‘Krakouer magic’ united again as Phil Krakouer set to join brother Jim in the WA Football Hall of Fame

Phil and Jim Krakouer followed each other on the football field with a spiritual sixth sense. A blind handpass over the top from Jim to Phil floating goalside; a deft tap from inside a contest from Phil to Jim moving like a cheetah; a wriggle of the hips to shake an opponent; a tracer-like lace-out pass; all those goals. The Krakouers had an on-field connection that defined footy in the 1970s and 80s as they bedazzled opponents with their feet, hands and high footy IQs playing for Claremont in the WAFL and North Melbourne in the VFL. On Monday night they will be united again, when Phil follows Jim into the WA Football Hall of Fame at the Sandover Medal Count at Crown Ballroom. When he was inducted in 2021, Jim spoke of “mixed emotions” that he was in there on his own. “We were never known as just Jimmy or Phil Krakouer,” he said. “We were always the Krakouer brothers.” Phil, 63, and Jim, 64, have carved different paths post-football. Phil has remained in Melbourne, while Jim has returned to his native WA, now living his best life nearly 20 years after being released from prison, having served nine years of a 16-year sentence for drug trafficking. The moment is not lost on Phil, who told The West Australian: “It is a massive honour. It is overwhelming”. “There are so many great footballers in it. It’s wonderful to be recognised by WA. To be there alongside Jimmy. There were absolute champions who played the game before me and Jim was one of them,” he said. In his book, Brotherboys: The Story of Jim and Phillip Krakouer, author Sean Gorman writes about the “Krakouer magic” of two great individual footballers, “but together they were an almost impenetrable force on the field”. It was a spiritual and physical energy created in their formative years living on the outskirts of Mt Barker in makeshift homes constructed of corrugated iron, with no running water or power, on an Aboriginal reserve dubbed ironically by the Noongars as Hollywood, and a local patch of farmland named Windy Hill. That irony was not lost on the brothers either when they ventured out to Essendon’s inhospitable VFL home ground. They were two of eight children (four brothers, four sisters) to Eric and Phoebe Krakouer. It was a tough upbringing. If the livestock did not keep them awake at night, the train rattling past on the nearby railway line would. But they had one common love. Footy. “It was plastic footy or one made of socks. It was kick to kick with Jim but also with my sisters who were a bit older and dominated the games we would play. I’d say they would have been undefeated our sisters. We could never beat them,” Phil said. The brothers played juniors (Nippers) on a quagmire that had no changerooms called the Cabbage Patch, full of bumps and burrows. When they weren’t kicking a waterlogged Burley around the Cabbage Patch, they could be found swimming in the nearby Guvvy (Government) Dam with water described as deep, freezing, black and smelly. They had their first taste of playing against men for the North Mount Barker Football Club as teenagers and as they were zoned to Claremont, the Tigers came calling. Jim made his WAFL debut in 1977, Phil in 1978. But Phil almost didn’t make it that far after he dodged a pre-season training camp with the Tigers. “I didn’t realise how important it was. I was thinking ‘Why would you want to run around and do all of that sort of stuff?’ So I went to a (Linda Ronstadt) concert instead,” he said. “On the Monday they read the names out and I didn’t make the final cut and I thought ‘well, that’s fair enough I’ll go back to Mt Barker’.” “They put us in two lists. Those who had made it and those who hadn’t. But then Jimmy spoke to Mossy (coach Graham Moss). They had a conversation. Mossy said ‘Ok you can go back and sit over there with the other list’. I knuckled down and went from there.” He recalls his first game for Claremont at Claremont Oval, against East Perth, in 1978. “The highlight of that was my family coming up to watch. Mum and Dad. The ground was chockers. That was big,” he said. North Melbourne first approached the brothers in 1979. They were a package back then, as they are today. “Jim and I decided we were too young to head across and we had unfinished business at Claremont. We wanted to win a premiership,” Phil said. “We went out in straight sets in the finals in 1979. From a team point of view, we hadn’t achieved any anything. The offer in 1979 (from North Melborne) was significant at that time, but we knocked it back. “North Melbourne came back in 1980 and Geelong were very interested in the time as well, because the late (Graham) “Polly” Farmer was recruiting for them. We signed with North Melbourne but the deal was we had two years to get over there.” Claremont saluted in 1981, freeing the Krakouer brothers up to give the VFL a shot. “I dare say had we not won a flag in 1981 we were both determined to stay in 82 and give it one more go,” he said. Walking into Arden Street reminded Phil of his nervous introduction to Claremont. “You see these great players and think ‘What am I doing here?’ It takes a while to build up to the belief that you belong. And you know what? I never really ever felt that way, that I belonged at that level,” Phil said. “I always felt that I needed to get better. That I wasn’t quite there yet. And I felt that the whole way through my career and looking back it was a good way to go about it I guess.” Phil played 90 games and kicked 192 goals for Claremont from 1978-81, 141 and 224 for North Melbourne from 1982 to 1989, seven and seven with Footscray in a short two-year stint before he retired in 1991. There will be three other WA football greats inducted into the WA Football Hall of Fame - Jan Cooper, Allistair Pickett and Alex Rance. A Legend will also be named.

‘Krakouer magic’ united again as Phil Krakouer set to join brother Jim in the WA Football Hall of Fame

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