Tom Everett, a giant from footy to the racetracks

Tom Everett was many things — premiership footballer, larrikin, auctioneer, football reporter, meat exporter, owner of an Inter Dominion champion and life and soul of the Friday night trots.

WA football legend Jack Sheedy reckons Everett was all those things and more.

“He was most of all a great bloke,” Sheedy said. “We got on well when I was at East Fremantle and Tommy was at East Perth but after I went over to East Perth we really hit it off.

“We ended up playing State football together, owning a string of horses together and becoming great mates.”

Everett, who played in the centre in East Perth’s premierships in 1956 and 1958, captaining the second one when Sheedy was famously suspended, died this week after a long illness. He was 82.

Good enough to appear in 10 State matches and come second behind teammate Graham Farmer in the 1956 Sandover Medal count during a 172-game WAFL career, Everett was no shrinking violet in an era when physical intimidation was as much a part of the game as skill.

Yet he was proud that he was never reported despite an approach that combined menace with an uncanny capacity to read the play.

“I was threatened plenty of times by the umps but I never saw the inside of the tribunal room,” he said.

East Fremantle got some revenge for Sheedy’s defection to the Royals when they enticed Everett to move the other way as captain-coach in 1959.

But Everett found coaching was not his cup of tea and was candid in his explanation.

“Like many others in those days, the opportunity of a few dollars to be made was hard to resist at a time when there wasn’t much in the way of money around,” he said.

“I thought I’d like coaching, but I found myself telling the players to do things that I didn’t particularly want to do, either. It wasn’t really my caper.”

Horses were his caper, though.

He had most success with Binshaw, the pacer that became the first WA-bred horse to win an Inter Dominion when it came in from 100/1 to win by six lengths at Gloucester Park in 1967.

Everett had plenty on the race and converted his substantial winnings into several business ventures, including Perth Meat Export which employed more than 70 butchers at its peak.

Everett took Binshaw to Auckland the next year but his off-field form was so lively on the plane before his flight home that he was ejected.

Sheedy said their best horse was galloper Star System, which won 11 of its 38 starts.