Former Tiger Jake King will play in Southern League after being coaxed out of retirement

He has turned down lucrative footy offers in the past, but former Tiger Jake King has been coaxed out of retirement for the love of the game, rather than money. Find out where you can watch him play.

Jake King will play in the Southern League. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

The push-up king is pumped about his shock return to football, announcing yesterday that he would be playing for free this year with Port Melbourne Colts.

King, 35, said he would be pulling on the boots in the Southern League’s Division One for love not money.

The nuggety forward played the last of his 107 AFL games for the Tigers in Round 3 2014.

But he was coaxed out of retirement because he lives around the corner from Port Melbourne’s home ground and is mates with the club’s long-time supporter Corey Hobbins.

Jake King is pulling on the boots for Port Melbourne Colts.

“It’s the closest club to home, it just works out best for me, as well as knowing a few of the boys down there, it was just a no-brainer,” King said.

“The money was thrown around like you wouldn’t believe for one-off games, but I’m not into that. I just wanna have a bit of fun and a kick and go back to the way footy used to be.

“(Corey) has been talking to me about it for a while. And the way him and the boys speak about it down there reminds me of back at North Heidlberg in the ’90s and 2000s.

“It reminds me of that and that was a big family club, they were always the underdog and always the rough, raggedy sort of group so I thought, ‘you know what, the way Corey talks about it, mate, I’m happy to help out’.”

King has been coaxed out of retirement.

The Colts will play their first game this year against St Kilda City on Friday night, April 3, at the Peanut Farm in St Kilda.

King said friend Toby Mitchell would be in the crowd, lending his support.

“Yep, he’ll be there,” he said.

Colts president Steve Duvnjak said King was introduced to the club by Hobbins.

“He has been getting his tattoos from Jake for a little while now, so Corey decided the time was right to make a move on Jake and get him down to the club,” Duvnjak said.

“I caught up with Jake just before Christmas at Southbank and we had a couple of beers, a couple of grey goose vodkas to be exact, and he loved the idea of what we were doing and and build something outside of every day life.”

King would not discount the prospect of more former Tigers joining the Colts.

“We’re in talks at the moment. They said to me if I’m playing they wanna play,” King said.

King said he initially thought he would just help coach Lindsay Gilbee direct the forward line.

“The more I spoke about it the more I discussed game plan, game style, the more I became invested I thought, ‘you know what, I’d pull on the boots and play a few games myself’,” he said.

Jake King kicks for goal for the Tigers.

King has not set a limit on the number of games he will play.

“It will literally be go, train, help them out with their forward line and midfield stuff, play a couple of games and see how the body is and get it conditioned,” he said.

“If I can play two or three in a row, sure, we’ll see how it goes and see how the body holds up.”

King said he was about 89kg, four kilograms heavier than his playing weight at the Tigers.

“(My body) is not too bad. It’s no Dustin Martin,” he said.

King doesn’t care what number he wears.

“Dimma always used to say to me good players wear low numbers, so we’ll see what Port decided to give me on that one,” he said.

Picture: Wayne Ludbey.

Originally published as Former Tiger Jake King will play in Southern League after being coaxed out of retirement