Big Reds bounce back from the brink with amazing 50-goal effort ahead of home final
LAST year this suburban footy club was on the cusp of extinction after having to withdraw its senior sides on the eve of the season. On the weekend it posted the highest score of the Adelaide Football League season.
LAST year Para Hills footy club was on the brink of extinction after having to withdraw its senior sides on the eve of the season.
On Saturday, the club completed a Lazarus-like return, kicking a half-century of goals and the Adelaide Football League’s highest score of the season.
The Big Reds kicked a monstrous score of 50.30 (330) to annhilate neighbour North Pines’ 1.2 (8) in a Division 7 match, including 17 goals to zip in a barnstorming last quarter.
Club chairman Scott Charlton said the score was well and truly a club record.
“I’m not sure what it was (before), but it was in the 30-goal region, not the 50-goal region,” he said.
The score ranks as the equal 25th highest in the history of the Adelaide Football League, and the largest score since the 2014 season when Blackfriars OS created a ridiculous new record for the league with a 71.34 (460) obliteration of Angle Vale 5.1 (31) in Division 6.
To cap off a day of club records, Big Reds full forward Shane Hanson booted 22 goals and overtook Lutheran’s Thomas Kowald to pinch the division’s goalkicking trophy.
“He actually kicked 22.4, which is impressive in itself,” Charlton said.
The Big Reds will take the form into a qualifying final against Mitchell Park at their Paddocks home ground this weekend after finishing the season in second spot. Its B grade side will play the curtain-raiser after finishing third.
Charlton agreed it was a huge change in fortunes for the club which this time last year was scrambling for survival.
After winning the Division 5 flag in 2015 the Big Reds were set to elevate to Division 4 in 2016 when officials had to make the call on the eve of the season to pull the pin.
“It was quite hard to deal with,” Charlton said.
“It’s not one or two things, probably 10 to half a dozen things all happened at once to create that. Players retiring, coaches leaving, some poor appointments. We just lost a lot of momentum and unfortunately, that’s when the snowball effect happens.”
Charlton admitted the club established in 1974 was close to folding, and it was only through the efforts of a loyal troop of officials – including blokes such as premiership-winning coach and former North Adelaide, Fitzroy, Brisbane and Geelong talent Scott Bamford who is back on the park at age 43, and “still going very nicely” – that it was able to put two sides back on the park this year.
“We were lucky we were able to get our stuff together in a year, if we left it another year it would have been gone forever,” he said.
Under league guidelines, the Big Reds had to resume in Division Seven this year, but Charlton is confident the club is on the rise.
“It’s certainly been all positive since then. We’ve got really healthy numbers and we’re looking to field a C grade side next year,” he said.