Virginia meets Kilburn in amateur football tribute match

BRAD Robertson expects to play before a bigger crowd than any other pre-season game when he captains Virginia Football Club in a tribute match for his late mum Kerry Robertson.

BRAD Robertson expects it to have a different vibe and a bigger crowd than any other pre-season game he has experienced.

Virginia Football Club will play a trial each year against Kilburn for the Kezza Cup, named in honour of Robertson’s mum Kerry Robertson, who died unexpectedly of unknown causes on Christmas Day, aged 52.

Robertson will captain Virginia in this year’s inaugural game at Kilburn Oval on March 14, while Kerry’s nephew Scott Galbraith will skipper the Chics.

“It’d mean a lot to her,” Robertson, 24, says.

“There’ll be a lot of people, that’s for sure ... and we’ll have all the family there.

“(Her death) was a big shock, especially on a day like that – Christmas morning.

“It’s good to celebrate her life.”

Kerry’s closest link was to Salisbury North Football Club, where her husband Richard Robertson chalked up more than 500 games and brother-in-law Greg Galbraith played more than 400.

But in recent seasons, she became a fixture at Virginia, watching her son.

Greg Galbraith, now an assistant coach at Kilburn, says he wanted to ensure the contribution of his sister-in-law as a passionate football fan and supporter of her husband’s and son’s sides would be remembered.

He estimates between 400 and 500 people were at her wake at Kilburn Football Club.

“I rang up Virginia and said, ‘we’d like to put on a cup for Kezza’, and they said that’d be fantastic,” Greg Galbraith says.

“Her boys Brad and Jason were everything but she loved everyone.

“She always had a smile on her face and she loved life.

“Hopefully every time we look at the cup behind one club’s bar we think of Kerry.”

The B grade will start at 6.30pm before the A grade kicks off at 7.30pm.