Eastern league: Ziggie Alwan plays 150th senior game for Noble Park

Ziggie Alwan used to idolise the Noble Park senior players. He became one of the best Bulls of them all.

Champion Ziggie Alwan gets carried from the ground after playing his 150th senior game. Mark Hillard, Noble Park FC.

They were in awe of the Noble Park senior players.

They would play their game in the Under 18s and in the afternoon slip into the changerooms to watch the senior side warm up.

There was Denis Knight. Daniel Donati. Stewie Nagle. Peter O’Brien. Tim Howe, the big ruckman.

To Ziggie Alwan and Nick Williams, they were giants, and the youngsters hoped to one day emulate them and play senior football for Noble Park.

Best mates and teammates, they both did.

And last Saturday Alwan, 32, had his 150th senior game for the Bulls.

He said it was a “huge honour’’ and it meant a lot to him.

Ziggie Alwan running down a loose ball for the Bulls.

“As a young kid growing up, I just wanted to play for Noble Park and I look back now and think, ‘Wow, 150 games at a great club, that’s great’,’’ he was saying this afternoon.

“I’m not the type of person to set out for personal stuff. The people who know me would say the same thing. I’ve been reminiscing over the last couple of days about my career and how blessed I’ve been to play that many games at Noble and all the support I’ve had over time. It’s been a great journey.’’

It began at St Gerards Saints in the Under 10s. Alwan had a couple of years at Hallam and then crossed to Noble Park juniors.

By the time he reached the Colts team it was clear he had above-average ability.

In 2005 he won the league best and fairest, leading him to the Dandenong Stingrays the following year.

In 2007 he achieved his long-held goal of playing for the Noble Park seniors.

Shane Burgmann, one of the players he’d idolised, was coach and gave him a debut.

“It’s a little bit sketchy but it was Vermont at Moodemere and I started on the bench,’’ he said.

“Back then you’d sit on the pine for a while so I think I sat on it for the first 20 minutes. Then ‘Burgs’ put me on a wing and I played there on a rotation on and off the ground. I don’t even know if I played well. But we ended up losing the game. It was a close one.’’

Ziggie Alwan in his first season for the Bulls, 2007.

That year Alwan played in the grand final against Vermont at Bayswater.

It was an unforgettable finish: amid confusion over whether the siren had sounded, Daniel Kennedy took a kick after it to win the premiership for the Bulls. It drifted wide.

Ahead of 2008 Alwan was approached by the SANFL’s Norwood. He’d never heard of the club, but its officials made a great impression on him when they came over and met his mother and three brothers.

Alwan decided to make the move, on a two-year deal. He had a few senior games, one of them in a final, but homesickness kicked in – he desperately missed his family – and he returned to Melbourne and to Noble Park.

Ziggie Alwan dives for the ball for Norwood in 2008.

As versatile as a smile, Alwan was a premiership player in 2010 and again the following year under the coaching of “Mighty Mick’’ Fogarty.

“Those sides we had were unbelievable,’’ he said.

“You thought you were going to win everything, every year. We were the kings of the competition, had that swagger about us. Most of us were between the age of 22 to 24 and we were just red-hot.’’

Ziggie Alwan the Frankston Dolphin.

Always an ardent Alwan fan, Fogarty encouraged him to go to the VFL, believing he was good enough to play in the AFL. Alwan did too. He linked with Frankston and at the end of 2013 wound up with an invitation to the state combine.

In 2015 he returned to Noble Park, content he’d given it his best.

The end of 2017 produced one of the tumultuous times in Noble Park’s history, when a group of senior players left over what it thought was the harsh treatment of James Gwilt. It was messy.

Ziggie Alwan boots a goal for Noble Park.

Alwan set out for Rowville, where he had two excellent seasons (he was in the team of the year in 2019). It burned Noble Park supporters to see him in the brown and gold rather than the blue and gold.

But after sitting out 2020, Alwan decided to go back to Noble Park, telling coach Steve Hughes he was “coming home’’.

“We’re over the moon with it,’’ Hughes said at the time.

“Sometimes with recruits there’s an air of … you look at their footy resume but you’re still not sure what you’re getting … but we know what we’re getting with Ziggy, a local, bona fide star as far as I’m concerned, and he has been for a long time.’’

Ziggie Alwan after knocking over a goal for Noble Park.

It wasn’t a straightforward thing for him to return.

There was “a little bit of uncertainty initially, going back there’’, he said.

“It was probably around the personnel that’s down there now, compared to when I was there, whether I would mix in with the younger group, because the demographic of the list was so different.

“With the list they have now, I thought maybe my time’s up. It was a bit of that and also a bit of me not wanting to go back and not be a good player at that level. When I did leave I was still impacting the competition and I didn’t want to go back and potentially not end my career as a good player. That’s just the person I am. I want to be remembered as a good Noble Park player, not end up in the twos or anything like that.’’

Ziggie Alwan tackles Rowville’s Matt Robinson.

There are no concerns now.

He’s played well and the Bulls are 5-1, their best start to a season for a few years.

“To be honest, I’m loving it, every bit of it,’’ Alwan, a project manager for a glazing company, said. “It’s been awesome so far.’’

Can the Bulls contend for a premiership 10 years after their last success?

“I’m going to be honest and say we can,’’ he said.

“I think the competition is even and I don’t think we’ve touched the surface of what we can do. Once we start putting four quarters together and we stay healthy, we can do anything. I think the guys are starting to believe we can.’’