Teams 8 | Matches played 88 | |
Premiers West Perth
(13th premiership) Minor premiers East Perth
(12th minor premiership) Attendance 878,901 (9,988 per match) Bernie Naylor Medallist Austin Robertson, Jr. (Subiaco) | ||
The 1969 WANFL season was the 85th season of the Western Australian National Football League. It saw continued dominance by the three Perth clubs and Subiaco, who occupied the top half of the ladder constantly from the fourth round onwards, and finished four games clear of the other four clubs, who were all in a “rebuilding” mode with varying success – late in the season both Swan Districts and Claremont fielded some of the youngest teams in the competition’s history, whilst the Tigers, who fielded thirteen first-year players including Graham Moss, Russell Reynolds and Bruce Duperouzel, began disastrously but four wins in five games paved the way to impressive record from 1970 to 1972. Among the top four, Perth failed to achieve a fourth consecutive premiership that at one point looked very much in their grasp due to the overwork of Barry Cable which robbed him of some brilliance, early-season injuries to key players Iseger and Page and a couple of surprising losses to lower clubs, whilst East Perth, who won consistently without being impressive for most of the season, failed for the fourth time in as many seasons in the Grand Final, this time to West Perth and in a much more decisive manner than any of their Perth defeats.
The league’s popularity, aided by the driest football season in Perth since 1940, and a new $500,000 grandstand at Subiaco Oval, reached a high not to be surpassed. East Perth attracted an average of over twelve thousand spectators to each home match, including an all-time record WANFL home-and-away attendance against West Perth on the Saturday before Foundation Day.