General News
3 January, 2026
A jumper, a memory, and a homecoming
ON grand final day in 1975, when Ararat stunned fancied premiership favourite Stawell to claim the Wimmera Football League flag, a young man named Bruce Olver played his part in a comeback that is still spoken about half a century later. The coach was Wilf Dickeson. The final quarter surge was fearless. And when the siren sounded, Bruce did what footballers have done for generations — he swapped jumpers with his opponent and mate, Stawell’s Jike Jones. Fifty years on, that jumper has found its way home.
In a quiet but deeply meaningful gesture, Jike has donated Bruce Olver’s Ararat jumper to the Ararat Football Club, where it will be displayed above the bar at the Alexandra Oval Community Centre. Not as a trophy, but as a tribute.
Bruce’s life was tragically cut short in 1977, less than two years after that grand final, at the age of 21.
For those who knew him, the years have not dulled his presence.
“I was extremely surprised, but extremely excited,” Wilf said of the moment he learned the jumper still existed.
“I reckon my first thought was that it should be framed and put somewhere in the club if we could get permission, then I thought, before anything else, I should see Tina, to see if she wanted the jumper for the family.”
That visit would become something far more emotional than anyone expected.
For Tina Gibson, Bruce’s sister, the jumper carried the weight of a lifetime.
“I was kind of prepared, but I was more overwhelmed than anything,” Tina said.
Holding the framed jumper was like holding time itself.
“It honestly felt like Bruce coming home,” she said.
“We were really close. I more or less mothered him, spoiled him a bit. So it meant a real lot.”
Tina said Jike had once offered to return the jumper years earlier, but she had refused.
“I told Jike that Bruce would have wanted him to have it,” she said, “And he looked after it, he kept it good.”
So when Wilf arrived with the story of the jumper’s return, the feeling was overwhelming.
“As I said, it just felt like he’d come home.”
For Jike, the jumper had never been just another keepsake.
“We were mates,” he said. “Even though we lived in different towns, we knocked around together. I played a lot of basketball with the Ararat boys.”
After moving to Melbourne for 25 years, Jike returned home to find a bag full of old football jumpers.
“My young bloke went through them,” he laughed, “A couple of Wimmera ones went out the door, but Bruce’s jumper always stayed, I always knew it was there.”
When Jike finally tracked down Wilf in Ararat, the moment was pure football theatre.
“I was walking down the main street when he jumped out of the car and said, ‘Hey Wilf, I’ve got Bruce Olver’s jumper,’” Wilf recalled.
Wilf coached Bruce for the final three years of his four-year senior career and remembers him as far more than just a talented footballer.
“He was exceptional, he rarely missed games and he kicked plenty of goals,” he said, “But more than that, he was the glue of the team.”
“He was always at training, always vibrant. He always had some quirky little thing going on.”
One training session still makes Wilf smile.
“We brought a soccer ball out one Sunday, and Bruce said he’d show us his heading skills,” he said.
“He got down on hands and knees and started heading the ball along the ground, we were all laughing.
“That’s the sort of bloke he was, that’s what made players want to be there.”
Tina remembers that same spirit at home.
“He was a larrikin and he’d do anything for anyone,” she said.
“We always had friends around, every Sunday there’d be heaps of people — Mum and Dad encouraged everyone to come home rather than sneak around.”
“I don’t think he ever had an enemy, everyone admired him, he was just a down-to-earth guy.”
Bruce was gifted across sports, including football, basketball, swimming and tennis, but it was how he made people feel that endured.
Soon, Bruce Olver’s jumper will take its place overlooking the room where Ararat footballers, supporters and families gather.
Not as a relic, but as a reminder that some players never really leave their club.
