Giffin Park, the home of the Coorparoo FC, sits 4km south of Brisbane’s CBD and was the destination for a hundred or so aging ex- footballers and supporters celebrating not just one premiership, but the history of an iconic Qld sporting organisation.

The club has had it’s difficult times having been excluded from the QAFL from 1993 but have now returned. It has a brilliant junior and women’s programme and most importantly seems to be financially flush.

That wasn’t the case when I turned up as a naïve 20 year old Army aircraft mechanic based two hours west in Oakey. The previous year’s coach, former Saints and Melbourne legend Carl Ditterich, had sued the club for unfair dismissal and wiped the books clean.

I was told I would be paid $150 a game but by the time I finished up in 1996 and headed to Melbourne, I had receive about $300 in total.

In 1985, a cashed up Southport offered me $500 a game. The decision was two-fold. Take the cash, or stay with the biggest bunch of rag-tag, talented bunch of team mates I’d ever met. It was a no brainer.

I liken CFC to North Melbourne FC in terms of culture. Close to a capital city and an interesting dichotomy of people from all walks of life.

North with its homelessness, artists and underworld figures in the 80’s accompanied with its deplorable facilities at Arden St has miraculously won four flags and produced some the game’s greatest players and characters.

When I left the army in July 1986, I moved in with my dear friends Karl and Liane in East Brisbane, walking distance from Giffin Park.

Next door was a pornographic movie cinema and occasionally we would sit out the front of our house and watch the parade of dirty old men shuffling towards their grimy destination.

Thankfully it eventually became an arthouse cinema after an overdue rigorous clean.

The town now is barely recognisable. The beautiful old Queenslanders and eclectic timber houses on stilts, built to avoid potential flooding, were once cheap to rent. All that has changed and is now gentrified and very expensive.

Our team over that three year had that magical blend of intelligence and reckless ‘numb- skullery’. Regardless of where you came from, your IQ, your values or beliefs, CFC was a club that embraced everyone, that is unless you were a dickhead.

I won’t bore you with the litany of events I witnessed and participated in over the three years but rest assured no one got hurt. You definitely needed a thick skin that’s all I’ll say.

Before leaving for the reunion I wrote a few words down and spoke on the day. It’s not The Gettysburg Address but a few of the locals have requested I type it out so here it is and I’ll add some photos from the day and the 1986 GF.

G’Day Everyone,

If you don’t remember me as a footballer, you may remember me as the QAFL Batchelor of The Year for 1984 as judged by Jane Smart in The Grand Final Edition of The Footy Record.

That was 42 x years ago but for me, that was about 30 x kilograms ago. The years haven’t been too kind.

After Coorparoo, I ended up playing senior footy for 19 x years in 4 x states, then coached for 12 x years in 3 x states.

I coached at VFL level, Bush Footy and spent 4 x years with an intellectually disabled footy team in Melbourne.

In all my experience working and playing in these diverse environments, I’ve never met a bigger bunch of lunatics than I did during my 3 x years at Coorparoo.

A few years ago I wrote a story about the 10 x best players, I played with between 1984-1986.

Although Dunstall (Jason Dunstall)  and Gibbo (Michael Gibson) were brilliant and were deservedly drafted, I didn’t have them in my top 2, much to Jason’s disgust.

The two I picked epitomised Coorparoo at the time.

Our club was a cauldron of young, talented locals and a bunch of nomads from WA and Vic, who were intent first and foremost, on having a good time.

My #2 best player was Greg Page, in my humble opinion the most naturally gifted Qld born player I ever saw. He was also the laziest and most complacent, but as soon as he crossed the white line he was a psychopath who terrorised opposition forwards.

His battle with Glen Middlemiss in the 86 GF was worth the price of admission alone and probably won us the game.

My #1 best player was Gary Becker. A bony, super talented forward from Bacchus Marsh, whose exploits off the field were probably more legendary than his footy.

If you were lured into Becker’s web of intrigue after a game, you could forget about getting home before daylight.

The rest of us didn’t need much encouragement mind you. Becker was merely a Pied Piper leading a group leading a willing but naïve group of field mice into his extra-curricular world of bars and clubs.

