The Ardmona Bush Cats will have one of their biggest ‘wins’ this week – by simply taking the field
Rivals voted them out, the playing list had shrunk and there was no money to be seen. Then came Shane Crawford. This is the story of the Ardmona Bush Cats.
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The Ardmona Bush Cats haven’t won a match in almost 2100 days, but regardless of what the scoreboard might read after Saturday’s season-opening home game, the locals will still see it as one of the greatest victories in the club’s 100-year history.
This isn’t a story of wins or losses; it is about survival, hope and an unwavering community spirit.
Having used up most of their nine lives in a winless streak stretching back to the middle of 2015, the battling Bush Cats were pushed to the brink of extinction after a series of crushing defeats, including a 401-point flogging in 2019.
Rival clubs voted them out of the Kyabram District Football League; their financial coffers were empty; their playing list had shrunk to a point where many players had to get through eight quarters a week just to fill the seniors and the reserves teams.
Seemingly all hope had been exhausted.
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That could have been the end of the Ardmona Football and Netball Club, but for the welcome intervention of former Hawthorn great Shane Crawford and a band of loyal locals who refused to give up on the dream of reviving the club.
Crawford will coach the Bush Cats for the first time on Saturday against Violet Town at the club’s home base, nestled in the middle of the local orchards.
He helped the club regain admission to the league in late 2019 and agreed to take over as coach, which was delayed by COVID in 2020.
“I went along to watch them play a few games (in 2019) and when I saw them walking off the field with their heads bowed, I thought ‘I’ve got to help them’,” Crawford told The Herald Sun.
“I know the area well. I’m familiar with how important footy is for country towns such as Ardmona. If you take footy away from these guys, they won’t go to another club.
“They would have been lost to the game forever.
“There was a lot of talk about how we needed to keep the club alive for its 100th season (which was meant to be 2020). But this isn’t about one year.
“I just wanted to help Ardmona get back on its feet and hopefully that means they will be around for another 50 or 100 years.”
The Herald Sun was invited to attend Ardmona training this week as the Bush Cats prepared for their first game of a season they feared might never have happened for them.
There is a sense of renewal about the football and netball clubs.
Training numbers are up, the junior numbers are solid again, and there is an overwhelming sense of optimism after so many tough seasons.
The football and netball clubs share the reserve. The netballers are grateful some of the extra money raised by the new sponsors – mostly organised by Crawford – helped to resurface the courts, even if they still train under car lights now that daylight savings is over.
Crawford had no shortage of offers from ex-teammates and good friends to play for the Bush Cats in an effort to end their painful losing streak.
But he stressed that he didn’t want this famous old club to be a drive-in, drive-out team.
“It would have become a false footy club if we had done that,” he said.
“This had to be a local’s club, even though we will bring in a few players from the city to help with the numbers.
“Unfortunately, over the last couple of years, the club hasn’t been good enough on or off the field. They were the easybeats and were really struggling financially.
“The people around the club have done a lot of work to change that. I am just here to try and connect it together a bit.”
Crawford has brought in new sponsors, liaised with the local league, worked with key Ardmona officials including club president Tim Magann, vice president Penny Browne and treasurer Teisha McCoy, as well as worked on building some team unity.
One of his Melbourne “recruits” is a bloke who used to tag him back in his AFL days, former Carlton tagger Anthony Franchina, as well as Olympic pole vault gold medallist Steve Hooker, who had given up on his dream of playing senior football as a late teenager.
Crawford said: “What I love about footy clubs is how they bring people together from all walks of life. We’ve got so many great characters here at Ardmona.
“We’ve got some of the biggest and strongest Indigenous players I’ve ever seen; we’ve got guys who work in the abattoirs; we’ve got guys who work on farms and the local sawmill.”
Crawford coaxed veteran Ardmona player Tim Keegan – whose family connections date back to the birth of the club – out of retirement to lead the Bush Cats once again.
He had been chaired off after his last game in 2019.
Now, at 40, his career – and the club’s future – have both been revived.
“Words can’t really describe what the club means to me,” Keegan said. “I’ve lived in Melbourne for 15 years, but I’ve always come back because it feels like home.
“I also wanted to be a role model for my son (13-year-old Malik), to show him that you don’t have to go and chase glory. You have to stay loyal.”
Ruckman Charles Jackson, who plays alongside his brother Beau, said the club was hoping for a better future under Crawford.
“Some of the losses were brutal,” Charles Jackson said.
“We never gave up … I was busting my butt trying to get it done.
“But I love the game and I love these boys.
“The vibe here is great now. Crawf has been good for us.
“We are on the right path now and the boys coming up from Melbourne have been unbelievable. If we end up having a win, we’ll be over the moon.”
Tim Magann, known affectionately as ‘Plugger’, doubles as the president and a player who has played more than 250 games at all levels.
He says not many of them have been in the first side, but he is part of the heart and soul of Ardmona.
“I’ve been here since I was 16 and the footy club means so much to me,” Magann said.
“I was on the committee a few years ago and it was going to fold if I didn’t take the job on.
“The losses were devastating, but we didn’t have the players.
“In that 400-point loss, we only had 14 players, and seven of those had already played in the reserves.
“We were gone (in 2019), but we’ve come back from the dead.
“The club is already 10 times better than it was.
“Crawf is an absolute legend of a bloke. We won’t let him down.”
Crawford said he had been “blown away” by the commitment of those involved, pointing to the passion shown by 42-year-old Justin Arrowsmith, who was so captivated by the Ardmona comeback story that he wanted to be a part of it.
Arrowsmith drives three hours each way from his Bayswater home to Ardmona twice a week – to mow the grass, work on the ground, paint the scoreboard, prepare new seats … and hopefully to don the boots for the first time since he was a kid in Auskick.
Justin’s mum Helen said her son – who has had a speech impediment since he was two – had come across the Ardmona story by chance and simply wanted to help out.
“You shouldn’t have favourites as a coach, but Justin is clearly my favourite,” Crawford said.
“He is what community footy is all about.
“He has a dream of being able to play a game of senior football and who I am to stand in the way of his dreams. I would love to help him do that.”
Crawford’s “city boys” are no less interesting, with Hooker edging closer to his first senior game of football after giving up the game as a teenager.
Hooker told Herald Sun: “The vibe at the club is so good. There is such a positive bunch of people involved in the club that it would be a pleasure to help out, even in a small way.”
Kyabram District Football League president Fraser Kerrins said Ardmona had been on notice for some time before their expulsion, but he said he had been impressed with the community effort since Crawford’s arrival.
“It was a situation that the club brought upon itself and the club needed to rectify things,” Kerrins said. “Those things have now been rectified.”
“I hope the kick in the backside they got in 2019 is a stepping stone towards a real future.
“It would be great if they could get a win at some stage of the season.”
Crawford, who has agreed to play a game or two at some stage of the season, is circumspect when asked if the Bush Cats can break their long drought this year.
He doesn’t want to lock into any promises – yet.
“That’s the dream, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us before that can happen,” he said.
A breakthrough Bush Cats win would pose its own unique, but welcome, challenge.
Only a handful of players at the club have played in a winning side, so they will need to consult the theme song sign on the change room walls with the words concluding:
“It’s no illusion, nor is it a dream … there’s a track winding back to the old Ardmona shack, we are the boys from Ardmona land.”
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Originally published as The Ardmona Bush Cats will have one of their biggest ‘wins’ this week – by simply taking the field
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