Football Career
Farmer began his top-level career with the East Perth Football Club in the West Australian National Football League (WANFL) in 1953. Farmer played 176 games from 1953 to 1961 with East Perth. During this time he won the club's Fairest and Best award seven times, and was a member of their 1956, 1958 and 1959 Premiership teams. In 1956, he was awarded a Simpson Medal for his performance against South Australia in the Perth Carnival, and later he also awarded the Tassie Medal for being judged best in the Carnival overall. He was awarded the WANFL's highest individual honour, the Sandover Medal, in 1956 and 1960. He also tied for the medal in 1957 with East Fremantle's Jack Clarke but lost on a countback; he was awarded that medal in 1997 when the WAFL awarded retrospective medals for those who missed out on countbacks. In 1959 he was awarded the Simpson Medal for being best on ground in the Grand Final. He was awarded another Simpson Medal in 1961 for his game against Victoria in the Brisbane Carnival.
Bob Davis recruited Farmer to the Geelong Football Club in the VFL in 1962. In the opening moments of his debut for Geelong in 1962, Farmer severely injured his knee, causing ligament damage, and missing the rest of the season. Farmer returned in 1963, winning a Premiership with Geelong and coming equal-second in the Brownlow Medal behind winner Bob Skilton. Farmer played 101 games for Geelong from 1962 to 1968, won the team's Fairest and Best in 1963 and 1964, and captained the team from 1965 to 1967.
In 1968, he desired to return home to Western Australia and accepted the role of captain/coach with the West Perth Football Club, rivals to his former club, East Perth. He led West Perth to premierships in 1969 and 1971, both times defeating East Perth in the Grand Final. In 1969, Farmer received his fourth Simpson Medal during the AFC Championships in Adelaide. He retired from playing football in 1971, aged 36, after 76 games with West Perth.
Not involved in top level football in 1972, Farmer returned to the VFL as coach of the Geelong Football Club from 1973 to 1975. Farmer and the club's committee had an increasingly strained relationship, and Farmer quit in 1975. He returned to the WANFL, coaching East Perth from 1976 to 1977 with some success, and he coached the first Western Australian state of origin team in 1977. Farmer was sacked as coach of East Perth in 1977 due to conflict, and replaced by Barry Cable in 1978. Farmer said, "When the going gets tough a club should stick together and fight to beat it. But some people chip and chip at the ground underneath you in trying to find someone to blame. I do my best in football and I have no time to protect my back, so it's left wide open. Maybe that's a lot of my trouble."
During his career, Farmer played a record 31 games for Western Australia, five games for Victoria, and was selected in the All-Australian team in 1956, 1958 and 1961. He played 356 league games in total, including 30 finals, 10 grand finals and six premierships.
Farmer was a strong, skilled and mobile ruckman. At 191 centimetres (75 in) tall and weighing 94 kilograms (210 lb), Farmer had a naturally high leap that helped him to win ruck contests easily. Farmer practiced handballing through car windows at the car yard where he worked, and one of his football legacies is changing handballing from a last-resort option to a "dangerous offensive weapon". According to Geelong player Sam Newman, "without speaking one word he taught me everything I know. I watched how a man overcomes not the physical, not the mental, but the spiritual – that's the most important – he was an absolute star, about one decade, one century ahead of his time".
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