EXCLUSIVE
By PETER ROWE
A retrospective award for his goalkicking ability saw West Australian footy legend Kevin Caton receive his Bernie Naylor Medal last week – 32 years after he topped the league’s scoring with 52 goals.
Kevin was among a group of players who didn’t receive medals for their exploits between 1955 and 1996.
But thanks to the West Australian Football Commission announcing they were to honour past WAFL leading kickers from that period, Kevin finally received his medal at his old club Swan Districts last weekend.
“It was a great day and I had the honour of doing the coin toss before the Swans played Perth,” Kevin told Ibnews.com.au
“Back when I scored those goals all we got was a small wooden trophy that was just put on our table at the awards night – no fancy stuff.
“So it’s been really great to receive this honour many years later.”
And he put his goal kicking prowess down to one thing: “I could kick straight,” he joked.
Then straight kicking clearly worked because he was Swan Districts’ leading kicker over five seasons and is fifth on the all-time kicking list.
Kevin, who was born in North Queensland and then grew up in Darwin before arriving in Perth at Swan Districts in 1984, played 137 career games across several years including one game for the West Coast Eagles, nine for Fitzroy and eight for Brisbane.
Kevin Caton with his Bernie Naylor Medal.
His 1992 medal was shared with South Fremantle’s Craig Edwards and three other former Swans players also received their medals last weekend.
Brent Hutton, Simon Beasley and Max George the other recipients.
Kevin now runs a number of businesses in Perth. His daughter Cian runs Kupa Coffee, a company that supplies many of WA’s mine sites with bulk coffee while he spends most of his time running Yamurru, a crisis security and emergency services company that manages mine rescue and offer a variety of emergency services staff to the mining industry.
A total of 43 Bernie Naylor Medals have been awarded for the period between 1955 and 1995, with some years having dual winners (1980 – 1992).
The medals have been crafted to match the standard of the current Bernie Naylor Medal.
