Steve Marsh dies aged 99

Marsh, who passed away overnight at the age of 99, had left South Fremantle after six premierships, four best and fairests, 226 games and Sandover and Simpson Medals at the end of 1956 for the then unheard of clearance fee of 300 pounds.

He would captain coach Old Easts as they were known then to the 1957 flag.

“He wasn’t travelling all that well healthwise and we all know that he finished his career at East Fremantle and he wanted to die a Bulldog,” South Fremantle president Peter Christie said on SEN. “We paid East Fremantle a dollar to get him back and he has died a Bulldog.”

The battle for the title of South Fremantle’s greatest ever player is a three way argument between Marsh, John Todd and Stephen Michael.

Michael, the most recent of the trio and a person whose feats can be viewed on video, has a legion of fans.

And Todd, who won a Sandover Medal as a teenager and was an All-Australian player in 1961 wearing a tin can on one knee after wrecking it in just his second season, might have easily been the best of all but for the injury that sat with him through most of his career

But Christie puts Marsh firmly in that conversation: “Arguably, he is our greatest ever player.”

Marsh played in an era where South Fremantle stamped itself as a club that dominated the WAFL and could more than hold its own with any club in Australia, including those in the VFL.

South won the Premierships 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952, 1953, and 1954 flags. Marsh won the club best and fairest in 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1956.

He won the 1952 Sandover Medal, the 1953 Simpson Medal and there is a feeling that he would have had more individual honours but for his liking for giving the umpires a fair bit of lip.

A tough as teak rover, he was known for his speed, his stab pass and his mouth.

“He was a pretty good yapper at both umpires and opposition,” Christie said.

“He was cheeky. He had plenty to say. The game has changed these days. Everyone is a midfielder almost. But these were the old genuine rover days when the first rover spent 90 per cent of the time on the ball and they were generally clever, quick, cheeky little players in the way that they played.”

“I think Steve was pretty cheeky in the way he commentated the game at the same time. They were certainly his attributes.”.

The stoush between East Fremantle and South Fremantle for Marsh had started from the moment he arrived in Perth from the Goldfields intending to train with Easts. But the two Fremantle clubs shared a training ground and Marsh ended up training with, and playing with South.

“The rest is history,” Christie said.

Old Easts did get him for 29 games and a flag at the end of his career but his roots lie with the Bulldogs.

Sadly, Christie said, the club is losing its remaining links to the club’s golden era.

“At 99 you are not going to be around forever but it felt like we wanted him to be,” he said.

“It was our golden era. It was the time our club was put on the Australian footy map. It is generally accepted we were the best team in Australia and one of the best teams of footy ever.”

“It is a period we have great respect for and a period we look fondly on and with great joy. There are not many of those boys left unfortunately and this is another one gone. And that is sad.”

“It was an era that really made our club and it is sad that we are slowly losing touch with those individuals.”

Marsh and fellow WA footy legend Jack Sheedy were made joint number one ticket holders at Fremantle for several of the club’s early years in recognition of what they brought to footy in the Port.

“They were probably fierce rivals on the field I would suggest but they were probably pretty good mates off it,” Christie said.

Marsh had also, post his playing career, become a pioneer in television coverage of WA football on Channel Seven in the 1960s and early 1970s.

“Those early Channel Seven footy days when I was a kid that I remember, they were pretty funny and had a really different approach to footy in those days in the late sixties and seventies with their media careers. They didn’t always get the pronunciations right but we were never confused as to their views and where they stood,” he said.

Their footy opinions off the field reflected their high football IQs on it.

“They were clever, they were cunning. They had attributes you don’t see a lot of in modern footy. The game is now so structured and set up and planned in so many respects. Sheedy and Marsh were really cunning individuals on the field,” Christie said.

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