Maxwell Joseph Tetley (22 April 1909 – 9 February 1997) was an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er who played for the

West Perth Football Club The West Perth Football Club, nicknamed the Falcons, is an Australian rules football club located in Joondalup, Western Australia. West Perth competes in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW) and is the oldest exis ...

in the

Western Australian National Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...

(WANFL). A defender, he played 210 games for the club between the 1931 and 1941 seasons, playing in the team’s 1932, 1934, 1935 and 1941 premiership sides. Tetley played a trial match for

East Fremantle East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

in 1930 after being recruited from amateur club North Fremantle, but when Cardinals president Alec Breckler offered Tetley employment and he was cleared immediately. Tetley wasted no time establishing himself, for he was named West Perth’s best first-year player in 1931 and a key member of their drought-breaking premiership team the following season, when he also won his only Breckler Medal for the club’s fairest-and-best. In the following season, Tetley played for Western Australia in the

1933 Sydney Carnival The 1933 Sydney Carnival was the eighth edition of the Australian National Football Carnival, an Australian rules football interstate competition. The carnival was held in Sydney over an eleven-day period between Wednesday 2 August and Saturday ...

, and was to play fourteen games for his State over the following six seasons. His reputation as a hard and strong defender grew over the years, and Tetley was a crucial factor in holding East Fremantle and Subiaco to extremely modest scores in the

1934 Events January–February * January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established. * January 15 – The 8.0 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake, Nepal–Bihar earthquake strik ...

and 1935 Grand Finals, which produced as of 2014 the Cardinals’ only back-to-back premierships. Although the following five seasons were extremely lean for the club, Tetley maintained his reputation as a tough defender so well that he captained the State team in 1937 and 1938, besides being captain-coach of the Cardinals in 1938 and 1939. However, Tetley’s two years in charge of West Perth were an unmitigated disaster, with the Cardinals winning a total of four matches and finishing a clear last both seasons – in the process suffering the equal-worst

losing streak ''Losing Streak'' is the second studio album by ska punk band Less Than Jake, released on November 12, 1996 on Capitol Records. The album was recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida and Mirror Image Studios in Gainesville, Florida, bo ...

in WANFL history. The club suffered severely from the retirement of Ted Flemming and the loss of future champion

Wally Buttsworth Wallace Francis Buttsworth (21 January 1917 – 22 May 2002) was an Australian rules footballer who played for Essendon in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Family Wally had 2 younger brothers Fred and Brian Buttsworth. Fred Buttsworth was ...

, along with a crippling run of injuries. Tetley continued to play in 1940 under future politician

Ross Hutchinson Sir Ross Hutchinson, DFC (10 September 1914 – 19 December 1999) was an Australian rules footballer, coach and politician. He played for and coached East Fremantle, West Perth and South Fremantle in the West Australian National Football Leag ...

, but like his contemporary

Tyson Tyson is a male given name of old French origin meaning 'high-spirited', 'fire'. It is from this that a surname arose 'son of Tyson'. Surname *Alan Tyson (1926–2000), British musicologist *Barbara Tyson (born 1964), Canadian actress *Bill Tyso ...

contemplated retirement in 1941 before staying on and helping a Cardinal team rebuilt with young players like

Stan Heal Stanley "Pops" Heal (30 July 1920 – 15 December 2010) was an Australian rules footballer who played for Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL) as well as West Perth in the West Australian National Football League (WANFL) during the ...

, Bill Kingsbury and “Spike” Pola to a surprise premiership win over East Fremantle. With the WANFL competition restricted to players under eighteen from 1942 to 1944, Tetley was forced into retirement and, unlike Tyson and a number of other pre-war stars, did not make any comeback after the war. Tetley died in

Mount Hawthorn Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

, a northern suburb of Perth, in 1997, aged 87. In 2004, he was an inaugural member of the Western Australian Football Hall of Fame.Maxwell Joseph TETLEY
– WA Football Hall of Fame.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tetley, Max 1909 births 1997 deaths Australian rules footballers from Fremantle Sportsmen from Western Australia West Perth Football Club coaches West Perth Football Club players West Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees