EFNL 2023: How ex-AFL Bulldog Lin Jong rediscovered passion for footy with Mulgrave
A return to Mulgrave had never been far from the mind of former AFL Bulldog Lin Jong, who has rekindled his passion for football in the Eastern league this season.
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Returning to where it all began had never been far from Lin Jong’s thoughts.
Two years retired from a decade-long AFL career and the former Western Bulldog is relishing life in the Eastern Football League after reuniting with Mulgrave this season, landing back at the club which set him on course for the big-time.
Beginning at junior affiliate Glen Waverley Rovers at 15, the 30-year-old on-baller has starred for the Lions this season with a string of showings in the best after a stop at Montmorency in the Northern league last year.
Conversations with close friend and current Mulgrave captain Sam Kassianou about a return set the wheels in motion for Jong, who attended Brentwood Secondary College – a stone’s throw from the football club.
“I thought when I was playing at the Dogs that it’d be really cool to be able to just play another season with my old school mates who got me into football,” Jong says.
“I’ve always been connected to Mulgrave, whether that was just checking up on how they were going or watching friends every now and then.
“Initially Montmorency was a better option for me and after spending a year there, it was a bit tough with my work schedule to really build relationships because I wasn’t able to train as much as I wanted to or be there as much as I wanted to.
“But Mulgrave was a really good fit – Mum and Dad still live around the corner from there so it was really handy to have that and be able to see them, because I live quite far from them.”
Jong hangs his hat in Melbourne’s western suburbs these days, but as the old adage goes – ‘There’s no place like home’ – with the Eastern league outfit proving just that.
From stepping into an Anglo-Saxon-dominated space as an unsure teen of migrant parents to becoming a Bulldogs household name, Jong says the sense of belonging at the club has never wavered.
“It’s home for me,” he says.
“I live in the west now but I think that speaks volumes that I’m willing to make the trek to a club that I call home and feel extremely comfortable at, same as the Rovers.
“It’s that sense of belonging, especially for me growing up as an Asian playing footy, I’ve always been very much self-aware that I’m very different to everyone.
“But Mulgrave are a club with opening arms and are a great bunch of people most importantly, and it’s somewhere I can just be myself without worrying.”
Coming back to the Eastern ranks has been as competitive as he remembers of his baptism of fire after playing a handful of senior games for Mulgrave while still eligible for the under-18s in 2011.
Joining Jong has been ex-Western Bulldogs teammate Fletcher Roberts, who has fired in attack this season after hanging up the boots at Port Melbourne in the VFL.
“It was a bloody scary experience coming up against men when I was just a teenager,” Jong recalls of his senior debut.
“It’s still a really strong league (and) I thought, not in an arrogant way, that I’d still play pretty well when I came back, but it has been really tough.
“I don’t think there were any thoughts that ‘Fletch’ and I coming back would just take us to a grand final or anything – there’s certainly some really strong teams around and I’ve loved it, it’s been a really good standard.
“It wasn’t overly hard to convince him (Roberts) to enjoy his footy a bit more elsewhere.
“Him and I grew up playing at the Dogs together and he’s met a fair few of my friends, so in a way he had those connections there as well.”
Twelve years on from his first taste of senior Eastern league football, the now elder statesman on Mulgrave’s books prides himself on developing the next batch of stars.
The club sits just outside the Division 2 top five as it hunts its first finals berth since 2014.
“It’s quite a young side and being 30 I’m definitely one of the older heads, but there’s definitely a lot of talent and potential there,” Jong says.
“(On-ball) is where I’ve been doing the brunt of the work and trying to help out the younger fellas.
“Finals is definitely on the radar … it’s a big goal of ours and it’d be really disappointing if we didn’t make it.
“Mulgrave hasn’t played a final for a little while so that would be the first step, but as far as lifting up a cup for Mulgrave, I haven’t thought that far ahead – but it’s always the ultimate goal.”
Despite a decade at AFL level, Jong’s injury-plagued career would yield just 65 games after debuting in 2012, retiring in June of 2021.
The former Oakleigh Charger rode the highs of featuring in Footscray’s 2014 and ‘16 VFL flags, winning the Norm Goss Medal as best-afield in the latter.
He missed out on selection in the Western Bulldogs’ drought-breaking 2016 AFL premiership side the next week.
Falling out of love with Australian rules for some time, returning to grassroots level has helped rekindle a passion for the game Jong first realised as a fresh-faced 15-year-old at the Glen Waverley Rovers.
“I stopped loving playing footy for a long time with how my career panned out with the injuries and whatnot, it very much did become a job to me and the passion and the love wasn’t there which was a huge part of why I decided to retire in the middle of the (2021) season,” Jong says.
“I’m very content with what I was able to achieve throughout that time and it’s a bit of fun for me now.”
*****
Lin Jong’s football journey is detailed in the newly-released book Celestial Footy - The Story of Chinese Heritage Australian Rules, written by Patrick Skene.
Available at all good book stores, the work chronicles the participation of Chinese-heritage immigrants and their descendants in Australia’s beloved national game.
Below is an excerpt ...
Lin Jong was one of those kids torn between sport and study. His mother, a college-educated accountant from Taiwan, wanted him to be a doctor. ‘I suppose growing up in an Asian-Australian family, sport is not a big thing,’ Lin later told Liminal magazine.
‘My dad was really supportive of me playing sports, whereas Mum thought it was a bit of a waste of time and wanted me to focus on studying.’
Lin’s father, Vitor, left East Timor in 1975, only a month before the Indonesian Army invaded the country and sparked a long war of independence. With his Portuguese passport, 18-year-old Vitor went to Macau first, then to Japan, before meeting his future wife, Faye, in Taiwan.
Although they had come from very different backgrounds, they were both of Chinese heritage and both spoke Mandarin courtesy of Vitor’s language lessons as a boy in East Timor. They moved to
Melbourne in 1985 and had six children. Lin, the youngest, was the only boy.
Their journey started in a small house in Footscray public housing, followed by another move to the Richmond public housing estate before settling into their final destination, Clayton South, 20 kilometres south-east of the Melbourne CBD.
Basketball was Lin’s first passion, and he only took up football for the social aspect. ‘Growing up, footy just wasn’t on my mind but my mates kept hassling me to have a go, so at 15 I joined my local club, the Glen Waverley Rovers, for a bit of fun,’ he says.
After being selected in his Brentwood Secondary College team, he began to enjoy the game.
But even when he caught the ‘footy bug’, he did not have the traditional family structures to support his skill acquisition through kick-to-kick or drills in the backyard with family members.
‘I would go out with my sisters in the backyard,’ Lin remembers.
‘I would kick it to them, and they’d just drop the mark and throw it back to me. At least they tried!’
When Lin was drafted by the Oakleigh Chargers under-18 TAC team for the 2010 season, he gave up basketball to chase his footy dream. Although he was a star of that Oakleigh side, he was apprehensive about sharing his success with friends and family.
‘I had a barrier in my head – and I imagine a lot of other kids had it – that Asian kids don’t play footy and even if they do, they certainly don’t play in the AFL,’ Lin recalls thinking.
‘There was some hesitation, because I just didn’t have that role model and didn’t want to be the only Asian player out there.’
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