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CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT RURAL AND REGIONAL SERVICES AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE Inquiry into country football Melbourne – 31 May 2004 Members Mr M. P. Crutchfield Mr R. G. Mitchell Mr B. P. Hardman Dr D. V. Napthine Mr C. Ingram Mr P. L. Walsh Mr J. M. McQuilten Chair: Mr B. P. Hardman Deputy Chair: Mr C. Ingram Staff Executive Officer: Ms K. Murray Research Officer: Dr V. Koops Witness Mr T. Hafey (sworn). 31 May 2004 Rural and Regional Services and Development Committee 1 CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT The CHAIR — Tommy, I know you have been here for a while so I will not read out that statement. For the purposes of the transcript, will you provide your full name and address? Mr HAFEY — Thomas Stanley Raymond Hafey, but known as Tommy Hafey; 1/40 Marine Parade, St Kilda 3182. The CHAIR — Thank you very much for giving us your time today. If you would give us your presentation and then we will ask questions. Mr HAFEY — What I do is go around to schools. I have been to Monbulk today. I speak on loving your parents, non-drinking and non-smoking. I talk strongly about playing sport and I talk about handling rejection. That is one of the things I do. I do 55 000 to 60 000 kilometres a year in my car. I also take football training all around the country. So I would see more of these places than anybody in Australia. Listen to these: Alvie, Macorna, Bessiebelle, Catani, Ellinbank, Rennie, Nirranda, Noradjuha-Quantong, Pimpinio, Cora Lynn — I have taken training in every one of them. They have not got a general store, but have a football-netball club. Hear what I am saying? I am all over the place. Last week I was at Gladstone Park; this week I am at Hampton Park. Then I have Birregurra, Buchan — I was down at Cerberus, Lake Boga, Lake Bolac. You name it, I have been there, so I see and understand it. It hurts me when I see football struggling in a lot of areas. Obviously because of the way the farming is, and also country Victoria is, it is a bit of a problem in as much as a lot of sides are disappearing. I try to encourage everybody to get back to the local football. I was at Chiltern only two weeks back. I try to encourage people, not only the players, but also the older folk if they can get down and help. Because the unfortunate part about it is that a lot of the people who run the football clubs have very little business sense. It is difficult to get people to work at football clubs. Most of them are truck drivers or they work on farms and they have to try to raise a big dollar. They knock off work to carry bricks, if it comes to a point, don’t they? I think it is pretty tough on them. This will give you an indication of the way I feel about it: I was doing a sportsmen’s night down at Portland with Crackers Keenan. An old fellow said to me, ‘Tommy, since our little football-netball club at Yambuk closed down’ — which was five or six years back at that stage — ‘I have not seen my next-door neighbour. I see his car whizzing down the highway’. The football-netball used to bring everybody out. People do not understand that. The AFL would not understand it. The unfortunate part of it is that the AFL, the government and the council give them nothing and, as you know, they are trying to raise a dollar, which is a tough job. Maybe the football clubs did the wrong thing. Instead of having it tribal, as it used to be, in their haste to win a premiership they brought in players and stuff like that and some of them just cannot compete. They are never going to raise a dollar to buy in big-name players. Some of the players are running around on $1000 a week — do you realise that? How can little clubs even be opposition to clubs like that? I can remember doing a night up at Ballarat and saying to a lady, ‘Who do you barrack for?’. She said, ‘Football — don’t bring it up. I can’t stand football. I hate football’. I immediately ignored that so-and-so for the rest of the night. I turned to her middle-aged daughter standing next to her and I said, ‘Why would you hate football? You don’t have to be a fanatic, but you’ve got to have a football club’. It is very un-Australian, it’s very un-Victorian if you haven’t got a football club. I said, ‘But do you realise’ — I am ignoring this lady, talking to her daughter and her husband — ‘in football-netball there is no race, colour, creed? There is no rule for the rich and a rule for the poor? It does not matter what school you went to, what car you drive or what size house you live in, when you get down to the ground everybody is an equal’. I said, ‘The camaraderie, the respect, the friendships that you make in football, the life disciplines — hey, they’re there forever, aren’t they?’. I can remember I was doing a night at Beulah up in the Mallee, with a 300 population. An old fellow came rushing over. He said, ‘I used to collect your garbage down in St Kilda’. I said, ‘What are you doing in Beulah?’. He said, ‘I retired, bought a house — $30 000. I’ve never been a football person, but I am now. I’ve got 50 new mates’. What a great way of putting it. And that is the thing I try to create — people turning up and helping out. But it is one helluva fight. When you think of all the clubs that have disappeared, do you know that only last year a Sunday paper said that 100 teams, I think, had disappeared in the last 20 years? Here is a little map of Ouyen United. Ouyen United is down the bottom; there are 22 clubs gone to make up Ouyen United. Did you realise that? There used to be an entire competition; now it is one team — and struggling at present. But that is not only Ouyen; that is everywhere. I 31 May 2004 Rural and Regional Services and Development Committee 2 CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT can remember I was up at Woomelang and I stopped at a beautiful property — 6000 acres and the wheat was this high. The farmer has three children — all in Melbourne. They do not want to work there. He has to hire in people. And that is the unfortunate part about it because we are losing them. I am not a great lover of the under-18 competition. I think that is against what football is all about. They are taking people away who should be playing for their own little team. I was up at Robinvale last year and I asked, ‘Who played league football from your little club?’. There have been five in the 100 years the club has been going. Would you believe they had five players down with the Bendigo Rebels? I rang the lady — the secretary-president — before I came here today and she said two of them returned, but the other three are a loss to football, they do not even play anymore. The under-18 competition is for the elite. I guess the AFL is saying that is where it is putting its money in, but that is not really country football. They are more or less doing it for the real elite and a lot of those lads never play football again. I remember I was down at the Sorrento pub and I spoke to a lad who was about 6 foot 4 inches, a big strong-looking boy who used to be at Oakleigh Chargers. I asked him who he is playing for now and he said he does not play anymore — he is 22, 23 years old. When you think about it, the expectations are so high. A lot of these lads think they have been a failure once they do not make it. Do you know where I am coming from? They do not play football anymore and I think that is one helluva shame. Those five lads from Robinvale — none of them made the draft and only two of the five went back. That happens wherever I go. I think it is most disappointing. As I say, I try to encourage people to be active. I go to a lot of places talking to older folk, trying to get them up off their backsides and to be active along those lines. I suggest to them to go down and help out the football clubs as much as they possibly can. One interesting point is country zoning. Do you remember when country zoning was in? We used to have our players go out to the local footy clubs. Every one of the teams had a development officer — we had Kevin Sheedy. He spent the entire day going around the schools all around the Richmond area. He could not go up to Mildura a great deal because it is a long way away and he had his football, but that was our country zone. I would say that twice a year we would send every player out on a Monday or a Wednesday night to go to little football clubs.