John Todd deserves statue at Fremantle Oval

Famous John Gerovich statue should be complemented by one for old team-mate

John Todd had a significant role in setting the scene for WA’s most famous football statue.

Now he should be recognised with one of his own.

Todd was a long-time team-mate of John Gerovich, South Fremantle’s human astronaut whose high-flying exploits are perpetuated in a 5m bronze sculpture outside the Fremantle Oval gates.

Gerovich kicked 741 goals for South and claimed hundreds of marks, often at the end of piercing Todd dropkicks delivered to fingertip precision.

One of those singular dropkicks was photographed at a training session decades ago.

Sculptor Robert Hitchcock identified this historic photograph as the perfect model for a John Todd statue.

It is not as famous as the Gerovich screamer but it captures perfectly the balance, poise and power of Todd’s kicking.

It also reveals quite graphically the heavy scarring to Todd’s right knee from the series of operations to repair the damage done in football’s most infamous knee injury.

Todd told me last month, in his last ever interview, that he was adamant that but for the injury, he would have become the greatest footballer to play the game. 

Football historian Geoffrey Thomas recently arranged to have a French specialist colorise the photo, the painstaking process used to add colour to black and white images.

Thomas intended to give a large print to Todd, only to be stymied by his subject’s recent illness, but the striking image provides the perfect blueprint for a statue to honour the man who became the godfather of WA football.

Sculptor Robert Hitchcock created the Gerovich piece and he was eager to complement the statue with a Todd version when I suggested the concept to him.

“Gerovich took hundreds of marks from Todd kicks, many of them at Fremantle Oval,” he said.

“How good would it be to have Toddy kicking to Gero once again like they did so often in the 1950s and 60s?”

Hitchcock suggested a Todd statue should be situated at the southern end of the historic Victoria Pavilion which backs onto Parry Street in the heart of Fremantle.

The Gerovich statue is situated about 100m north in a roundabout near the other end of the pavilion.

“It has become an iconic part of Fremantle,” Hitchcock said.

“I remember when we unveiled it, John Gerovich came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder, wiped away a tear and said: ‘God has been with you, my son’.

“It was a very moving moment for both of us and made me very proud that the sculpture had captured the essence of the man and the game he loved.”

Robert Hitchcock’s famous John Gerovich statue was installed near the Victoria Pavilion at Fremantle Oval in 2006.

Hitchcock said a 5m bronze would cost about $140,000 and take six months to complete, meaning it could be ready at the start of next football season if the project started soon.

South Fremantle conceived and commissioned the Gerovich piece but Hitchcock remembered meeting then premier Alan Carpenter, an avid football fan, who immediately endorsed the idea and offered to pay for most of it.

Hitchcock also spoke to Todd at the time but the idea of a second statue failed to get traction with its potential model.

“Toddy said that he never took a high mark like Gero so he would never get a statue,” Hitchcock recalled. “I’m not sure that’s the case.”

Helping the cause is South Fremantle’s ambitious plan to redevelop Fremantle Oval with a new facility weaved in with the historic elements that provide the ground with its great character and significance.

“Our plan is to install a piazza at a new main entrance at the southern end of the Victoria Pavilion,” club president Peter Christie said.

“A John Todd statue would be the perfect centrepiece of that new space.

“You could imagine how it would look to have a statue of Toddy dropkicking to a statue of Gero taking a specky just as they did all those years ago.

“South Fremantle not only support this idea but will do whatever we can to make it happen.

“We will contribute to the cost as we did with the John Gerovich statue.”

But Christie said a Todd statue could come under the 1% public art contribution required by Fremantle council for the development.

Given the ground redevelopment is likely to cost up to $100million, the art contribution could reach $1million and would be applied to “original site-specific public artwork”.