Fabulous Fred. Paul Amy

      Paul Amy

       Dedicated to my father, Bill Amy (1941–1995),

       who is thought of every day.

      Fred Cook

       To my parents, Fred and Shirley Cook

      Foreword

      It is a challenge to dislike Fred Cook. A persuasive, laconic, rambling raconteur, he is a flawed gemstone.

      In his heyday he captivated sporting crowds as an icon of the country’s second-tier Australian Rules football competition of the day, the Victorian Football Association. There was no bigger name in the VFA than Fred Cook, or ‘Fabulous Fred’, as his legions of fans called him.

      But he succumbed to the pressures of a pop-star, Hollywood lifestyle, and he paid dearly for the romance.

      His foray into the hospitality industry as the proprietor of Port Melbourne’s Station Hotel gave his extroverted life another kick, and his constant companions were the elite movers and shakers of society. As sure as night follows day, the opportunists, those detecting a chance to exploit, and the criminal underclass gradually permeated his person.

      This is the classic chronological rise-and-fall story of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, made all the meretricious by a large dose of sport — except this ain’t no story!

      Sam Newman

      June 2014

      1

      IT had been an unremarkable day in the Frankston Magistrates’ Court.

      Locals, a few of them carrying the whiff of aftershave and looking uncomfortable in just-bought suits, had come to answer charges like drink-driving, burglary and theft. They filed in before 10am and they hoped their solicitors would ensure they filed out.

      Quick-with-a-quip prosecutor Ricky Lewis would have called it a ‘mixed bag’ of cases, as he invariably did when quizzed by the reporter covering proceedings for the Frankston Standard newspaper.

      Most cases were heard in court one, in a building that stood for years on Davey Street, only a couple of decent drop punts from the Frankston football ground. But around lunchtime on this day in December 1991, court staff began to murmur about a matter to be heard in the smaller second court.

      A former footballer had been arrested, they said. Big name in his day, apparently.

      A few minutes later, uniformed police marched a handcuffed and dishevelled Fred Cook in to court. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He wore jeans that needed a wash, a similarly grubby white shirt and running shoes on their last legs.

      Some wouldn’t have recognised him as the man who less than a decade earlier was the most captivating and colourful player in the Victorian Football Association (VFA). Supporters called the prolific Port Melbourne goalkicker ‘Fabulous Fred’. He assumed the profile of a pop star.

      Police had come to know him well, too, but as Frederick William Cook, repeat offender. To them he was no football hero. He was just another sloppy crook who needed locking up. ‘Fred Cook? Can’t stay out of trouble. He’s a pain in the arse,’ an officer from the Frankston District Support Group once replied when asked about the former Port champion.

      A pin-up boy to an ocean of small fry, Cook kicked bags of goals in his sponsored Puma boots and was integral in six Port Melbourne premierships during the historic club’s most successful era.

      Its successor, the Victorian Football League (VFL), has struggled for publicity for years. But the VFA had a large and fanatical following in the 1970s and 1980s — it was common for fans to support a league team on Saturdays and an association team on Sundays — and a cluster of great players and compelling characters. There was Dandenong spearhead Jim ‘Frosty’ Miller. Feared Preston ruckman Harold Martin. Cook’s Port Melbourne teammate and champion big man Vic ‘Stretch’ Aanensen. Bearded Coburg swashbuckler Phil Cleary. Rugged Sandringham defender Alf Beus. Geelong West sharpshooter Joe Radojevic. Long after retirement, their names still resonate with seasoned football followers.

      But Cook had the largest profile of all. Wearing the No. 5 jumper from full forward, he was the finisher for a team as bruising as it was brilliant. With his regular starring roles in matches televised by Channel 0, he helped haul the VFA out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

      The Encyclopedia of League Footballers, recording Cook’s thirty-three games for Footscray between 1967 and 1969, described him as ‘one of the greatest stars to have played in the VFA’, formed in 1877. ‘His goalkicking feats with Port were legendary,’ it said.

      Former Footscray champion Doug Hawkins said, ‘He was the king of the VFA, Freddie, the absolute king.’

      And he had charisma bursting from his boots. ‘Although he appeared apologetic about the manner in which he humiliated opponents, the cameras were drawn to him,’ Cleary wrote in his book Cleary Independent. ‘At after-match gatherings, he wandered through the throng like a film star.’

      Women loved him, and he them. He had a legion of ladies, including the daughter of a country’s Prime Minister and a television soap star. His great mate Sam Newman’s reputation as a ladies’ man endures. But he says he had nothing on Cook.

      With the popular Station Hotel in Port Melbourne (home to Melbourne’s most glamorous strippers, all cherrypicked by Cook) and newspaper, radio and TV gigs, he had the wealth to go with the adulation. But the famous footballer with the larrikin streak who mixed with Melbourne’s sporting and entertainment elite became infamous for his drug use, his association with some of Melbourne’s most notorious criminals and his spells in prison. He went from hero to zero in three years.

      Cook had a gun put to his head. He was badly bashed when his associates thought he’d turned police informer. Newman was there to save him, and calls it the scariest