I have worked for the Werribee Football Club for a decade and have long realised the impact its highs and lows have on the people of Wyndham.
In the past three years, when the club has been knocked out one week short of another grand final appearance, you can feel the disappointment in the town’s streets.
The Werribee Football Club is the major sports club in the area. Last Saturday night, nearly 400 people gathered to celebrate its first 50 years and acknowledge the first inductees into the club’s Hall of Fame.
There were people from all walks of life, from different ethnic backgrounds, different socio-economic groupings and certainly from different professions.
The Werribee Football Club is the melting pot of the city, as it should be, but when you walk through the door everyone is treated the same and everyone is equal. The club could easily be just about football but it has always been about a connection to the people and the community of which it’s a part.
The club has three people working in its community development area, which is hands-on into schools, junior football programs such as Auskick, and introducing the game to the newly arrived citizens of Wyndham.
The football area is a pathway for local kids to try to be the next Michael Barlow, Dale Morris, Kyle Hartigan or Ben Brown.
Not everyone can achieve that, but everyone who pulls on a Werribee jumper is given every possible resource and assistance to be the best they possibly can.
Last Saturday night brought home to all in attendance just what the club has meant to people like Eddie Marriott, Kerryn O’Brien and John Comben, who were elevated to Legend status.
Hall of Fame inductee Simon Atkins summed it up beautifully on stage when I asked him about the highs and lows in his time at the club: “Kev, there were only highs. There are no lows when you are involved in a great club like Werribee. I found a home here.”
