By Mikayla van Loon
Lilydale over 50s football players will next year be represented in the AFL Vic Metro Masters League after the club received its acceptance earlier this week.
Having been pushing and preparing for this for over a year, leadership team member Mike O’Dwyer said there was lots of groundwork but one thing that helped the team’s application was its charity match called One Hot August Night to raise funds for the Black Dog Institute.
“We’ve been seeking a community level groundswell of interest for about a year and a half to two years now and we put our application into the Masters in August of this year,” he said.
“At the AGM on Monday night (5 December), they ratified their decision to include us in the competition.”
Mr O’Dwyer said this inclusion in the Vic Metro competition offers the Lilydale Football Club a “wonderful opportunity” to embrace more people and provide people with the ability to play footy.
“Having a master’s team in it’s really about including a much wider group of people and the fantastic opportunity for us is that in our demographic, playing sport is only part of that,” he said.
“The reason we do it is because of the sense of connection. It’s about providing positive role models, positive experiences and support networks for the people working with mental health. It’s about having a sense of identity, and an overall purpose.”
Currently the outer eastern suburbs are underrepresented in the Vic Metro Masters competition, which means this will benefit the broader region in the Yarra Ranges.
“Certainly for this geographical region there isn’t a whole lot of masters footy played out this way over 45.
“So, this is a great opportunity for the wider community, up to Coldstream, Woori Yallock, Yarra Glen and all sorts of other places in between to actually have an opportunity for men who might have thought their playing days came to an end in their 30s to think again in his 40s and 50s and come and join a program of association and community.”
While the Eastern Football Netball League (EFNL) does offer a veterans over 35s playing opportunity, Mr O’Dwyer said the good thing about AFL Vic Metro is the breakdown of age groups.
“What we’re looking to do is leverage the full Masters opportunity, which is playing at 35, 45, 50s and there’s even a 55s competition.
“So our view is that your playing days shouldn’t be as intense as they were when you’re in your 30s but they shouldn’t be over either.
“It’s the opportunity to get out and do some exercise and continue to play a game that you might have loved your whole life. That’s what Masters footy is all about.”
Focusing on launching the 50s team for 2023, the club has already had a good response from players who are interested but Mr O’Dwyer said they are always looking for more players.
“We’re looking to see multiple teams out of Lilydale and now that we’ve got approval to join the League, definitely we’re looking at a 45s, a 50s and a 55s in the coming period.”
Having had the option to begin a standalone team outside of any club Mr O’Dwyer said to have been embraced by the Lilydale Football Club as they have, has been really grounding in getting to this point.
“The culture and the community and some of the individuals at the Lilydale footy club are just really high quality people and we’re very fortunate that the club said, ‘yes, we’d welcome a Masters team and we welcome you in our community’.
“We’ve had nothing but great support from them and are really quite humbled to be part of that community. That’s really important and a great bedrock for us to build on.”
Moving forward, while the vision is to be successful on the field, Mr O’Dwyer said he also hopes the Lilydale Over 50s Falcons becomes a network of support and mateship where people “feel welcomed and encouraged to be part of it.”
For more information contact go to the Lilydale 50s Falcons Facebook page.
