1974 was a defining year for me as far as my footy went. I had made the decision to play for Pines firsts and nothing was getting in my way. Not even school. We had a small hockey oval at school and as soon as the bell went a handful of us would got to the oval and have a 3 a side game. Every night. Never missed one. We would play for an hour then it was down the road to footy training. It consumed me really.
Playing interleague that was a buzz too. With it being my first year of footy I didn’t expect to play in it but was rapt. Met some neat kids from other clubs including Greg Lane, Matt Wall and Andrew Hammond from YCW. Shit, could those guys play footy. Laney and Matt went on to play VFL footy with StKilda and Richmond which surprised no-one.
I was lucky enough to win the best and fairest that year which only spurred me on and I could not wait for next year to arrive. I would finally be a part of the senior club as the under 15′s were the Fourths but I got a massive kick in the guts over summer when the league decided to drop the 15′s back to the junior league which meant Sunday games again. It wasn’t all bad though as the opportunity of my young life was to later come along.
1975 pre season came with our coach being Pines legend John “JL” Lillico. I am not sure of the circumstances but JL got the arse early on and Bob Verity took over. Training consisted of giving Bob the absolute shits as much as we could. It worked. Poor Bob. Had a heart of gold. We had a fairly average side again ( No wonder with our training regime), and while I was playing OK, I would get easily frustrated at times and lose the plot. I was my own worse enemy at times and looking back I was a dickhead but could put some it down to the fact that I had to be a winner and team success was sparse.
Luckily the coach of the Under 17′s, Neville Eccles, did not think I was a dickhead. He asked me early on in the year if I wanted to play under 17′s as well. BINGO. I was in. I went down to training the first night and got the biggest fright of my friggin life. These guys were huge. Grown men nearly. Most had beards and tattoo’s. Some had even been in jail. I shit miracles and was definitely over awed by them. Making matters worse was the fact that they had a heap of players with 4 or 5 usually missing out on a game each week so when this skinny 15yo walks in and gets a game there was a bit of angst among parents etc.
To give you an idea about the type of team we were was when we were to play Morning Star Boys Home in a practice match. Now these guys were in a boys home for a reason and I for one was not looking forward to playing them. They were criminals after all. Let’s be honest. Imagine my relief when Neville was talking to us about it and warned us that their players would probably target us for violence. From the back of the room came the voice of Mark “Ferret” Patching who reassured us all that nothing would happen as he knew most of them and would word them up before the game. Ferret obviously spent some time there which was handy. Neville asked if anyone else knew the boys from Morning Star. Six hands shot up into the air. I had mixed emotions. For one I wasn’t going to get maimed in the game but the flip side was that a third of my team mates were hardened psychopathic serial killers.
We had a great side. Our Captain, Simon “Goppy” Andrew was great. Goppy would play for his school on Saturday morning then rush home and play for us. Great player. Big Cuddles, Gary Gagerio. He was a huge man. Big and strong and never, ever gave up. Herbie Smith at Full Forward kicked 100 goals for the year. John Eyres was another huge dude. Just kept getting the footy and would most times give to our gun player Steve Scagliarini. Geeze, could Scags play footy. Won the league B&F and club as a first year under 17 player. He was unstoppable. I was tucked out on a forward flank for the year and did quite well. We won the premiership that year beating YCW ( It was at this stage I started despising them. Put into perspective, they had some terrific guys but as a club they sucked. I guess because they were successful lead to this attitude.)
Another bonus was that we played before the firsts so watching them and Burkey especially was a buzz each week. I got to know a few first guys which was great. They got beat in the Grand Final the same day as us winning so it was mixed emotions. My lasting memory of the firsts GF was Turk Saunders totally decapitating Hamilton from YC ( Who was an absolute champion player. Won a league B&F).