Brad R. Smith (born 3 December 1948) 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 Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

er who played with

North Melbourne North Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne Local government ar ...

in the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in east ...

(VFL) during the 1970s. He also had a long career in the

West Australian National Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL "waffle" or "W-A-F-L") 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 f ...

(WANFL) where he played for

East Perth East 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 fact that eas ...

and coached

East Fremantle East 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 fact that eas ...

. Smith was a late comer to VFL football as he had spent eight years at East Perth before joining North Melbourne. He was a member of East Perth's 1972 and 1978 premiership teams and a

back pocket Vulfpeck is an American funk/soul music, soul band formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2011. Founded by multi-instrumentalists Jack Stratton, Theo Katzman, Woody Goss, and bassist Joe Dart, the band has released four extended plays, six studio a ...

player in the North Melbourne side which lost the 1974 VFL Grand Final. His stint in Victoria lasted just two seasons and in 1976 he returned to East Perth and ended up with 222 WANFL games. During this time he also represented Western Australia in six interstate matches. Smith was appointed coach of East Fremantle in 1979 and promptly steered them to the premiership. Although he was recruited as a non-playing coach to East Fremantle, he also took the field for two games in 1979 and three games in 1980, thus finishing with 227 WANFL/WAFL games in his career. Despite a successful first year as coach, the 1980 season was a struggle and East Fremantle only narrowly avoided the wooden spoon. In response to their poor season, East Fremantle decided to appoint a full-time coach for the 1981 season (all previous coaching appointments were part-time) and Smith left to join East Perth as an assistant coach under Grant Dorrington. As the reigning premiership coach, Smith coached the WA state side in four matches in 1980, including the 1980 Australian Football Carnival, held in Adelaide in October. In 2006 Smith was named on the interchange bench in East Perth's official 'Post-war Team of the Century' (1945 to 2005).East Perth Teams of the Century

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* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Brad 1948 births Living people Australian rules footballers from Western Australia North Melbourne Football Club players East Perth Football Club players East Fremantle Football Club players East Fremantle Football Club coaches