State representative Noel Adair remembers all too vividly the day a seemingly innocuous knock on the football field threatened his life. Noel is widely considered one of the finest players of his era – a towering defender turned midfielder with a shock of red hair who caught the eye with North Perth, East Claremont and East Fremantle Tricolore during the 1950s.
In a senior career spanning eight seasons, Noel won two Division One championships, the Association Cup, the D’Orsogna Cup and the Top Four Cup. One of five Adair brothers to play football, he won the Ledger Medal as the league’s most outstanding player of the 1958 season and gained representative honours for both Western Australia and Australia.
Noel was with East Claremont in 1957 when his early season form resulted in a State team call-up against touring Hungarian side Ferencvaros. The two-game friendly series was four weeks away when he guided his team to victory over Fremantle City by scoring three of their five goals. But late that afternoon football came to a sudden halt for the talented centre-half.
“I had the ball close to the line and went around a Fremantle player but as I did it he stepped across me, our shoulders hit and I spun around,” recalls Noel, who today celebrates his 92nd birthday. “My brother Bill went for the ball but accidentally kicked me in the back. It all happened in slow motion. There was only about 10 minutes to go and we were 5-0 up so I went off the dressing room. I went to the urinal, I could barely stand and out shot a stream of blood.”
Noel was taken to hospital where it was found he’d ruptured a kidney. “I spent five weeks there and underwent two blood transfusions,” he added. “The doctors suggested I stop playing.” Not surprisingly, Noel missed the remainder of the season, however, he did make a full recovery. Little over twelve months later he was awarded the Ledger Medal as the league’s most outstanding player and, another two years on, wore the green and gold of Australia.
Noel was born on January 9, 1933, in the Northern Ireland city of Londonderry, where the family would eventually grow to seven boys and three girls. With a father who had played for local side Clooney Rovers, it was inevitable that brothers Bob, Bill, Ronald, Noel and Jack – who were separated by only nine years – would follow in their fathers footsteps.
“We had a little team of our own called Iona Swifts,” Noel recalled. “My dad was the team manager and Ron, Bob and Bill played. I also played on and off but my job as a cinema projectionist meant I couldn’t play Saturday’s. There was a night competition though during the week and if someone couldn’t play then I would get a game… taught me to play just about every position, even goalkeeper.”
“I’d actually started playing at school. They had two teams but it was only the older boys that were selected. One day we were in the rooms with the school masters as they worked out who would play where and one of them said ‘I need someone to play left wing’ and there was silence. I said ‘Oh I can play there sir’. Everyone looked at me. No one else wanted left wing so I got in the team.”
Noel has fond memories of one particular game with the school team when he was 13. “On the Saturday Newcastle United had beaten Newport County 13-0 and we had a match on the Monday,” he said. “Before you know it some bloke had about five goals in the bag and the score kept going up and up… we ended up with 13 goals and I got nine of them!”
In mid-1954 Noel joined eldest brother Bob in emigrating to Perth where they were reunited with Ron and Bill, the pair having made the move in the preceding years. “Ron came out first in 1949 and Bill followed him in 1953,” Noel recalled. “They had both played the previous season with North Perth, who sponsored Rob and me to come to Australia.”
“We arrived in Fremantle and a bloke from the club took us to the railway station in Perth. We went up the stairs at the Horseshoe Bridge and halfway up there’s a window ledge. He stopped there and produced forms for us to sign for Maccabeans – I didn’t know it at the time but Ron had just joined them. North Perth had paid for us and they were expecting us so I didn’t sign. Bob did though and he played with Ron at Maccabean.”
The local media were quick to shine the spotlight on Noel. “Adair impressed onlookers with his fluent style of kicking,” reported ‘the West Australian’ newspaper following his first training session at Woodville Reserve. “Over 6ft in height, Adair showed good timing in jumping to head the ball.” Six days after stepping onto Fremantle Harbour, the “21-year old red-haired Irish newcomer” was named one of his team’s best in a 3-1 win over South Perth.
