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Hoppers Crossing’s hometown heroes have completed their mission to become Football Federation Victoria men’s state league 4 west champions.
The Reds sealed the deal with a 2-1 win over local rivals Point Cook Jets on home soil at the Grange Reserve on Saturday, sparking wild celebrations at the Hogans Road club.
The construction of this premiership team has been years in the making, not brought together by some fat cat with a pie-in-the-sky dream and big cheques.
The overwhelming majority of the players were born into the Reds – and will now forever remain in club folklore.
“We’ve got 13 or 14 players that played juniors here winning a title and there’s not that many clubs in Victoria, even Australia, who can boast those numbers,” Reds captain Kevin Smart told Star Weekly.
“You’ve got eight or nine players who won the championship two years ago and then the new boys who played juniors here and won their first ever senior title here.
“So many of the players’ dads and even granddads played at this club.
“You’ve got generations that are ingrained in the club and we’ve all connected for years.
“I’ve won titles for other clubs, but this doesn’t match, you don’t have the same camaraderie that we have as a club.”
The Reds were slow out of the blocks with Smart putting it down to “a bit of nerves” and a Jets opponent with intentions of spoiling the party.
A goal to John Little calmed down the Reds and they returned to playing the kind of football that has seen them become the runaway ladder leader since day one.
Little, who returned to the club this season after a stint with the Yarraville Glory, got in behind the defence and produced a searing left foot strike for the game’s first goal and a half time lead.
The Reds doubled their lead early in the second half when Khalil Assaad got played in behind the defence and slotted a left foot strike.
It was a crucial goal because the defence could not totally keep Point Cook off the scoresheet when they halved the deficit midway through the second half.
The Reds held on for dear life and Smart was ecstatic that Little and Assaad were the players who scored the championship-confirming goals.
“To see the two boys that scored today, it was sweet,” Smart said.
“They’ve worked hard all year to try and maintain their fitness, going to personal trainers, going to physios on a Monday morning, going to physios on a Tuesday night after training, the two boys did deserve it.”
The sweetest part for the Reds was being able to clinch the title on home soil.
Ken Smart, the father of Kevin, Alister and Steve, a former national leaguer with Green Gully and premiership winner at the Reds, spoke of the importance of getting the job done in front of your home fans when he addressed the team ahead of the big game.
Interestingly, it was the first time in a senior game that all three Smart brothers had been on the field at the one time.
“He’s won five titles – four were away from home – and he said the only one that felt really sweet was winning it at home,” Smart said.
“It makes it that little bit more sweeter because you’ve got your home crowd, family, friends, committee members, ex-players, thirds players, I coach the 16s and we had seven of them come along, a couple of the 15s, we’re enjoyed it as a club together.”
The Reds belted out a rousing rendition of the now customary winners song ‘champeone’, led by one of the team’s biggest supporters Brenton Ray.
They celebrated in style too, with a number of players renting out a city penthouse for the weekend.
It was a chance for the players to let their hair down after coach Alfonso Opazo and assistant Gus Dos Santos had put them through the rigours at training in recent months.
“Fonz and Gus have been putting us through hell at training,” Smart said.
“It shows that hard work wins you championships.”
