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It's a fair comment that `Sturt was a better fit for him,' he was more consistent in his games for them and became a much more reliable set shot, including kicking 2 check side goals from hard against the behind post against the Maggies in the same quarter at the river end of Adelaide oval in his first season for the local blue baggers in what from memory was an Easter Monday game.
What great photographs. In particular the one from AO. Brings back great memories. Vale Peter Yeo.Graham Cornes:
Peter Yeo’s funeral service was held in Melbourne last week in a beautiful Anglican church in Toorak in Victoria.
His passing, three weeks earlier in Brisbane, went mainly unnoticed here in Adelaide, save for a few lines of memoriam on the Sturt Football Club’s website. However, old-time Port Magpie supporters will remember him from an era when football was played in black and white.
A blond, dashing wing/half-forward, he came to the club in the late 1960s – after the fabled six consecutive premierships, when Sturt was dominating the competition. He never played in a premiership team for Port but ironically, he would go on to be part of the 1970 Sturt premiership team. His is a story of triumph then tragedy.
Peter Yeo was an outstanding junior sportsman – one of those kids who was good at everything, but his passion was football. He came from a famous footballing background. His father, Dave, had been a star at Sturt post the Second World War.
A courageous defender, he played at centre-half-back in the South Australian team that lost to Victoria on the MCG by seven points in 1948. His uncle, Alby Yeo, made his reputation by his longevity and his toughness.
Distinctive with his crooked nose which he never bothered to have straightened, the nuggety all-rounder, played for Glenelg and West Adelaide before venturing to Victoria with stints at Essendon, St Kilda and Richmond. He continually lowered his age, but reliable sources say he played his last league game when he was 37.
Like his brother Dave, he returned to the Riverland and attained legendary status playing and coaching at Barmera-Monash.
His mother and father had purchased a soldier-settlers block in the Riverland so Peter was sent to St Peter’s College in Adelaide before starting senior school.
At first he hated it immensely but sport is the great mediator.
Blond, good looking and dominant in a raft of sports, especially football, he suited the image of the glamorous college boy and was very much the schoolboy champion.
Anticipating going back to the farm, he was sent to Roseworthy Agricultural College, a move which was doomed to failure because of his severe hay fever.
However that year at Roseworthy would be pivotal in his football development.
Roseworthy fielded a team in the Gawler and Districts Football Association and not only did they win the premiership in 1966, but Yeo won the Mail Medal as the Association’s best and fairest player.
Peter Yeo in his playing days with Port Adelaide. Picture: Supplied
His father, coincidentally, had won the same award 22 years prior. Of course the league clubs then came knocking.
He had always been an avid Sturt supporter but it was the legendary Port Adelaide general manager, Bob McLean who was most persistent. After a three-day stand-off in Barmera, he signed a three-year contract to play with Port Adelaide, although his father stipulated that he could be given an open clearance after three years.
Yeo always maintained that he was the first Australian rules footballer to be signed to a formal contract, which in hindsight seems hard to believe, but no one has ever refuted that claim so it may very well be true.
Believing such a document to be of some value, he kept it in a bank vault. One day it might be redeemed.
Despite the three-year stipulation Yeo stayed at Port for five years and 48 games but, unusually for a Port Adelaide footballer, a premiership eluded him. It’s fair to say he never settled at Port Adelaide.
The image of the glamorous college boy never quite gelled with the working class/wharfie stereotype but Port legend John Cahill remembers him with great affection.
“We were mates then and we were mates in his later tragic life”, Cahill said. “We would go skiing in the off-season.
Sturt footballer Peter Yeo at training in 1967.
Four of us – Yeoy, Trevor Obst, Ken Tierney and I would take the boat to the river.” Nevertheless, in 1970 Yeo transferred to Sturt, where he played 29 games including the 1970 premiership.
Football never took complete hold of his life. He had a flair for advertising and marketing and was the brains and inspiration behind the successful VYI’s sunglasses campaign which brought him to the attention of national advertising companies.
So he moved to Melbourne and although he played a couple of games for Melbourne, football became less of a priority.
He quickly became part of the Melbourne advertising and marketing community as well as enjoying the social scene and spending leisure days of tennis and socialising at Portsea and Sorrento.
The tragic turning point in his life came after he had moved to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Running to answer his phone, he slipped, fell, and his head crashed through the gyprock wall and he broke his neck.
He lived alone so he lay paralysed for 26 agonising hours until his visiting cousin found him. In a split-second, the accident in 2002 rendered him a quadriplegic. Doctors were initially pessimistic about his chances of survival. Then they said he wouldn’t move his arms. But he never lost hope. Calling on the wisdom of his first football coach, Fos Williams, who inspired the will to win, he said, “I use the same things with disability these days.”
Surprised he didn’t manage to insert a mention of 1990.