Noel, whose versatility allowed him to play at left or right back, quickly formed a strong partnership with fellow defender Ken Monteath and goalkeeper Ken Day. Equally important was his understanding with the all-State midfield of Gil Nobbs, Don West and Con Purser. But while Noel settled into his new surrounds quickly, it took him a little longer to get used to the antics of some opposition players.
“We played Azzurri in front of a big crowd,” Noel said. “They had a shot which went way behind the goal, Vince Parlatoni ran past me and all the way to the fence. I thought ‘Nice gentleman, going to get the ball for us’ only he didn’t. He ran up to a spectator, took a cigarette out of his mouth, had a few puffs and gave it back to him. Then he left ball where it was so I had to go and get it.”
“There was another game at Bayswater Oval where me and another player banged shins. I didn’t like wearing shinpads, I never wore them. We were both lying on the ground when he sits up, sees blood on his leg and starts rolling around. I took down to where he caught me and it was my blood on his leg. So I got up and said ‘Get up you bastard, it’s my blood not yours’ and with that he jumped up and was ready to play again.”
North Perth, who placed fourth in Division One, ended the 1954 season by lifting the new Association Cup. Noel played a key role in the 2-0 final victory by subduing Perth City’s livewire attacker Danny Burton. No doubt watching proudly from the sidelines were Noel’s parents, William and Margaret, who had arrived in Perth in July with their three youngest children, Dorothy, Jack and Norman.
Further successes arrived in 1955. Noel gained his State team debut in August, playing alongside siblings Bill and Ron in a 6-1 loss to Rapid Vienna. The occasion also marked the first time substitutes were used in Western Australia, Noel etching himself into the history books as the first player replaced, by Bob Lynn, in an official fixture due to a first half knee injury.
Two months later Noel was one of seven North Perth players called up for Western Australia’s clash with South Africa. “The WA defence was magnificent,” reported the local media on the game won 2-1 by the visitors. “Noel Adair, the centre half, blocked the middle effectively with his hard tackling and well-timed heading.” At club level, Noel picked up a Division One champions medal after North Perth edged out defending title holders Perth City by a single point.
A second Division One champions medal came Noel’s way twelve months later when North Perth topped the ladder, two points ahead of Azzurri. “We went through the season without hardly any goals being scored against us,” recalled Noel of a winter where North Perth won fourteen and drew two of eighteen home and away games, amassing 60 goals in the process while allowing only a dozen to enter their net.
The title race went down to the wire with the top two sides, North Perth and Azzurri, level on points and pitted against eachother in the final round of fixtures. A league record crowd of 4,700 turned out to watch Noel star in his teams’ title-clinching 1-0 victory. “Noel Adair dominated the approaches down the middle and Azzurri’s attacks faltered in the face of his solid tackling,” read the following years’ Association annual.
A few months earlier, Noel had been short-listed for Australia’s Olympic Games squad along with Con Purser and Bob Lynn. The trio had caught the eye of national selectors during a trial match at Bayswater Oval, where an Australia XI defeated the State team 4-1. The local trio featured in further trial game in Sydney and Brisbane, however, Purser was the only one to gain a spot in the final Olympic squad.
At the start of 1957, Noel, Bill Adair and Don McArdle were amongst a group of ten players that signed on with ambitious second tier side East Claremont. The club came good on their goal of winning promotion to the top flight, however, Noel would play little part in that success as a consequence of rupturing his kidney.
“While I was out I did a bit of coaching with the Maccabean kids,” he said. “They were the greatest bunch of kids I’ve ever crossed in my life. You asked them to do something and they’d do it. I take my hat off to them. A few of them played for Mt Lawley High School and they ended up winning the High Schools Senior League. I coached them until I went back to playing with East Claremont the next year.”
“Even though I’d not played a lot, I got picked in the State squad at right-back. I’ve always felt you should pick the best player in each position and this day I bumped into (State selector) Frank Miller. I said to Frank ‘I don’t really want to play at right-back, you should look at Livio Granelli (East Fremantle Tricolore) as he plays in that position’. Frank didn’t look too happy and next thing I know I’m out of the side.”
