Disgraced football great Barry Cable has won his bid to have historical child sex abuse allegations tried by a judge, not a jury.

The 81-year-old has pleaded not guilty to five counts of indecently dealing with a girl under 13 and two counts of carnal knowledge of a child under 13 - relating to the one alleged victim - which prosecutors say were committed almost 60 years ago.

Mr Cable sat in the dock while his high-profile lawyer Tom Percy KC and solicitor Gerald Yin applied for a judge-alone trial at a hearing on Thursday, with his sons Shane and Barry Junior providing support from the public gallery.

District Court Judge John Staude granted the application on Friday.

But he is yet to hand down his decision on the State’s bid to adduce propensity evidence from three witnesses at the centre of two sets of separate allegations of child sexual abuse by the former North Melbourne great.

Prosecutor Kim Jennings argued there were similarities between the claims, showing Mr Cable had the tendency to commit such crimes.

Ms Jennings said the allegation to be tested at trial involved a “vulnerable” child aged about nine who was abused at Mr Cable’s Perth home while no one else was there in the late 1960s.

The State seeks to draw parallels with claims by two complainants who say they were indecently assaulted by Mr Cable in a spa while others were present in Melbourne in the early 1980s, when they were aged nine to 12.

Those claims are not the subject of any charges.

The State also wants to draw parallels with the complaint at the centre of an earlier civil trial involving a woman who claimed Mr Cable touched her “under the water” when she was aged 12 in Perth in the late 1960s.

The woman won, with the allegations found to be substantially true on the balance of probabilities.

Mr Percy questioned “whether there was any abuse at all”, saying the various allegations were “completely different”.

Mr Cable firmly denies all of the claims.

A date is yet to be set for Judge Staude’s ruling on the propensity evidence application.

The trial starts on March 10 next year.

Mr Cable had an illustrious playing career winning four WAFL premierships at Perth and East Perth and two VFL flags at North Melbourne in the 1960s and 70s before going on to coach in both competitions.