GREAT Western Football Netball Club is gearing up for one of the biggest finals appearances many around the club can remember.
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2019 will be the first time in 14 years since the Lions' senior football team has played in a final.
"We haven't won a final game with a senior football team in 21 years," president Tracey McCartney said.
"The last senior premiership we won was in 1983 in the Ararat and District League.
"That year, we won seniors, reserves and B Grade netball."
Heading into the finals series with the senior football team are the reserves football team and four netball teams.
"We're excited to have our under-15, under-17, B Grade and C Grade teams all make finals," she said.
"Our other teams just missed out which was a shame but it's a fantastic effort from everyone involved."
The last netball premiership the club was involved in was an A Grade premiership in 1990.
Mrs McCartney said people have short memories and the negative comments about the club's success were laughable.
"It wasn't long ago we weren't in a position of winning and it's been a long time between finals campaigns for a lot of our teams," she said.
"We are the straightest club in the league. We are an open book. There is nothing underhanded going on and it's an insult to those who have worked so hard to get to where we are.
"I can honestly say that. We've built the club up from when we went into recess until now. It's taken a lot of hard work and effort from those who are passionate about the Great Western Football Netball Club and the wider community."
Football operations manager Matthew Delzotto echoed the sentiments of Mrs McCartney.
"I run a pretty tight ship in terms of what we're doing and where we are at," he said.
"I consistently update our financial situation within our football department because we're not going to run the risk of tainting any success we have because of a financial situation.
"It's quite disgusting people think and say we are buying a premiership. The number of hours that are put in by several people within the football department to build a quality program is countless."
The past some may have forgotten
Great Western Football Netball Club members voted in August 2010 to move into the Mininera League from the Horsham and District League after issues with player retention and travel.
Great Western's Dale Hurley, a committee member at the time, remembers the process clearly.
"Decisions which were made at the time were focused on the travel time placed on players and families," he said.
"Another major consideration was our volunteers were dropping off.
"It's nothing against the Horsham and District League but the standard which was set made it hard to get volunteers.
"They were striving to run a really professional league and there were little incidences where sanctions were being put on the club for volunteers not wearing the correct attire.
"It heaped the pressure on the club and the volunteers - but ultimately it came down to player retention."
The club's application for the move was denied by the league.
Victorian Country Football League rules stipulate a club had to wait two years after an unsuccessful application transfer to reapply for a transfer.
Great Western appealed the decision with the VCFL.
"We submitted a 28-page report around our concerns which still stands true to this day," Hurley said.
"We've seen players involved in the club from the Southern region of the state. This includes players going away to study.
"Everyone was prepared to come home and the furthest they would have to come home would be to Great Western to play football."
Mr Hurley said he was most disappointed with certain personnel who were involved at the time.
"I feel, our application wasn't listened to," he said.
"A process was followed - a decision was already made. I say that because 10 minutes after the annual general meeting started, where our appeal was to be considered, I got a phone call to say that our appeal had been rejected.
"I'll give everyone the benefit of the doubt the report could have been read before they got there.
"That report was read, discussed and a future of a football club was decided within 10 minutes."
READ MORE: 2010 - Great Western to remain in HDFL
The Great Western Football Netball Club could not apply to join the Mininera and District Football League until the 2013 season.
Mr Hurley said the club had no other option but to move into recession.
"I received a phone call the day after we announced the recession from one of the people who were present at the meeting where our appeal was denied," he said.
"He told me he couldn't believe the situation was so bad we needed to go into recession.
"I blew my stack. Everything that was said in the 28-page report has happened and I couldn't believe people were surprised.
"It proved to me we weren't treated seriously at the time and as a result, our club's future suffered."
Looking back to the time of despair for the club, Mr Hurley said he would admit the thing he learnt the most was there was an entire netball contingent part of the club which wasn't given the consideration it deserved.
"They weren't strong, but they were certainly viable, particularly at a junior level," he said.
"I personally didn't give enough consideration to those junior netball teams which were filling full sides.
"That's the one thing I've really learn about the process, and reflected on.
"We get so caught up in with a focus of success of football within clubs - and it's not."
Mrs McCartney said because the Lions went into recess, the club wasn't eligible to apply for a special exemption, enabling it to re-apply next year.
"After we were denied to move in the Mininera League the were not able to form an executive at the annual general meeting and were forced to fold," she said.
"We reapplied in 2011 and the VCFL stepped in and assisted us in getting into the Mininera League and played our first season with the league in 2012."
It was a successful move for the club and secured the reserves football premiership in 2013.
Mrs McCartney said at the time she was a member of the general committee and the work which was done behind the scenes spurs her on in her current role.
"Everyone knows the work which the late Rodney Matheson did back then," she said.
"A power of work was done behind the scenes by a lot of people and the wider community.
"Rodney would be beside himself to know of the work which was going on now and the success the club was achieving both on and off the field."
Mr Delzotto was a footballer at the time of the recession and said during that year he went and played some games at Moyston-Willaura.