Noel moved on quickly with a string of eye-catching displays in the middle of the park for East Claremont, whose first season back in Division One was something of a struggle. Entering the closing stages of the league, Noel and his teammates found themselves in a relegation scrap with Cracovia and South Fremantle.
“Towards the end of that season there was a game at Dorrien Gardens and we were 2-0 down in the second half,” Noel recalls. “Suddenly, we got a bit of ascendency and scored a goal. Not long after that the referee blew for full-time. A few of the spectators were checking their watches and there was still 15 minutes to go. They spoke with the referee and it turned out he had to go to a wedding! The game was over and we ended up being relegated by one point.”
That disappointment was tempered a few weeks later when Noel, then 25, won the 1958 Ledger Medal. “I was pretty pleased with that,” he reflected. “To get in the top three, you’d have to like it.” Noel polled seven best on grounds to runaway with the award, finishing five votes clear of runner-up Don West of North Perth. It was a remarkable achievement given that just over a year earlier it looked as though his playing days were over.
The way Noel was presented his award was unconventional, to say the least. “The Association secretary was Des Abraham and I was his postie,” Noel explained. “One day we were sorting the mail this little package came through from Mazzucchelli’s, who used to present the medal, addressed to Des. In the afternoon I did my deliveries and Des’ his wife was out the front waiting for me. I handed her their mail and she says ‘Des says you might as well have it because it’s yours’.”
As the new season drew near Noel, Ledger Medal winner and State representative, found himself without a team. “West Claremont had been relegated and the bloke who was putting the money up couldn’t afford to keep going so the club was disbanded,” said Noel, who was soon after contacted by Osvaldo Tagliaferri of newly crowned Division One champions East Fremantle Tricolore. “Tagliaferri called me up and asked me to go down and join them.”
“Tricolore asked me how much money I wanted, but I wasn’t in it for that so I said ‘I’d just like to play football’. So they gave me £6 a match. I’d have been happy to play for nothing, I didn’t really want anything. Tricolore were great. Lou Ricci was the most devoted, caring official of a football club that I have ever met. He loved that team and he would do anything for them.”
Noel picked up the new season where he’d left off the previous. In June he was honoured with selection in an Australia XI side that played Heart of Midlothian at the WACA Ground in front of 10,500 spectators. Two days later he again lined up against the Scottish club, this time for Western Australia. Noel’s performances didn’t go unnoticed and, along with goalkeeper Frank Franken, he was nominated for Australia’s 1960 Olympic Games squad.
Back on club duty, Noel experienced first hand the red-hot passion of the Azzurri-Tricolore derby. “There was a fight over a penalty. Johnny McInroy got through and the goalkeeper, Attillo Pasqualotto fouled him, it was obvious. The referee blew, pointed to the spot and that was the start of it,” said Noel, who converted from the spot once the dust had settled. But the drama didn’t end there with the police called upon to quell further disturbances as Tricolore ran out victors by 6-0.
The 1960 season was one of immense turmoil for the game with eight clubs splitting mid-year from the existing association to establish the Western Australian Soccer Federation and play in its professional league. It was a pivotal moment for the game but, 65 years on, Noel still questions whether it was necessary. “I really didn’t see the point of it,” he admits. “It didn’t change a lot for us players and some of the clubs, like North Perth, were decimated.”
Tricolore, one of the breakaway eight, finished the inaugural WASF season in fourth place and twelve months later claimed the runners-up spot behind Windmills. It was to be Noel’s farewell season and he went out on a high, helping Tricolore to victory in the post-season play-offs, defeating Windmills 2-1 in the Grand Final, as well as the new knock-out competition, the D’Orsogna Cup, where they scored a 3-1 win over Windmills in the trophy decider.
A few years later Noel put his playing boots back on. “I did come out of retirement, unfortunately, with Olympic” he said. “All I wanted to do was play football for the reserves, I hadn’t played for something like four years and I was far from fit. The club was fine with me playing in the reserves but eventually it came out the coach wanted me in the senior team. We didn’t see eye-to-eye and that was it for me, I stopped playing.”
