Country club in focus: GEELONG Amateur Football Club

by PAUL DAFFEY

GEELONG Amateur Football Club: Bellarine Football League

FORMED

1926.

GROUND

The club played at Corio Oval, the original home of Geelong's AFL club, until it moved to the Queens Park Reserve, on the banks of the Barwon River in Highton, in 1957.

LEAGUE

Victorian Amateur Football Association (1926-82), Geelong and District Football League (1983-85), Geelong Football League (1986-88), Geelong and District Football League (1989-94), Bellarine Football League (1995- ).

OLD BOYS

Many clubs in the VAFA have originated as clubs for former students of a particular school. The Geelong Amateur Football Club was conceived in 1926 as the club for old boys of Geelong College and Geelong Grammar. In 1950, the Geelong Grammar component split from the Geelong Amateur Football Club and formed the Old Geelong Grammarians Football Club. Expectations that the new outfit would take players from the Geelong Amateur Football Club, which was based in Geelong, proved largely unfounded because Old Geelong was based in Melbourne, at Como Park in South Yarra, where it continues to be based. Over the three decades in which Old Geelong and the Geelong Amateur Football Club were both in the VAFA, the two clubs never played because the Geelong Ammos were always in a higher grade.

GUERNSEY

Historically, the Geelong Ammos wore plain sky-blue guernseys. In 1995, when the club moved into the Bellarine league, it switched to bottle green guernseys with a sky-blue yoke. The green is from Geelong College and the blue is from Geelong Grammar.

NICKNAME

While the club's emblem is Pegasus, the flying horse of Greek mythology, the club's nickname is simply Ammos.

MONEY MATTERS

After leaving the VAFA, the club retained its name but, like any other country club, it accepted the right to pay players. It now pays on an incentive scheme.

PREMIERSHIPS

1931 (VAFA, B-section), 1933 (VAFA, B), 1948 (VAFA, C), 1949 (VAFA, B), 1966 (VAFA, C), 1972 (VAFA, B), 1985 (GDFL).

VFL/AFL PRODUCTS

David Clarke (Geelong 1999-2003, Carlton 2004- ), Tim Clarke (Hawthorn 2001- ), Graeme Linke (Geelong 1971-74, Footscray 1977-78), Tony Malakellis (Geelong 1990-91, Sydney 1993), Spiro Malakellis (Geelong 1989-93).

FOUR BY TWO

The club's most decorated players are Ian Redpath, who won four consecutive club best-and-fairest awards in the 1960s, and Ian Davis, who won four consecutive best-and-fairest awards in the 1970s. Redpath was considered a certainty to break into league football at Geelong but he devoted most of his sporting energy to opening the batting in Australia's Test cricket team. Davis now coaches the Ammos' under-18 team.

FINAL HURDLE

In 2003, Geelong Amateurs went through the season undefeated before stumbling halfway through the last quarter of the grand final. Ocean Grove, beaten by Geelong Amateurs in three matches during the season, once again proved their finals credentials by recovering from a narrow deficit at three-quarter time to win the grand final by nine points. Geelong Amateurs president Bruce Harwood, a defender for two decades before retiring in 1998, said the loss devastated his club. "You have a bit of a sook and get on with it," he said.

FRESH START

Geelong Amateurs lost half a dozen key players over summer before suffering further blows when key defenders Heath Mooney and Tim Van Der Klooster, a former listed player at the Kangaroos, got injured and had knee reconstructions before the season. While benefiting from the inclusion of ruckman Lindsay Smith, a former teammate of Van Der Klooster at the Kangaroos, the Ammos have maintained their form mostly through the improvement of young players. Star midfield trio Ryan Curtis, Sam Clark and Ben Lavars are all teenagers.

RIPPING FORM

The Ammos capped their undefeated season by winning grand final against Ocean Grove at the Drysdale Recreation Reserve. The score was 18.9 (117) to 11.5 (71). The club is applying for entry into the Geelong Football League. Given its strength and stability on and off the field, the club believes it is ready for greater challenges.

This article first appeared in The Age.

4 October 2004

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