Don’t say he didn’t warn you.
A Freo Dockers’ gnome lives in a rose bed in his front yard.
Once inside, you realise that calling him a passionate Fremantle Dockers’ fan is an understatement.
His children’s rooms have been painted purple. So has the family room. His fridge is barely recognisable beneath myriad Freo Dockers’ stickers and magnets.
The purple invitations to his daughter’s upcoming wedding sit on the kitchen table. No prizes for guessing what colour the bridesmaid’s dresses will be.
You don’t even have to visit Steve’s house to get an idea about how passionate this man is about the Fremantle Dockers.
Just give him a call.
If you get past the Fremantle ringtone to his message-bank, the 51-year-old jokingly proclaims he is busy at the moment “polishing Pav’s car and mowing Mark Harvey’s lawn”. His ride-along mower is purple and comes fit with a Freo stubby holder, by the way.
Steve’s passion for Freo was born the day it was announced that the port club would be the AFL’s latest expansion team back in 1994.
“As soon as they named a football side Fremantle, I thought it was the best thing in the world,” he said.
“I was a South Fremantle supporter in the WAFL and my passion grew from there.”
The lack of success in the early years only galvanised his love for the club.
“With Freo not being that successful, you get behind them,” he said. “Proud, loyal and passionate says it all. That’s exactly how it is.”
Living purple has become an obsession. In fact, Steve’s goal is a somewhat ambitious one. He wants to turn the whole world purple.
“I’ve started with my three daughters and my son,” he said of Katelyn, 15, Kimberley, 20, Kelly, 28, and Ben, 23.
His wife Pam, a Melbourne Demons’ supporter, has proved tougher to convert, but he has made some ground.
“I’ve managed to get her to wear a purple shirt,” he said. “I think she’s starting to accept it. I think she looks stunning in purple.”
Pam said her husband was “absolutely obsessed with anything Freo Dockers” and, more specifically, purple.
“He’s got purple socks, purple shorts, purple underwear,” she said.
“He even wants a purple coffin with an anchor on it and his ashes spread over Fremantle Oval when he passes away.
“He even tried to get a purple contact lens for one of his eyes so he could call himself a “one-eyed supporter”,” Pam said shaking her head.
Steve owns a pair of womens reading glasses. The reason he didn’t buy a mens pair: they didn’t come in purple.
“The people at the store were confused when I insisted I wanted the purple ones,” he said.
In his backyard, Steve has built a cubby house for his youngest daughter Katelyn. No prizes for guessing the theme.
“There’s a rule in my house,” he said. “If it can be purple, then it will be purple. And if I build it, you know what colour it’s going to be.”
He’s also got an outside gym room decorated with Freo memorabilia. A signed Hayden Ballantyne piece takes residence on his wall, with a 1995 inaugural Fremantle Dockers squad poster giving Ballas company.
It may surprise that Steve has a 2010 West Coast Eagles team poster on his gym wall. It all makes perfect sense when you notice it is box-framed with a wooden spoon.
“I had that one specially made,” he said with a grin.
You can often find Steve in his gym, especially on weekends or at 9.30pm on Thursday nights, but it’s not the weights he’s in there for - although that’s what he tells his wife he is doing.
“I’m always in here watching anything to do with football,” he said. “But I tell Pam that I’m in here to work out.”
Sorry to bust your secret Steve.
On game days, Steve has a special purple HSV that he only uses for Fremantle home games.
He loves it so much that he refuses to drive it on any other day, unless he’s picking up an item from the Freo Team Store.
He won’t even take the car to an away Carlton Mid Derby against West Coast for fear of attracting the unwanted attention of any Eagles’ fans after they lose to his beloved Freo Dockers.
Steve was ecstatic when Fremantle announced its new brand look back in October last year. Why?: “Because the change to a darker shade of purple matched the purple of my HSV,” he said.
If all the above-mentioned eccentricities are not enough to convince you that Steve Twight is a mad fan of the purple of Freo, the engraved anchor on his front tooth is the icing on his purple cake.
“I was thinking about getting a tattoo to show off my passion for Freo on my body, but I’m not really a tattoo kind of guy,” he said. “So I got the anchor on my tooth.”
Steve has made a pact with himself, however, that could one day see him brandish a tattoo on his body.
“If...,” he said and then pauses to contemplate his choice of words. “When Fremantle win a premiership, I will get a tat to celebrate the momentous occasion.”
For now, Steve Twight will continue to support the Fremantle Dockers with every ounce of purple blood in his body, waiting patiently for the day he can permanently mark symbolic purple ink on his skin.