Some of those regular participants were Tim Kenna and his cousin Spider (Stephen O’Keeffe), Andy Colenso and Kelvin Millar (both trouble with a capital T), our runner TOK (Terry O’Keeffe) usually accompanied with Lou Csinski and the late great Gary Stenhouse, also The Coach (Laurie Pendrick) and Derek Delaney both often got caught up in Becker’s matrix and were constantly in trouble with their respective wives.

It was a strange but exciting time because we kept winning. As much as the boys trained hard and took their footy seriously, it was never at the exclusion of partying.

Glen Hutcheson, Mick Lenehan and Darren De Brenni lived in a former brothel, a stone’s throw from the old porno cinema. I always wore gloves when I visited them.

Between 1984-1986 our social club was chockers on a Sunday night and when everyone had had enough to drink, Lozza would put together his pretend band complete with mops, broomsticks and garbage bins for instruments. It looked like a special needs concert.

The 1986 flag holds a special place for all of us I’m sure especially because we hated Southport.

For whatever reason we produced our worst performance of the year in the Qualifying Final, losing to Southport by 98 points. Two weeks later and a totally different team turned up and stunned those wankers in white with a 104 point turnaround. Quite extraordinary when you consider the high priced talent Southport had.

Because I lived in Toowoomba in those days, I could only train on Fridays but the players and club always felt like home to me and some of those friendships have continued to this day.

Kezel (Kevin O’Keeffe) has been organising lunches in Melbourne for the past few years and they are always a hoot.

We have had some special guest appearances from Kel Millar, Lou Csinski, Pagey, Des Lee and former Morningside hard man Jeff Hann. Even former WCE/Fitzroy/Brisbane madman Mark Zanotti crashed a lunch. Dunstall always appears from his 30th storey ‘Sniper’s Nest to join us, the great unwashed, and loves to reminisce also.

A few years ago, Werribee FC where I played for 7 x years in Melbourne, invited a few old 1993 premiership players to have a chat to the current crop.

My premiership coach Donald McDonald got up and said something very profound (which was very rare for him 🙂 ) and it was spot on

He said, “When you finish playing, you realise that footy isn’t so much about premierships (although they are a ‘nice to have’), but more importantly it’s about the people you meet along the way.”  Never a truer word said.

I just want to send a massive thanks to Evan Findlay and everyone involved in putting today together. Thankyou Coorparoo for the wonderful memories. I am forever grateful.

Two versions of the premiership photo and pre-game photo:

 

1. Laurie Pendrick & Brett (Butch) Jones (c) 2. Stephen (Spider) O’Keeffe & umpire Murray Bird, a Coorparoo Junior along with his 2 x brothers and the first Qld umpire to make an AFL list. Also a brilliant writer.  3. Kelvin Millar spoiling, backed up by Kevin (Kezel) O’Keeffe.  4. Butch and Kezel  5. Greg (Pagey) Page and Glen Middlemiss in a typical contest. 6. I waited my whole life to take a Malcolm Blight speccy and although this looks like it, over the top of my nemesis John Millane, I duffed it. So glad the photo was taken at that precise moment!  7. L to R at our 1986 presentation night. The late Brendan McMullan, Jim Menzies, Me, Mick Lenehan, Darren De Brenni and Glen Hutcheson. The local Vinnies did a roaring trade that week!

 

Evan Findlay and his wonderful volunteers have created a superb past players room filled with amazing memorabilia going back to the 1930’s

 

Evan asked if I would donate my 1984 premiership jumper which I was more than happy to do…just had to get it surgically removed first.

 

1.  (Standing L to R) Terry Simmonds, Spider O’Keeffe, Butch Jones, Des lee, Terry O’Keeffe, Gary Becker, Mal Thompson, Greg Page, Laurie Pendrick, Me, Michael Gibson. (Kneeling) Tim Kenna & Kelvin Millar.

2. Tim Kenna, Gary Becker, Spider O’Keeffe

3. Greg Page, Wayne Clarke, Me, Kezel O’Keeffe

4. Greg Page, Me, Kelvin Millar (note the empty plate)

5. Butch Jones, Me, Derek Delaney

 

Finally a photo of Jason Dunstall in the 1984 Grand Final v Morningside.