Graham ‘Polly’ Farmer’s 1956 Tassie Medal

Between 1937 and 1988 the Tassie Medal was awarded to the player adjudged most outstanding at interstate Australian Rules football championships. The medal was introduced to acknowledge the services to the game by Eric Tassie, an administrator from South Australia who gave many years of service to the Australian National Football Council. The medal is formed from two discs of 9-carat gold and features a map of Australia in coloured enamel, with this 1956 medal inscribed - ‘Won by G Farmer, WA’.

In 2020, the Western Australian Museum purchased two medals won by Graham ‘Polly’ Farmer during his outstanding career as an Australian Rules footballer: the 1957 Sandover Medal and the 1956 Tassie Medal. Both are significant reminders of Farmer’s success as a footballer, but it is the 1956 Tassie Medal that initially confirmed to a national audience the recipient’s talent and ability.

Sport is an area of social life that has given Aboriginal sportspeople the means to express themselves at the highest level of their competition and counter ingrained prejudice and inequality. From a childhood of limited opportunity at Sister Kate’s Farmer’s talents as an outstanding Australian Rules footballer would make him a household name.

By the time he retired from competitive football, Polly Farmer had established a reputation as being amongst the best, and possibly THE best, Australian Rules footballers to have played the game. His style of play as a ruckman and innovative use of handball changed the way that Australian Rules football was played, a legacy that was recognised in his confirmation as a Legend of the game.

In 1955, Farmer was an emerging talent for the East Perth Football Club and identified as a prospect for the State team. He was selected to represent Western Australia in their tour matches against Victoria in Melbourne and South Australia in Adelaide. While he failed to have an impact in these matches, he finished the local domestic season strongly and picked up his first major media award, the Daily News Player of the Year. It was only the beginning of a remarkable career.

The 1956 football season included the Australian National Football Championship, or The Carnival, played over two weeks in June 1956 at Subiaco Oval in Western Australia. Before the advent of the Australian Football League (AFL) three decades later, the Carnival brought together the best players from across Australia in contests that placed State pride on the line. Farmer’s performances in the 1956 Carnival were outstanding, and though Western Australia were defeated by Victoria in the final game, commentators and competitors alike praised his efforts. Following the final game, Farmer was selected in the All-Australian team and, with a six-vote margin, awarded the Tassie medal as best player of the Carnival.

As the award for the best player in a national competition the Tassie Medal was the first significant recognition of Farmer’s burgeoning talents and established his reputation as the best ruckman in the game.

At the end of the 1956 season this reputation would be further enhanced when Farmer won the Sandover Medal for the best player in the West Australian National Football League competition. Another two Sandover Medals would follow in 1957 and 1960 before a successful move to the Geelong Football Club in the Victorian Football League cemented Farmer’s credentials as one of the finest proponents of the game.

Farmer retired in 1971 having played 356 games for East Perth, Geelong and West Perth. His impact on the game at the highest levels, pre-empted in his Tassie Medal win, was subsequently acknowledged with selections in the Geelong Team of the Century, AFL Team of the Century and as an AFL Hall of Fame Legend. An MBE in 1971 recognised his services to football, with his enduring contribution to a Western Australian identity confirmed in the naming of the Northbridge traffic tunnel in Perth’s CBD in 1996.

References:
Barker, A.J. 2004 Behind the Play: A History of Football in Western Australia from 1868. West Australian Football Commission: Subiaco.
Gorman, S. 2011 Legends: The AFL Indigenous Team of the Century. Aboriginal Studies Press: Canberra.
Hawke, S. 1994 Polly Farmer: A Biography. Fremantle Arts Centre Press: South Fremantle.
Newspapers: The West Australian, 10 August 1937.