The hard work of members of the country football community has helped Trent Rothall
MARK Rothall pauses, doing the sums in his head. Adding all the footy club fundraisers from Kingston to Kaniva and Adelaide that have helped make life easier for his oldest boy.
MARK Rothall pauses, doing the sums in his head. Adding all the footy club fundraisers from Kingston to Kaniva and Adelaide during the past 18 months that have helped make life a little easier for his oldest boy.
“Ahh, it’d have to be over $200,000,” Rothall says. “There’s an account there — we’ve already had to spend a fair bit as you can imagine.
“This one night we had a major fundraiser for Trent up in the school gym. Phil Carman came down, Peter Walsh from the ABC, Neil Sachse was here.
COMPLETE GUIDE TO COUNTRY FOOTY SEASON
“We had auctions, they put on a band. That night raised 95 or 96 thousand alone. So, yeah, it’s amazing actually.”
And suddenly Rothall’s stance makes sense. Why this cray fisherman insists he owes bush footy even though 20 months ago, while he and wife Jacqui decorated the Kingston clubrooms for their son’s 21st birthday, a freak football accident stole young Trent’s ability to walk.
“But Trent, I don’t know how, but he just accepts it,” Rothall says.
“Never complains, never gets nasty. He’s just the same fella.”
Ever wondered what bush footy really means? Why it matters? Forget the rumours of high-paid imports, the mergers and the stories of clubs going under.
Because it’s here in Kingston, home of Larry the giant lobster, 1500 people and a community built on winter Saturdays that refuses to say “Sorry, no more”.
Trent Rothall damaged his C4 and C5 vertebrae in a tackle while playing for Kingston Saints in the Kowree-Naracoorte-Tatiara Football League in July, 2012.
Today, he has no feeling from chest down but can move his shoulders and has just enough mobility in his arms and hands to use a computer mouse or an iPhone.
As yet, the strength to grip a pen or a knife and fork remains a work in progress. A tendon transfer operation in Melbourne three months ago will hopefully, in the next year, start delivering results.
So, the Rothalls wait. And South East footy keeps giving. Keeps turning up to fundraisers, buying raffle tickets, throwing gold coins in tins, to help raise the cash for operations, travel, or for the Kia van that topped $80,000 to have it customised for Trent’s motorised chair.
“Robe have been really good as well, Naracoorte, Bordertown, so many places have helped out,” he says. “That’s probably the beauty of country football. Even the opposition teams know about Trent and they’ve been doing a lot of work.”
Like last year, for example, when two Year 10 students from Kaniva — 170 clicks and a border crossing up the road — arranged to rattle the cans by setting a new world record for high-fives made in a minute as part of a school project.
So at half-time on grand final day, Trent’s younger brother Henry — now an A Grade player himself — made a dash across Lucindale Oval that slapped 400 hands and raised $4000.
It’s gestures like that which have the Rothalls wondering what they’ve done to deserve the unreserved support.
So too, the visit from former GWS coach Kevin Sheedy when Trent was in Adelaide’s Hampstead rehabilitation centre and the Giants were in town.
Sheedy, a champion for bush footy and regular guest speaker at Mail Medal nights across the state, has vowed to headline another show in Kingston later this year.
“Kevin rang us here a while back and said ‘I really want to get down your way and do something’,” Rothall says. “We’ll do it through the football club but the money raised won’t just go to Trent. The clubs and the communities have been so good over the last 12, 18 months, they just haven’t stopped raising money for Trent.
“You get to a stage where you feel, not so much guilty, but a bit too humbled. You feel as though you want to give something back.
“When functions come up now we want to make it not just about Trent, we want everyone else to be involved. And with Kevin there, yeah, it should be a good night.”