POPULAR football icon Billy Brownless brought his famous wheel of prizes to Ararat last week in a bid to make up for negative comments made about the region by his Footy Show colleague James Brayshaw.
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Mr Brayshaw's comments about Ararat were aired on the Channel Nine program during a segment featuring The Nationals' candidate for Ripon and local identity Scott Turner.
"I was disappointed by comments made on The Footy Show about my home town of Ararat," Mr Turner said.
"I am passionate about this town and I think it is a great place to live."
To apologise for the 'misunderstanding' Mr Brayshaw organised for Billy Brownless to visit Mr Turner's home club the Ararat Rats with his wheel of prizes.
The night attracted about 120 people and saw the club walk away with $4000 in prize money.
Ararat Football-Netball Club president Bill Bell said Mr Brownless did a great job of engaging the crowd and keeping them all entertained.
"It was a great atmosphere and it was fantastic to see so many of our young players at the club come along, they were all pretty excited about it," he said.
"I was pretty proud of James and The Footy Show for following up after those comments were made and it gave an opportunity for a bit more exposure for Scotty's campaign and also with the local government's Ararat Active program.
"The Ararat Rural City Council provided a gift bag to be sent back to James Brayshaw to invite him back to town and experience some of the best things the region has to offer."
Mr Bell said the club's committee would discuss in the coming weeks what the prize money would go towards.
"We haven't decided exactly what that will go towards just yet, but a possibility could be putting it towards continuing to develop our culture in some form," he said.
"We had programs come along this year like 'You The Man' (anti-violence against women) and we have other things like that that I am interested in doing next year as well."
Mr Bell acknowledged the members of the Ararat Football-Netball Club who volunteered their time to help make the night possible.
"I'd like to thank all our volunteers and club people for banding together and helping to make the night a success on such short notice and those that came along and supported it," he said.
"Also Robby Lister who painted a big James Brayshaw portrait which was used as a handball target, all in a bit of fun and Harvey Norman which provided a big screen TV for the night."
