on one good leg. Todd had wrecked his knee five games into his second WAFL season when a pack of players collapsed on his leg. It ruptured his ACL at a time when there was no medical procedure to correct the problem.

For much of his career he wore what looked like two food cans joined together by a hinge joint that had to be oiled regularly.

But he was still one of the stars of one of the most famous West Australian teams in history – the 1961 carnival team that also boasted Farmer and Haydn Bunton junior which toppled Victoria in Brisbane.

Todd, inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2003 and accorded Legend status in the WA football Hall of Fame the following season, had a playing career badly affected by his bad knee which greatly restricted the matches he played in over a 12 year career which finally ended in 1966 when he was still just 28 years of age after 132 games.

In the two years he managed to get enough games in he won South Fremantle’s best and fairest in 1958 and 1961.

In 1958 he won local newspaper The Daily News’ footballer of the year award.

It would be as a coach that Todd would leave a massive footprint on WA football. Remarkably South Fremantle appointed him as captain coach in 1959 when he was just 21 years old and he would do a second stint in the 1960s as a non playing coach before his thirtieth birthday.

At 36, he took East Fremantle to a premiership in 1974. He coached Swan Districts to the 1982, 1983 and 1984 flags after losing a grand final to South Fremantle in 1980 with teams known for a high skill level and an uncompromising style.

He would win again with Swan Districts after returning to coach them again in 1990 and in his coaching Coup de Grace would claim a sixth WAFL premiership overall and his first with club of origin South Fremantle in an epic derby grand final over East Fremantle in 1997.

In 1988 he took over from Ron Alexander as coach of West Coast and was the first man to take the Eagles into a finals series in his first season in charge – just the club’s second in the expanded VFL.

He also coached successfully at interstate level, named as All-Australian coach in 1984 after WA had beaten South Australia and Victoria in interstate thrillers that season.

Long time Eagles CEO Trevor Nisbett, who arrived at the club in 1989 just before Todd made way for Mick Malthouse, said the coaching legend had done much of the hard work in setting up the Eagles list.

“I think John did some of the best things for West Coast of all time. He was super tough on all of the players – some players handled it, some didn’t, some left. He didn’t tolerate players playing up and carrying on and not performing,” he said. “We only had 35 on our list in 1989 and I reckon that when I got there about six or seven of them had decided that was it.”

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Swan Districts vice president Andy Holmes labelled Todd’s passing sad news for the club and WA football.

“Those players who played under Toddy knew how uncompromising he was as a coach, but he made us all better players and more importantly better men,” he said.

A South Fremantle club statement said: “Today is a sad day for the Bulldog family, and WA Football at large. Today we celebrate the life of a legend.”.