Sponsors’ day at Kyabram Football Netball Club turned into a whole lot more for two of the Bombers favourite sons on Saturday.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
While most of the sponsorship cohort was being wined and dined upstairs, celebrated player and premiership coach Paul Newman, along with four time premiership ruckman Jake Reeves, were right in the middle of the action on GV Creamery Oval.
Reeves, director of one of the club’s major sponsors Livic Underground Construction, told close friend Newman he was keen on playing in the reserve grade game — asking the former champion goalkicker to join him.
Newman obliged to the request of his former teammate by also pulling on the boots, and they led the team to a 59-point victory against Tatura.
Newman is an executive with the M&S company that is a long-time sponsorship partner of the Bombers.
While cutlery and glasses clinked well above in the confines of the sponsors’ day event, which had Federal Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell and former long-time parliamentary figure Damian Drum as special guests, they dominated the game.
Newman kicked five majors and Reeves two, almost half of the 15 goals scored by the Bombers in the victory.
Mr Birrell offered his thoughts to the 75 sponsors assembled at the invitation of KFNC president John Guinan by saying the government funding model hadn’t yet evolved to the level of the Kyabram club.
“Here at Kyabram, and at several clubs, there is a strong partnership between the football and netball teams,” he said.
“Unfortunately, in NSW at least, that is not something that has been matched. My friends from NSW don’t have the same integration with netball and football.
“That is then reflected in a lot of funding decisions, where netballers may not be considered in the distribution of funds.”
Mr Birrell said if there were more places like Kyabram around the country in sport, celebrating the relationship between male and female sport, then it would be a positive step.
“Girls getting changed in cars or behind sheds should not be a part of modern clubs,” he said.
For the last couple of years Mr Birrell has travelled throughout his electorate to train with football and netball teams, visiting almost 40 clubs in that time.
“The running is harder with the football, but the reflexes are harder with the netball.
“I haven’t been bopped on the nose by a netball yet, but there have been some near misses,” he said.
Mr Birrell has trained with both Kyabram netballers and footballers, at the request of a staffer (and dedicated Kyabram FNC volunteer) Tawnee Vocale.
She is the netball operations manager and heads up the social committee.
Mr Birrell did mention his father was a former best-and-fairest winner with Tatura, so his allegiance on the day (Kyabram was playing Tatura) was slightly split.
“Today I am going for Ky,” he said.
The weekend was also an anti violence round, and before the first bounce of the senior football game, netballers and footballers were involved in a short ceremony.
Mr Drum spoke about his days as a player with Geelong Football Club (63 games and 34 goals in eight seasons), as coach of Fremantle (53 games for a 13-40 win/loss record in 1999-200) and at the Bendigo Diggers.
He quit football and was voted into Victorian parliament in 2002. After more than a decade as a Northern Victoria representative he won the Federal seat of Murray (which later became Nicholls).
He retired from politics at the 2022 election, clearing the way for Nationals compatriot Mr Birrell to claim the seat.
Mr Drum, who is originally from Congupna, was later in the afternoon going to watch his former club play (along with former Kyabram star Kyle Mueller).
He said he had a memory of playing at Kyabram during a pre-season match, but hadn’t been back to the ground on a match day in some time.
He is now involved in three different boards, with the Shepparton Golf Club and with an early childhood education board through the Sandhurst Diocese.
He is also about to join AFL Victoria in a board capacity, recruited by former Essendon Football Club president Lindsay Tanner.
Tanner is also a former politician, of the Labor Party variet, who was finance minister in the Russ and Gillard governments for a four-year period.
He is the current chariman of AFL Victoria.
As for the works at Kyabram Recreation Reserve, in particular, the Wilf Cox Community Centre $3 million upgrade, Mr Birrell said the recent $11 million funding of Victoria Park was a pointer to the positive mindset of the government in this space.
Ironically, however, Mr Birrell and Mr Drum both agreed that the two clubs that have the worst facilities in the electorate were their former clubs — Murchison-Toolamba and Congupna.
Kyabram Free Press and Campaspe Valley News editor