The Manx football badge worn 9,000 miles from home
On the outskirts of Perth a football club runs out each week wearing a badge that would look instantly familiar to anyone from the Isle of Man.It is the island's three-legged triskelion, but with a footballing twist.AdvertisementThe team is on the other side of the world, in Australia, about 9,200 miles (14,800km) from Douglas, so is this a mistake?No... The logo was created as a deliberate tribute to three Manxmen who settled on the land more than a century ago.In February 1905, Ernest Kerruish, an accountant from Union Mills, boarded a ship headed to Albany, Western Australia, with his wife Blanche, his brother-in-law Arthur Eaten and John Creer, a young farmer from Marown.All three men were regulars at the Union Mills Westleyan Church and Kerruish had been advised to move somewhere warmer for his failing health.They arrived in March and Kerruish bought 200 acres of bush at Bennett Brook in Caversham, naming it "Ballajora" after a farm on the Isle of Man.AdvertisementIt was rough land, cleared by hand and the soil gave little back for the effort, so after three years they gave up on it and moved to a nearby vineyard.The name however outlasted the farm and the area evolved into the modern suburb of Ballajura - 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) north of Perth.The families paid a heavy price for the move. Kerruish's youngest daughter Jessie died in a grassfire in 1912, while his teenage daughter Alice died of pneumonia in 1914.Eaton died of a heart attack in 1920, aged 33, and Creer of tuberculosis in 1922, aged 42. Kerruish, the eldest of the three, died in 1946, aged 75.AdvertisementBallajura's Primary School house system is still named after Kerruish, Eaten, Creer and Bennett.The football club that now carries their memory was found decades after their deaths.In August 1992, parents in Ballajura who had been driving their children across Perth to play for other clubs began asking why their own suburb had no junior side.Niall Martin, former club president, said: "When we formed the club, we adopted the crest and added the ball to the legs to represent the origins of the Ballajora."On a potential fixture against Isle of Man FC, Martin said: "We are in the Sunday amateur league, but if the BBC wants to, we are happy to be on Match of the Day."AdvertisementRead more stories from the Isle of Man on the BBC, watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer and follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X.More like this
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