Phillip Michael Narkle (born 29 January 1961) is a former

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 ...

player of

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

descent who played for and in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL) and

Swan Districts Football Club The Swan Districts Football Club, nicknamed the Swans, is an Australian rules football club playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW). The club is based at Bassendean Oval, in Bassendean, an eastern suburb ...

in the

West Australian 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, ...

(WAFL) during the mid-late 1970s and early 1990s. Younger brother of Keith Narkle (by nine years) who also played for Swan Districts, Phil generally played on the

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...

position. Regarded as a highly skilled and determined footballer with tremendous pace, Phil was perfectly suited to the wing position where he could turn defence into attack.

Playing career

Phil Narkle played colts in 1977 for Swan Districts in the WANFL and was awarded the Medallists Medal for being the fairest and best player for that year. He made his debut for Swan Districts in the league competition during 1978 and gradually established himself for a club that was emerging from a lean period since Haydn Bunton junior had left fifteen years beforehand. Narkle had a sensational season in 1982 when he played in the WAFL premiership for Swan Districts, and during that year he also won the Sandover Medal for the best player in the WAFL. Narkle played one more year for Swan Districts playing in his second premiership for the club. The Grand Final was Narkle’s last game for Swans before moving onto St Kilda in the then-VFL. He was seen as an acquisition for the struggling Saints but a succession of injuries meant Narkle did not show anything of his best form at Moorabbin until the latter part of the 1986 season. In 1987 Narkle returned to Western Australia to play for the

West Coast Eagles The West Coast Eagles are a professional Australian rules football club based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 as one of two expansion teams in the Australian Football League (AFL), then known as the Victorian Football ...

where he became the club’s inaugural selection to the

All Australian Team The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-performed players during the season, led by ...

. However, an ankle injury before the 1988 season meant Narkle did not play more than three games in the WAFL all season and at the end of that season a more serious knee problem caused Narkle to walk with a permanent

limp A limp is a type of asymmetric abnormality of the gait. Limping may be caused by pain, weakness, neuromuscular imbalance, or a skeletal deformity. The most common underlying cause of a painful limp is physical trauma; however, in the absen ...

and West Coast de-listed him Even when Narkle did return to Swan Districts late in 1989 he had played several reserves matches and moved to the back pocket to avoid the exertion of playing in his familiar wing role. Narkle was re-drafted by the Eagles in 1990 and played nine senior games for the club, but was in and out of the rechristened WASFL and his experience was a vital component in Swans’

grand final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

win over Claremont. Playing more often in defence, Narkle took over as Swan captain for 1992 and continued to play well despite having lost some of his earlier explosive speed.Stocks, Gary; ‘Narkle Conjures Swans’ Victory’; ''The West Australian'', 17 May 1993, p. 92 At the age of thirty-two, Narkle retired as a player at the end of 1993, but has continued to give service in administration.

References

External links

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Phil Narkle
player profile page at WAFLFootyFacts {{DEFAULTSORT:Narkle, Phil 1961 births Living people Swan Districts Football Club players St Kilda Football Club players West Coast Eagles players Indigenous Australians from Western Australia Western Australian State of Origin players Indigenous Australian players of Australian rules football Sandover Medal winners All-Australians (1953–1988) Australian rules footballers from Western Australia West Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees People from Bunbury, Western Australia