By JARROD POTTER
IT’S easy to look only at the big names when gazing back through the football history books.
Narre Warren Junior Football Club has its fair share of legends representing in flags, premierships cups, history boards and signed photographs decorating the walls at Sweeney Reserve across its 40-year history.
Brendan Fevola, Tom Scully, Trent Croad, Chris Newman and Matthew Boyd among other AFL players and the club’s inaugural Women’s AFL player Kara Donnellan.
But the Magpies are built on more than just their greatest successes.
It’s a club driven from the bottom up as players from across the area don the black and white stripes from under-8s all the way through to their final games as junior footballers.
From its first match, played in 1975 against Chelsea Heights, Narre juniors have been an integral part of the local football landscape.
Their jumpers say “40 Years Strong” this season and club president Daniel “Shorty” Shortis wants to ensure it isn’t just the past and current generations that experience that Narre strength.
“The club means – in my eyes – the absolute world to me – this place is my second home,” Shortis said. “I’m here as part of the legacy and also here to cement my own legacy on this place and just be there for the kids.”
The efforts of proud Narre contributors Brian Dickson, Jason Heard and especially Jason Quirk helped drive the recent success of the club and can’t be undervalued when looking back.
“Over the last 10 years, the person who kept the club going the most was Jason Quirk,” Narre Warren committee member Roger Johnston said.
“When the club needed him, he kept putting his hand up – he’d come back and say we need to get the club back and going.
“For the last quarter of this 40 years, he’d be the one who kept pushing the club – even when he stood down he was an assistant coach, coach and always in the background.”
Through successes and trying times alike, the club has stood tall and endured and will celebrate reaching its 40th anniversary with a Black and White Cocktail Party on 4 September at Amberlee Receptions in Cranbourne.
The club is set to announce on the night four Team of the Decade squads, life-memberships, club person awards and the Justin Dickson Awards – named for a Magpies’ player taken far too soon.
While the anniversaries and milestones are special, Narre Warren JFC loves to see the next generation come through most of all – sons and daughters of former Magpies returning to the nest and starting their football journeys.
“You see some of the kids who played together and they’re now dads standing on the sidelines watching their kids and it’s that legacy that we’re proud of,” Johnston said.
For more information on the 40-year celebrations, contact the club at www.nwjfc.com.au
