Goon boys over-exposed

By Melissa Grant
A CALENDAR featuring 12 of Nar Nar Goon’s finest bachelors is creating a frenzy around the country, with women from South Australia to South Gippsland hunting down copies.
The success of the Nar Nar Goon Men of All Seasons calendar also has brainchild Tom Hallinan preparing to launch a dating website for “country blokes”.
The dating calendar, first featured in the Gazette, includes photos and profiles of a dozen eligible footballers from the Nar Nar Goon Football Club, and recently featured on Channel Nine’s Today Show and 11 o’clock news bulletin.
Mr Hallinan said the boys were enjoying their 15 minutes of fame.
“It’s just inflated egos – they’re lucky to get their footy jumpers over their heads,” he joked.
“Actually they’re pretty laid back; they take it in their stride.”
No dates have eventuated since the calendar’s June launch, but Mr Hallinan said plenty of the lads had received text and facebook messages from interested lasses.
So far about 130 copies of the calendar have been sold and a facebook group dedicated to the project has more than 400 members.
The calendar cashes in on the town’s woman drought – according to 2006 census statistics, there are 12 single 30something men for every woman of the same age in the railway town.
Mr Hallinan said the interest the calendar had sparked had come as a surprise to those featured in it.
He said women in South Gippsland, Lakes Entrance, Ballarat and South Australia were among those to snap up copies.
“These women have been able to find out how to get one even though there was no direct advert in the television segments,” Mr Hallinan said.
“It’s really been six degrees of separation in terms of them hunting them down.”
Mr Hallinan is now planning a dating website purely for country bachelors. “It will eliminate metropolitan metrosexual blokes – we will pitch it as a medium for country blokes to get themselves out there,” he said.
He hoped the website would generate a series of meets and greets across Victoria.
In the meantime, women wanting some country bloke action can buy the calendar at various outlets including Cactus Black, Flowers by Jo and the Nar Nar Goon milkbar.
“It can be used either on the back of your toilet door or as a gift,” Mr Hallinan said.
Proceeds from the calendar will be split between the local CFA, prostate cancer research and the guys’ end-of-season footy trip.