By Brendan Rees
He’s the well-known Collingwood cheer squad supporter every rival footy fan loves to hate. But there’s so much more to Jeff “Joffa” Corfe, the larrikin who became famous for his iconic gold jacket.
He opened up about his rocky childhood after speaking to members of the Rotary Club of Narre Warren at Fountain Gate Hotel on Wednesday 23 October.
Joffa’s father was a drunk and his mother, who suffered from mental illness, was a violent and “nasty” woman.
Joffa, one of four boys and three girls, remembers his mother picking up an old kerosene heater and throwing it against the wall in an attempt to light the house on fire.
“We were lucky to get out alive,” he recalls.
His mother, who was a Collingwood supporter, would often blame her children if her team lost.
“There would wither be a cold bowl of soup or a hunk of tripe (stomach lining of farm animals),” Joffa says. “You would be dry retching every time you put this tripe in your mouth – that’s how foul it was”.
At five, Joffa was sent to Allambie boys’ home in Burwood after his mother was sent to a psychiatric hospital. He attended Victoria Park in Abbotsford in one of his first outings with volunteers where he met some “wonderful ageing Collingwood ladies”.
Joffa would move back and forth from his East Preston home but at 14, he was kicked out of home by his mother. He remembered banging on the door, pleading to be let back in, only to be told to “p***s off, you’re not wanted anymore more”.
He quickly learned to fend for himself on the streets of Melbourne while he slept in abandoned buildings and pinched food to survive.
He found comfort with another homeless youth as they agreed to “look after each other” until he took his own life at 16-years of age.
Joffa lied about his age when he went for a job at a plastics factory before moving into a boarding house that reeked of urine and faeces.
He continued to watch Collingwood play at Victoria Park which he says “quickly became a home for me”. Joffa rose to fame when he began wearing his gold jacket during footy games in 2002.
For the past 19 years Joffa has helped the homeless as a welfare worker with the Salvation Army, and is also an advocate for epilepsy awareness as his daughter lives with the neurological condition.
Today, to the surprise of many, Joffa says he will be moving to Fiji next year and won’t be attending any more footy games.
“I’ve been to many Grand Finals, I’ve seen two premierships – I should’ve seen three, magnificent crowds on Anzac Day, weekends, what else is there for me to see? … When you barrack for Collingwood you see it all,” he laughs.
Joffa’s story is featured in his new book, Joffa: Isn’t that life? He’s sold just over 4,000 copies and all money raised from sales goes towards the Epilepsy Foundation.
At the end of his presentation, Rotary Club of Narre Warren presented Joffa with a $500 donation for the Epilepsy Foundation.