Already played over 200 club games for the Great Western, Mr Delzotto said after the recession it was about building the culture of the club again.
"It was about building a club up to be a place where people wanted to come and play football and netball," he said.
"As our records show, it was tough times. It took a long time to build it up to where it is today - a place where people feel proud to call it their football club and have the backing from the town.
Mr Delzotto joined the committee in October 2016 to help develop the club and "fix" the football teams.
He said he felt like it was his turn to stand up and do "his bit" - the club was too important to too many people.
"I saw there was a definite need to be better organised and better structured and a lot of time and energy needed to be spent building that environment," he said.
"There were things that had to be done and I had ideas on how we could execute the areas we needed to improve on.
"I thought we either needed to completely fix our football department or the club would probably die.
"We'd had a really difficult season and there were indications player numbers would be falling in the short term and we were going to struggle.
"The past was the driving factor. I grew up around the club and I wanted a club to be around as somewhere I could go and watch football in the years to come."
READ MORE: 2017 - Great Western set sights on fresh start
Netball co-ordinator Amy Hurley said she can remember a time when every Friday night was spent trying to get players.
"It was back in the Horsham and District league days," she said.
"We would call around to try and get players to field teams and use player vouchers so girls could play on a Saturday."
Mrs Hurley said a turning factor for a lot of people within the club was when they had children themselves.
"You want them to play for a club within their town, and a successful one at that," she said.
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"That's been my drive. To make sure we had a future for our juniors and to give them something to be proud of.
"We want our players to have the success that players are experiencing at other clubs in the region."
Great Western was granted an exemption from the competition in 2017 and didn't field an A Grade team.
"We didn't have enough players strong enough be competitive at an A Grade level," Mrs Hurley said.
"We knew something had to change - we only had 12 months to collect ourselves and start the process of re-building the netball division."
Forward vision for continued growth
In 2018, committee members took the chance to start a program with players of the Tiwi Islands.
The club has three committed Tiwi Island players, with others expressing interest to join the club in the future.
"If we continue on with the relationship and the opportunities for the Tiwi Island players the committee has decided to introduce a player-manager to organise and coordinate all the arrangements for the players," she said.
"We want to build our relationships with the players and ensure their welfare is a priority while they are with us.
"We're all volunteers and share the load where we can for all the roles and jobs at the club."
Mr Delzotto said the forward vision for the football department was to continue to grow the relationship with the Tiwi Islands and have already had its sights set on players for next season.
"The football world never sleeps," he said.
"Especially at a local level, you need to be consistent right across the board.
"I guess though with the position we are in we need to take a moment to enjoy the success.
"We aren't going to rest on our laurels and say the job is done. It's not the business we are in.
"When we started the journey to build the club to sustain success our vision wasn't just for the period that we would be in our roles but success for years and years to come.
"By no means is that journey done and there are still things we want to put in place for the future of the Great Western Football Netball Club."
Senior coach Will Bell said his strategy and agenda has always been development.
"I remember when I first came to the club and had an interview it was flipped," he said.
"I asked a bunch of questions, I wanted to know as much as I could about the football club before I took on the role.
"I thought I had the expertise to help bring the football team back up the ladder and help with development across the board."
Bell said after accepting the job, he started recruiting straight away.
"I didn't really know what we had because I hadn't been at the club," he said.
"I relied on others to help identify players we were needing.
"It really took a season to get a gauge on how the football club worked. What players we had and the ones who were going to commit and those who we could put time into to help grow and develop them into senior footballers."
Bell said after the initial 12 months, he felt there were some big "in-roads" starting to be made.
"We knew what we needed to go get, we knew which positions we were lacking," he said.
"We also knew what we could develop within our own four walls.
"We could see the improvement. Not with wins, but closing in score margins."
Bell said he thought the introduction of really strong core values off the field was a key influence to the ongoing success of the club.
"Players really starting committing to them," he said.
"Recruitment has become harder as players can be bound to clubs by bits of paper.
"We have been pretty strong in our recruitment and gone out and chased pretty hard for the players which we are needed.
"Players want to know a lot about the football club when you are going to meet them."
Bell said when he looks over the team list for the year 18 of the 21 players have played at Great Western Football Club at some stage throughout their careers.
"Some of these guys might have moved away for work or whatever but have returned to play at the club," he said.
"I've heard a lot of backlash that we've gone all out and recruited guys from everywhere.
"But in reality, the only three guys on our board which aren't local are our Tiwi Island players."
It has been three years of determination on the netball courts which has created a strong bond between the players and resulted in steady growth for the teams.
"We've really started to push our juniors to strive to be better and be the best player they can be," Mrs Hurley said.
"Our aim is the finals. We want them to experience the reward from putting their heads down and trying really hard every week.
"It's about building a succession plan for our future senior netball."
Mrs Hurley said the results speak for themselves.
"The first year we just missed out on our teams making finals," she said.
"Last year we had three junior teams into finals.
"This year we set the bar really high and had finals in our sights. We have four out of six teams make the finals and the other two only just missed out."
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