HAMPTON PARK Football Club will hold a 50-year reunion of its first premiership side in 1959 in the clubrooms on Saturday 20 June starting at noon prior to the clash with CRANBOURNE. This was the first of five premierships in a 10-year period for the powerful Lyndhurst Hampton Park Football Club as it was known as in those days. The side included South West Gippsland Football League best and fairest winner Merv Brown, together with HPFC team-of-the-half-century members Jim Flynn, Frank Austin and Alan Flynn.
Unfortunately the club has been unable to locate team members Alan Finck, Lindsay Hutchinson and Tony Amore, however organisers are hopeful that at least 12 of the surviving members of the side will be in attendance on the day. If anyone has a lead on the missing players or requires more information they can contact David Talbot on 0408 058 097.
WHILE MPNFL rover Paul Minchington twanged a hamstring in the football, there was only one serious on-field casualty from Saturday’s inter-league games with gun DOVETON netballer Vanessa San Jose breaking her ankle in the A Grade loss to the WGLNA. However that did not seem to faze the Sharks netballers after the game as they gave the bar staff a serious workout with their league-supplied drink tickets. Each player received a five-drink card to be used in the social rooms after the match, and while that seemed enough for the boys, the girls were soon searching for more and one even tried unsuccessfully to pass off a blank ticket with ‘drink’ handwritten on it as the night went on. Not only that, late word suggests that someone tried to use an errant drink ticket at local nightclub Blitz later that night!
THE VCFL District League had an emphatic 68-point victory over the VAFA (C1-D4 Divisions) on Sunday at Barooga in wet and slippery conditions. The VCFL led throughout the game and finished all over their opponents. Three EDFL players, NEERIM NEERIM SOUTH’s Chris Urie, WARRAGUL INDUSTRIALS’ Shane Brewster and NILMA-DARNUM’s Kael Bergles represented the team and all impressed. LANG LANG’s Kurt Batt was an emergency but did not get a run. Urie played as a ruck-rover and was voted best player by the VAFA. Brewster spent time on the interchange bench in the first half and when introduced played on ball, to be among the best players in the second half. Bergles was lively around the big sticks, kicked two goals including a wonderful left foot snap in the last quarter.
Other names familiar to local fans who played for the VCFL team included former GIPPSLAND POWER captain Stephen O’Bryan and his former KILCUNDA-BASS team-mate Ben Fraser.
SEVERAL Casey Cardinia League players have certainly not endeared themselves to inter-league selectors with their lack of enthusiasm for the concept this year. One bloke in particular was mentioned by an MPNFL official as a player who might have shot himself in the foot big time. According to our man he was contacted by a member of the coaching panel to seek his interest and responded by saying, “What would I want to play that s… football for?”
Maybe it might be better than some of the rubbish his team has produced to date this season!
PRIOR to Saturday’s VCFL challenge game there was talk of the biannual rivalry inter-league match being set aside for players 23 years old or under. However that concept was not supported by the WGLFL and that was the end of it. However, after the weekend’s belting by a slick and significantly younger MPNFL combination, that attitude might undergo a rethink in 2011.
ONE player to quietly change clubs in recent weeks is ex-CATANI on-baller Luke Nobelius. Nobelius was recruited by the Blues from BULN BULN over summer to help bolster their running brigade but after playing the first four games he was dropped on the eve of the round five clash against his old club. He promptly applied for a clearance back to his former club and has not missed a beat since. Another player to leave Catani in recent weeks is robust backman Glen Hall, who has been cleared to MULGRAVE.
ONE notable absentee from the weekend’s inter-league festivities was PAKENHAM ruckman Jeremy Everett. A Lions source suggested that the big bloke had other things on his mind over the weekend as he was seeing his girlfriend for the first time in five months. She has been in at University in China and had a break so they organised to catch up, but there was one catch – the big bloke had to fly to New Zealand to do it. Aahh, the price of love.
AND still on the affairs of the heart, spies tell us that MPNFL Sharks under-18 captain and Pakenham Gazette Young Gun nomination Nathan Page has a pretty good source of football advice quite handy to him thanks to his off-field relationship. The youngster, who has been tearing it up for BERWICK this year, is said to be very thick with his better half Talia, who just happens to be the niece of former HAWTHORN champion and current VCFL senior coach Peter Knights. Knights, who was an interested onlooker at the Toomuc Reserve on the weekend, would have approved at the way Nathan handled himself on and off field.
THIS weekend will see the biggest home-and-away game of the year so far (and probably of all) when DOVETON travels to PAKENHAM to decide outright top spot. The Doves are just hoping that star spearhead Danny Casset is on his game this week, as opposed to the last time he pulled on the boots. The reason for that is that they were someone else’s boots. Casset apparently rocked up to play against TOORADIN without his gear and had to borrow his whole kit prior to the game.
“He only kicked two goals but he wasn’t our worst and it wasn’t a bad effort given he has size 10 feet and had size seven boots on,” said one Robinson Reserve spy.
HOW the mighty have fallen. NYORA’s average losing margin this season is a massive 97 points, which not surprisingly is the worst in the league. Both Nyora and the bottom-of-the-ladder ELLINBANK are yet to record a victory. Interestingly, the Saints will meet the Bankers in round 11, which should be a crackerjack affair for all the wrong reasons. The Saints were minor premiers and runners up in 2005, and were then back-to-back premiers in 2006 and 2007 and finalists in 2008. The personnel the Saints have lost over the last few seasons has been quite staggering and includes former coach Dean Alger, Nathan Osler, Chris and Brad Langley, Rory Gilliatte, Fiatupu Too Too, Brad Miles and Corrie Wilson among others.
NAR Nar Goon is expecting a big roll-up to its Calendar Launch and Cocktail Night at the clubrooms on Saturday, following the Kooweerup game, when the 12 buffed beefcakes who surrendered to Tommy Hallinan’s urgings are revealed to the public. The calendar, featuring a dozen hot ‘dates’ from the Goon, was conceived to cash in on the perceived man drought in the area. Tickets to the night, at $20 a pop, are available on the door and the calendars sell at $25. Proceeds are split between the charity, the club and the boys’ end of season trip away.
WGLFL president Brian McKenzie presented TRARALGON legend Greg Morley with league life membership on Saturday.
While the pocket dynamo needed 300 games to officially qualify, he played 291 in the league and another two seasons for the Maroons when they played in the VFA, thus being recognised for his service.
Morley represented the league 25 times, the VCFL representative side 16 times, won eight senior premierships, six club best-and-fairest awards and three league Trood-Rodda medals, along with three Stan Aitken medals for best-on-ground in senior grand finals.
Now that’s a phenomenal record!
GIPPSLAND Umpires Association has announced a new major sponsor in Gippsland Secured Investments Ltd, or GSI as it is known. Within a few weeks all field, boundary and goal umpire uniforms will boast the GSI logo with the sponsorship deal lasting three years. GSI are one of the largest finance companies in regional Victoria and provide mortgage finance for development, investment, residential and rural projects that benefit the Gippsland community.
