Mark Robinson: Loving mum Norma Barker's tribute to her son, St Kilda legend Trevor Barker
The mother of St Kilda legend Trevor Barker, Norma, passed away last week. She spoke to Mark Robinson in 2019 and paid tribute to the “Hollywood footballer” with long blond hair and tremendous courage that was loved by all.
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Norma Barker, the mother of St Kilda legend Trevor Barker, passed away last week aged 95. In June 2019, Mark Robinson spoke with Norma after she accepted her son's induction into the AFL Hall of Fame. This is her story, as published at the time.
Norma Barker’s withered hands clutch the lace-up jumper, she brings it to her face, closes her eyes and takes a heaving breath.
Then she cries.
“I can still smell him,” she said.
She buried her face in it again.
“Oh dear,” she said.
“I lost my little girl, too, you know. Katrina. She died when she was five with a congenital heart condition. Trevor was nine and he never got over losing his beautiful little sister. She got through the surgery OK, but she died about two weeks later.”
That was in 1966.
“But they learnt from her. I got lovely letters from the Children’s Hospital to say they saved so many other children. That was nice to hear.”
Norma Barker is the mother of Trevor Barker, arguably St Kilda’s most loyal son, and on Tuesday night she accepted Trevor’s induction into the AFL Hall of Fame.
“He wouldn’t be expecting anything like this because he was a team man and he never was looking for accolades,” Norma told the Herald Sun.
“He would do anything for his beloved Saints, anything.
“A few clubs wanted him but no way he’d leave.
“Hang on, he nearly did once. To Melbourne. I think it was Barassi. Was he with Melbourne?”
Trevor died of cancer at 8am on April 26, 1996. He was 39.
Six thousand people attended his funeral at Moorabbin Town Hall.
Trevor Barker was a Hollywood footballer: Charismatic, long blond hair, spectacular marks, tremendous courage and, Norma said, a real “ladies man”.
He wore No. 1, often in long-sleeves, and but on this day, Norma had her son’s old lace-up, borrowed for the afternoon from the St Kilda museum.
“I can still smell him,” she said.
“If you’d like me to put it on … I’d like to do it.”
Barker was a beacon of hope through a mediocre period for the Saints and Barker, more than any player, embodied St Kilda’s mantra: Strength through loyalty.
He played his first game in 1975, played 230 games overall, was captain for four years and was a two-time best and fairest winner. That award is now named in his honour.
Saints fans loved him, rival fans admired him.
His blond hair would streak across the TV screens as Barker launched himself into packs and on to backs and his marks remain iconic moments in Australian Rules.
Time and again, commentators would bellow “BARKER” in an excited voice almost breaking down the pronunciation.
When he left the Saints, he coached Sandringham to two VFA premierships, in 1992 and ’94, before returning to the Saints as an assistant coach.
It seemed logical and written in the stars that he would one day become senior coach.
Norma has many photos of her family and friends at her Cheltenham home.
One was of Barker at training at Moorabbin. “Look at the awful long hair,” she said.
At 91, Norma was worried how she’d scrub up in the photograph with the jumper. “Should I put my spectacles on to hide my tears? I look 110.”
She slipped it on and barked: “How’s that?” She spun around as if she was on a catwalk.
TREVOR was a Cheltenham boy. He attended Cheltenham High School and played footy for the first time at the Bentleigh Tigers.
Norma and her husband, Jack, who split and then divorced when Trevor was 16, would watch Trevor play at Bentleigh. “Yep, every week. Jack and I would get up, have a quick cuppa, and put the trackies over our PJs because it was so cold, it started at 8am. We loved it.”
She knew he had something as a player. “I thought he had potential, yes.”
By the time Trevor was at the Saints, Jack was gone and she’d watch the game with girlfriends. “We were called ‘the back row’ at Moorabbin. There were 14 of us sitting together. We were very loud. He would take those high marks and come down on his back. I would be worried. One day he got kicked in the face and I sent one of my friends down to the rooms because we weren’t allowed in the rooms in those days, mothers and women.”
Asked to describe him as a player, she said: “He was just the best. Well, I thought he was.
He’d take great marks, he was a speedster, and he used to tackle well. He was a wonderful tackler.”
