The IM that never was

When I first started playing chess in the early 80's, Max Fuller was still one of Australia's leading players. However a few of my contemporaries referred to him as "the IM that never was". When I asked them what they meant they said that Max had been very unlucky, missing a norm by half a point, or not getting the required norms inside the then time frame etc
But I suspect the biggest difficulty faced by Max was being able to play strong fields consistently. In those days Australian players usually had to travel to Europe and this took both time and money.
When Max did get to play overseas he often scored quite well. In one of my old British Chess Magazine's from 1974 there is a report from the Athenaum Chess Club '101' Tournament, which was a 10 player Round Robin to celebrate 101 years of the chess club. The field was a strong one (in those days) with Robert Bellin and Bob Wade finishing 2nd and 3rd, and the bottom 4 places being filled by Colin Crouch, Michael Basman, Tim Harding and Kevin O'Connell. While the later 2 players became more famous as authors (although Harding is a strong CC player as well), the other 4 players all became (or were) IM's.
Fuller won the tournament by a full point (+5=4-0), and scored the following win over Michael Basman.

Basman,M (2400) - Fuller,M (2365) [A00]
Athenaeum Jubilee London (3), 06.07.1974

1.e3 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c5 4.Be2 e5 5.Nf3 f5 6.d4 e4 7.Nd2 cxd4 8.exd4 Nc6 9.Nb3 Nh6 10.0-0 0-0 11.f3 exf3 12.Bxf3 d6 13.Be3 Ng4 14.Bxg4 fxg4 15.Qd2 Bf5 16.Bf4 a5 17.Bg5 Qd7 18.a4 Nb4 19.Nb5 b6 20.d5 Bd3 21.Rxf8+ Rxf8 22.N3d4 Qf7 23.g3 Bxc4 24.Ne6(D)
24. ... Bxd5 25.Nf4 Ba8 26.Nxd6 Qd7 27.Re1 Qc6 28.Ne4 Nc2 29.Re2 Nd4 30.Re3 Nf3+ 31.Rxf3 Qxe4 32.Rd3 Qh1+ 33.Kf2 Qxh2+ 34.Kf1 Qh1+ 35.Kf2 Qg2+ 36.Ke1 Qg1+ 37.Ke2 Re8+ 38.Re3 Bf3+ 39.Kd3 Rxe3+ 40.Qxe3 Qd1+ 41.Kc4 Qxa4+ 42.Kd3 Qb3+ 0-1