It’s a warm March evening, and the boys from the Blackburn Football Club are warming up before their first pre-season practice match in the Eastern Football League’s Division 1.
As he does most Thursday nights during the footy season, Ron Eade is watching from the sidelines. The 81-year-old is known to all within the club by his boyhood nickname ‘‘Geeza’’, and has been a fixture around the place for more than 60 years. ‘‘I’m regarded as the oldest inhabitant in the club. There really aren’t many of my era around the club nowadays,’’ Eade says.
Growing up in Blackburn during World War II, Eade was one of six brothers who all played football for the Burners. He pulled on his boots for the club in 1944. ‘‘I was 15 years old when I played my first game for them. I lived in Blackburn, so the natural thing in those days was to play your football and your cricket in your own suburb,’’ he says.
Wearing his No. 3 jumper, Eade went on to play more than 300 games on the half-back line for the Burners for nearly two decades. He played his last game in 1962, retiring at age 33 in the seconds. But he kept a hand in the club, served as secretary for four years and is currently the longest-serving member of the seniors’ committee.
Eade and wife Maureen almost never miss a game. Last season the couple, who are preparing to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary, went to every match, bar one. ‘‘I’m there every Tuesday and Thursday, and then once the season starts I’ll be there every Saturday,’’ he says.
Eade’s devotion to Blackburn goes beyond footy. ‘‘I enjoyed my football of course, but I enjoyed the camaraderie in the club,’’ he says. ‘‘Almost everybody knows everybody around the place. You’re in touch with all the players. It’s very professional, but it’s still the local club.’’
Last season, the Division 1 team finished seventh. Like all losses, Eade says it was ‘‘heartbreaking. But then there’s the ups, and you forget about the downs when you’re up.’’
A few suburbs away, at rival EFL club Vermont, club manager Lee Bidstrup is also gearing up for the start of the season at the club he joined as a teenager. ‘‘When I walked into the place, I was only 15. I lived just around the corner from the ground,’’ he says.
He began playing for the Eagles in 1962 and went on to play 221 senior games. At just 21 years old, Bidstrup became the club’s treasurer. His father – who hadn’t been a Vermont supporter before his son joined the club – was president.
Forty-two years later, Bidstrup is still doing the job. In 1993, the club amalgamated the roles of treasurer and secretary, and appointed Bidstrup as a full-time club manager. ‘‘It covers everything from recruiting, sponsorship, the works. It’s full-on,’’ he says.
In his 46 years with the club, Bidstrup presided over a dream run. ‘‘I’ve seen 19 premierships, and 26 grand finals in Division 1. That’s more than one every two years. Most people would be pretty happy if they’d had one every 10 years,’’ he says.
Vermont also has the distinction of being one of only two clubs in the EFL to play all 50 years in Division 1, along with East Burwood, which Vermont they the will play in round one.
Last year, Vermont missed out on a finals berth for the first time in 24 years, but with new blood in the seniors side, Bidstrup says he is hoping to turn the club’s fortunes around.
For Bidstrup, the Eagles are much more than just a football club. ‘‘I love the place. It’s been my life. I’ve been there for that long it becomes a habit. And then it became a job. But I love the place and the people. I appreciate the enormous friendships I have had with people there for so long.’’
In the eastern suburbs, football takes on an almost religious devotion. Last year’s EFL grand final drew a crowd of 9000 people, says EFL chief executive Rob Sharpe, making it the biggest sporting event in the eastern suburbs. ‘‘On any given weekend, we estimate there are 40,000 people involved in our football whether they be players, coaches, volunteers, supporters, mums, dads, brothers and sisters,’’ Sharpe says.
Unlike AFL and VFL, the EFL maintains multiple divisions at junior and senior levels. Hence, at the EFL footballers can play their entire career at their local club, just as Eade and Bidstrup did.
This year, the EFL celebrates its 50th anniversary, and the game has changed dramatically over that time. Eade remembers: ‘‘The game was totally different. It was stop-go in those days. In those days, you’d take a mark, and then you’d go back and have a kick. These days you wouldn’t dare.’’
For the past decade, EFL’s top tier division has become steadily more professional and more popular. Now, EFL Division 1 teams routinely sign former AFL and VFL players and pay them tens of thousands of dollars a year to play.
Bidstrup says 50 years ago clubs were effectively run by the players, and it was not uncommon for players to be involved in administration. ‘‘It would be unheard of today,’’ he says. ‘‘Back then, the last thing anyone expected is to get paid for your footy. You played because you loved it. But now there is money involved. It’s a bit of a shame really, because I dare say the boys would still play because they love it, but the money complicates things.’’
He says now clubs must raise money through memberships and sponsorship deals to keep up. ‘‘The clubs are under so much pressure to raise money to be competitive in the competition to stay in Division 1. The fact is you simply have to raise a certain amount of money to make the wheels go around. That has been the biggest change,’’ he says.
Now, every Division 1 player signs a contract, and most players get paid, often more than VFL players.
But Sharpe says this does make the standard of football more entertaining to watch. ‘‘The calibre of the game is very high. It’s really quite spectacular and appealing to watch, with highly skilled and talented players,’’ he says.
But, as Sharpe puts it, the popularity of EFL isn’t just about the top tier football. What makes EFL unique is that the league maintains many tiers of football from Division 1 right through to junior games. In all, there are 44 clubs and 450 teams in the EFL, and a staggering 11,500 players each weekend. ‘‘There is a lot of levels of football for a lot of different people,’’ he says, ‘‘Even the best Division 1 football club has a whole lot of little tackers sitting underneath it. That’s what makes our clubs sustainable,’’ he says.
Many eight-year-old boys who join as juniors go right through into the seniors side and come back as fathers with boys of their own, and Bidstrup says EFL clubs give players the chance to play their entire careers at their local club. ‘‘That’s one of the excitements of a club like ours that is very community based; you get to see these young boys grow up. You see a whole person evolve,’’ he says.
Moreover, as AFL becomes more and more a multimillion-dollar business on a nationwide scale, EFL is bringing footy back to its roots, as a game played and watched by locals.
As Eade says: ‘‘EFL is really good football, but it’s also homegrown football. It’s the locals playing the locals. Even though a lot of players are imported, it’s still Blackburn versus Vermont, suburb versus suburb.’’
The first round of Eastern Football League’s Division 1 begins next weekend. For details, visit efl.org.au
Email a friend