Phillip Walsh, Adelaide Football Club Coach, RIP
A surfer, catching the late afternoon rays at Bells Beach, Australia.
Phillip Walsh died tragically on Friday 3 July, 2015. Just 55 years of age, he was found dead, with multiple stab wounds to his body, at his family’s Somerton Park home in Adelaide, Australia, after being stabbed multiply times by his 26 year old son. Phillip’s wife, Meredith, was also injured in the attack.
Phillip Walsh died while coach of the Adelaide Crows in the Australian Football League (AFL). But I knew him long ago. In fact my memory of Phillip goes back to the 1960’s and 70’s, when we attended St Mary’s Primary School and Monivae College in our hometown, Hamilton, in Western Victoria.
Phillip Walsh and I
Though I knew him, we weren’t close friends. Walshy was two years older than me. However, we went to the same primary and secondary schools and we played for the same junior football team, St. Mary’s.
“Walshy” was captain of the St. Mary’s Under 16 team while I struggled to get a game and, on most days, even a kick in the club’s under 14 team. My brother, Brian Guy, a very good football player, was a teammate of Phillip’s and new him much better than me.
A few years on Brian moved to Melbourne for a short time and, together with some mates from Hamilton, rented a house that was owned by Walshy. At that time Walshy lived just a couple of doors up the street from his rental property.
While I loved watching the game, I only played footy so that I could hang around with my mates at training. It appears that Walshy approached the game with a completely different attitude which, together with his pace and prodigious natural talent, saw him rise to prominence at the highest level of the game.
Phillip Walsh, A Life in Football
Recruited by Collingwood, arguably the game’s most famous club, in 1983 into what was then the Victorian Football League (VFL), Walshy acquitted himself admirably winning the club’s Best First Year Player award.
Strong overhead, possessing electric pace an able to kick with either foot, Phil was an excitement machine. As a Collingwood supporter I couldn’t have been happier.
However, turmoil ensued the following year when Phil joined rival club Richmond. Back then it wasn’t all that common for players to swap clubs, but that was a time when both Richmond and Collingwood actively recruited each others players.
Despite the shock of leaving the team I’ve supported all my life, I remained a fan of Phil’s and was always pleased to hear news of how well he was doing in the sport.
After three years at Richmond, Walshy headed north to play with the Brisbane Bears. It was 1987 and the Bear’s inaugural season in what had, by then become, the AFL. Four years later Walshy’s playing days were over, but not his time in football.
Phil continued in the game in a range of roles and at a variety of clubs. He worked as a Strength and Conditioning Coach at the Geelong Football Club prior to taking on the role of Assistant Coach at Port Adelaide in 1999.
Walshy’s next adventure came, again as an assistant coach, in 2009 at the West Coast Eagles in Perth, followed by a move back to the Port Power (formerly Port Adelaide) football club in Adelaide in early 2014.
Phil’s final move was from Port Power to arch rival, the Adelaide Crows, to take on the position of Senior Coach towards the end of that year.
Said to be demanding and one of the game’s most respected tacticians, reports are that, within a very short time, Walshy had built a strong relationship with his players. After years working behind the scenes he’d reemerged as somewhat of a fresh face in a game full of media savvy coaches and club presidents.
In 2012, while on holiday in Peru with his wife and son, Phil fractured his collarbone and pelvis as a result of being hit by a school bus. It’s said that, while recovering from this serious accident, he had decided to make a series of changes in his life, including giving up alcohol.
Memories of Phillip Walsh
I moved to Melbourne, originally to study photography, in 1986. Opportunities for work followed and, frankly, I got stuck there while working to support my travel photography adventures.
But I always loved going home to visit family and friends. On one such visit my dear old mum, who had an outstanding memory, and I started to talk about Phillip Walsh and other members of his family. Phil was the youngest of seven children.
I remember Phil’s dad, Bill, when he was the Manager of the Menswear Department at Thompson’s, one of two huge department stores in Hamilton back in my youth.
Thompson’s would have a once a year stocktaking sale. It was an exciting time when the three boys in our family would get outfitted by Bill and his team for the next year.
I think both our families may have, for a time, lived in White Avenue, Hamilton. Mares told me of the day when she was chatting with Peg, Phil’s mother, while wheeling me around in the pram.
I was no more than two years of age and Phil was a very active four year old. Apparently, in a moment of fatigue, his mother quipped, "I’m too old for little children, Mary".
I moved back to my hometown, Hamilton, a few years ago. My original motivation was to move back into the family home and help my brother Brian, who’d helped out and kept an eye out for our mum for many years, look after Mares and, as a consequence, delay her going into care.
Significant delays in the job offered to me actually being finalised meant that wasn’t possible. I made the trip from Melbourne as frequently as I could and tried to arrange things at home to accomodate my mum’s reduced mobility.
And then the day came when my dear old mum called and asked me to come home and relocate her into a care facility.
While my oldest sister, Maree, managed the paperwork to secure a bed for old Mares at Eventide Luthern Homes, it was my old friend Tony ‘Bert’ Lambert who helped me lift and transport the furniture, clothes, photo albums and large framed prints Mares had decided to take with her for this final leg of her own journey.
With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic I was stuck in Melbourne and only able to return home and visit my mum on a handful of occasions before she died.
Phillip Walsh, Even Then A Leader
I remember the day my brother, Brian, had his head kicked in by a local lad. Coming home on the bus from school a few days later I spotted the offender and proceeded to tell him what I thought of him. He began to get up and things were not looking good for me.
Fortunately for me, Walshy was there to save the day. Of course it probably helped that Bill Feely, who I idolised as a kid, Barry Waite and Mark Ross were also on the bus that day.
Actually, I remember Billy running down to the local sports centre, after the initial incident, looking for the perpetrator.
But it was Walshy’s interaction with the perpetrator that impressed me the most. No violence, just a few cutting remarks that took that fellow down a few pegs and made him think on his actions.
I was probably only 13 or 14 at the time and I remember thinking that was how a Captain should behave. You stick up for your team mates, without shying away from the battle. That was the only memory I have of either Walshy or that other guy on the school bus, and I’m not sure what that means.
Despite the obvious rewards a life in sport, at the elite level, often comes at a cost. Phil had spoken in the media about the disconnect that had existed with his children, which he’d put down to his commitment to his job, particularly during his time at Port Power.
Phil also said that he loved to surf and, through surfing, had found a way to reconnect with his two children.
I’m a pretty resilient character, but I remember the sense of shock I experienced hearing the news of Walshy’s death, coming life a thief in the night, and I needed to spend time, over several days, to make sense of it.
Still living in Melbourne at the time, I thought long and hard about family and my old friends from Hamilton.
I’m reminded now of the need, despite our daily struggles, for reflection and forgiveness in our lives. Most important of all is family and friendship.
I dedicate this photo, made at the iconic Bells Beach, to Walshy.
Phillip Walsh, Rest In Peace.