Asked to describe him as a person, she said: “He was always my beloved son first and football was what he chose to do. He wasn’t all that demonstrative, you know, for cuddles or anything like that, but we were very close. He loved footy. He used to play kick to kick over the back fence with the next door neighbour, on Centre Dandenong Rd and Tilley. That’s where he grew up.”
Asked her favourite football moment, she said: “Seeing all the little ones running around with No. 1 on their back. That gave me goosebumps. That was beautiful.”
Asked her favourite all-time moment, she said: “When he was born. I always wanted a boy and a girl, and he was my first. All I ever wanted to have in my life was a happy marriage and at least two children. I had an unhappy marriage and I lost my children.
“But I’ve had a good life.”
INITIALLY, Trevor didn’t tell his mum of the cancer.
“He coached Sandringham to two premierships and I noticed it then. He was starting to get very dark circles under the eyes and it seemed to me he was getting sicker and sicker. When I’d see him, I’d say, ‘Gosh Trevor, you look thin, you look terrible’.
“He knew for quite some time, but he didn’t say anything. I remember my mum, she was in hospital, and we went to visit her one day and mum said: ‘Trevor, are you all right, you don’t look well. My mum (Jane) picked it.
“Then one day, he came to mum’s home and broke the news.”
Two years passed and he was dead.
When Trevor died it seemed despair hounded her.
“There’s been highs and lows,” Norma said. “You’ve got to soldier on and get on with your life because if you don’t the rest of the family is going to suffer. I decided I was going to be brave.
“You never think your children are going to die before you. So I decided I wasn’t going to have any more. I wasn’t meant to have them.
“Sometimes, but not very often, I have said, ‘why, why did I have two children and lose them both. What have I done wrong?’
“I do talk to God a bit. I thank him for the blessings and growl at him at the same time.
“But time heals all wounds. I still shed quiet tears, particularly when you see people out shopping with their children, so happy, and I think that could’ve been me. But I say to myself, keep a stiff upper lip.”
She rushed into her bedroom and returned with a photograph of Katrina and Trevor.
“You can look at his adoring look to his little sister. She was four. She started school and could only go for one month. When she was sick, she’d say, ‘Don’t cry mummy, I feel really well’.
“She knew she wasn’t, but she kept telling me she was. You know, Jack and I were called in and she passed away before we left the hospital.”
Trevor was her everything after losing Katrina and then splitting with Jack. Her life was everywhere when Trevor died.
That was 23 years ago and people still tell her how much of a hero Trevor was.
HER invitation to Tuesday night’s function came via the mail.
“I was so emotional and overwhelmed to think he would be on the list to join all those esteemed players,” she said.
“I got a letter from Gillon McLachlan … do you want to see it?”
It was in pride of place on the kitchen bench.
It started, “Dear Norma, it’s my honour to inform you the AFL Commission has endorsed your late son Trevor for entry into the Hall of Fame …”
Norma: “It’s a beautiful letter and isn’t that an honour.”
Her table of 10 included Melinda, Barker’s partner at the time of his death.
“She’s been like a daughter to me, a beautiful girl,” she said.
Norma bought a new dress and new spectacles for the night.
“I went into Specsavers because I was choosing new spectacles to wear on the night of the cocktail do. I was getting my glasses and the lass said, ‘Gee, they’re nice, is it a special occasion?’
“I said, ‘Yes, actually, I’m going to the AFL Hall of Fame dinner. My son is being inducted’. Well, you should hear her. ‘What, are you Trevor Barker’s mother?’ She was telling everybody, it was so exciting.”
You do know you weren’t allowed to tell anybody. “Ahh, oops … you do know they can get it all on the internet anyway.”
At 91, Norma is still rascalish, a trait clearly captured by Trevor.
“He was the biggest flirt, was he ever,” she said. “You’d think he was in bed, but he’d jump out the window and go and meet girls. He was about 16 or 17.
“He was a naughty boy, really.
“Trevor had several girlfriends before he met Melinda. I liked them all and I still get calls from these girls he went with all those years ago. They never stopped loving him.
“Yep, he was a ladies man, but that all changed when he met our beautiful Melinda.”
Originally published as Mark Robinson: Loving mum Norma Barker's tribute to her son, St Kilda legend Trevor Barker
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