FOOTBALLER

CONTINUED - John Larkins on EDFL Life Membership
“We had a big day there for a Douttas game, which was
very much a local derby and viewed with great interest by
the memberships of both clubs.
“Anyway… I was called into the League on the Tuesday
night following that and fined $500 by Reg Rose. So it
wasn’t much of a start.”
For the best part of two decades Larkins has seen
community footy grow from what he called a “cottage
industry” and become what is best-described as
semi-professional.
“I always say to people … you need the passion for it but
you also need to be pretty hard-headed about it, too,”
he said.
“There’s a role for passion but there’s also a role for
objectivity, so that’s where I’d like to think we’ve gone from,
as indeed the whole of the EDFL has.
“To be strong on-field you need to be very strong off-field,
and today as you deal with players who are coming out of
a professional environment, the environment you’ve got to
provide for them is totally different to what it was 12 or 15
years ago.
“Even if you look at something as simple as trainers. When
I started with senior footy we had one trainer, now we’ve
got the whole back-up group, there’s a Monday night rehab
session, there’s physios … it’s lightyears from what it was.
“Not that I didn’t love it and I’m not disrespecting anything
that was happening then, but for someone who’s played
AFL footy, when they come into your environment, they
may not expect the world. But it’s got to be something at
least semi-professional for you to really get the best out
of them.”
For the past decade and a half, Larkins has observed
with admiration the rise of Greenvale – who under the
leadership of Bruce Kent has grown from a battler to a
proven EDFL powerhouse.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Larkins’ Aberfeldie was
barely surviving relegation.
In that time, he watched as Strathmore, Maribyrnong Park
and Greenvale dominated the old A-Grade competition.
“Everything has gone up, including your training costs,”
Larkins explained.
“For us, it has certainly been a response to the
environment. We could have sat and, not so much given
up, but just treated the whole thing as beyond us.
“I’d been president then for seven or eight years and I
thought we’d either drop off and stop doing this, or we
actually have a dip, and that’s just a response to
the environment.
“We had to respond if we were going to become a club that
was respected.”
Three Grand Finals and one elusive trophy later, Aberfeldie
finally sits atop the EDFL tree and now its long-suffering,
yet profusely driven president is an EDFL Life Member.
“I was very proud and very moved by it, it was a surprise
that night,” he said of his induction.
“I was really greatly humbled by it, because it’s in my DNA,
community sport, particularly football.
“I absolutely love it at this grassroots level because at
the end of the day, any contribution you make at this
level of footy really has the capacity to affect society and
community in a way that perhaps the big end of town don’t
really get.
“You’re making a difference, potentially, to people’s lives.”
THE FOOTBALLER – The Essendon District Football League Record www.essendondfl.com.au 11 11