fullname years death_date death_place clubs birth_place position statsend originalteam birth_date careerhighlights article_title name
maxwell joseph tetley 1931-1941 9 february 1997 mount hawthorn , western australia west perth fremantle , western australia full back centre half-back 1941 north fremantle amateurs 22 april 1909 * premiership side 1932 , 1934 , 1935 max tetley
 max tetley
max tetley

maxwell joseph `` max '' tetley -lrb- 22 april 1909 -- 9 february 1997 -rrb- was an australian rules footballer who played for the west perth football club in the western australian national football league -lrb- wanfl -rrb- .
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 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 , 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 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 in wanfl history .
the club suffered severely from the retirement of ted flemming and the loss of future champion wally buttsworth , along with a crippling run of injuries .
tetley continued to play in 1940 under future politician ross hutchinson , but like his contemporary tyson contemplated retirement in 1941 before staying on and helping a cardinal team rebuilt with young players like stan heal , 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 , a northern suburb of perth , in 1997 , aged 87 .
in 2004 , he was an inaugural member of the western australian football hall of fame .
