Paul Garrett Snr has made his mark, both on and off-the field for the Cranbourne Football Club. 84270 Picture: DAVID NAGEL
By DAVID NAGEL
By DAVID NAGEL
LIKE many other doting father’s around the area, Paul Garrett Senior’s involvement in the Cranbourne football community started at real grass roots level, back in 1976.
It was the same year the Garrett’s moved to town, and with the eldest of his three boys, Paul Jnr, playing at the junior club, he wandered down for a look and was asked to cut the oranges.
“I shouldn’t have cut those oranges,” Garrett, 67, now General Manager of the senior football club, says with a smile, a roll of the eyes and a shake of the head that would suggest regret.
Regret is far from the truth though, as cutting those oranges started an involvement at both junior and senior level that has brought him some great times, and some great memories at the club.
Before Garrett got heavily involved at Cranbourne he was a pretty handy footballer himself. He played centre-half-forward in Noble Park’s senior premiership side of 1972 and captain/coached the Mulgrave reserves to a premiership win in his last season of football in 1978.
“Those were the two highlights of my playing days,” he said. “I got carried off after the ’78 premiership win and said, ‘that’s enough’. I lived in Cranbourne but still played at Mulgrave for those last couple of years.”
Despite not playing a game for Cranbourne, his impact on-field has been immense. Quite simply, Paul Garrett Snr has been a sire-of-champions.
His three sons, Paul, Pat (Paddy) and Chris had distinguished junior and senior careers and were premiership players at the club. Paddy made the Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football league’s (MPNFL) Team of the Century and Chris was unlucky not to join him.
“He only played 98-games and you had to play 100 to qualify,” Garrett Snr said. “It’s a bit presumptuous to say this, but I think he would have made it as well.”
“Chris was the type of player who either won the league best and fairest or missed a full-season. He had two knee reconstructions and snapped his ankle in half, playing in a reserves grand final for St Kilda on the MCG. He was never the same after that.”
Garrett Snr took over the presidency of the club in 1985 and in a three-year stint presided over a remarkable three premierships, the 1985 flag is his favourite memory.
“Paddy won the best and fairest that year and Chris was best on ground in the grand final, at just 16,” he said. “He won six tankards and a dozen bottles of Courage beer, but he was too young to drink them so he gave them to me.”
These days Garrett Snr has his hands full with a club that has grown “20-times”, since he started on the committee in 1984. He is a thinker, launching the club’s welfare program on Saturday at a function for the Centurion’s Club, another of his initiatives that has been running since 1986.
Whoever it was that got Paul Garrett Senior to cut those oranges all those years ago, you’ve got a lot to answer to.
