A Noble Park premiership under Steve Hughes continues family tradition

Steve Hughes is aged four and the mascot for the Noble Park under 18 premiership team.

He’s wearing his Noble Park jumper, black shorts, and boots and socks, and he comes up to the waist of the young players behind him.

Wayne Hughes, Steve and Rachel’s father, is front and centre in the photo, as premiership coach of the team.

He coached the under 18s for five years, winning three consecutive flags and guiding players including future AFL pair Mark Bayes and Tim McGrath.

“And we lost one grand final after the siren, would you believe,’’ he says.

The photo with Steve Hughes as mascot is from 1982.

Last Saturday, 40 years after it was taken, he became a Noble Park senior premiership coach, guiding the Bulls past Rowville in the Eastern league Premier grand final and extending his family’s remarkable association with one of local football’s most successful and respected clubs.

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The football club has been part of Steve Hughes’ life for as long as he can remember.

“It’s always been there,’’ he says.

When his parents, Wayne and Helen, would linger over a few drinks in the clubrooms and the hour would get late, he would sneak under the stairs next to the back bar and put himself to sleep.

And he and his sister would trail the players who’d had a few too many drinks, sweating on them spilling coins as they paid for their beer.

“I basically lived and breathed the place,’’ Hughes says.

His family ties to Noble Park are Superman-strong.

Helen Hughes is part of the Wright family.

In 2003, Noble Park’s ground was named after her father, Pat Wright, who with his wife, Mary, moved to the area in the late 1960s and quickly became involved with the football club.

Their children, Pat Jnr, Teresa, Helen, Kevin, Paul, Maureen and Andrew, continued an enduring family connection to Moodemere St.

Pat Wright Jnr was a strapping man who once received an invitation to train at Collingwood.

Kevin admits he wasn’t much of a player.

But he and “little’’ Pat (who was actually big Pat) both served as president and became much-loved figures around the club.

Kevin’s time at the top took in the premiership years of 2010 and ’11.

Wayne and Helen Hughes are both Noble Park life members.

Wayne had joined the club when his family shifted to Noble Park from Newborough in the late 1960s.

His father, Theo, had been a good footballer, coaching Newborough after playing for North Melbourne’s under 19 and reserve grade teams.

Theo Hughes was delighted when he turned up to Noble Park to find former North Melbourne player Laurie Icke was in charge of the side young Wayne would be joining, the under 12s.

Wayne was 27 when he started coaching the under 18s, taking over from David Spence.

He was 28 when he became a life member.

Last month he and Helen visited Greece to spread Pat Jnr’s ashes on his birthday, August 28 (he had holidayed there for many years and adored the country; he died in 2020 after a short battle with pancreatic cancer).

And last Saturday, as Noble Park got the better of Rowville, Wayne Hughes phoned Kevin Wright to let him know the state of play.

Kevin was in hospital but the news of an imminent premiership coached by his nephew perked him up.

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Steve Hughes started playing with the Noble Park in the under 12s.

He was involved in successful teams, winning four consecutive premierships under the captaincy of his best mate, Ant Hardie.

Later, he played some senior football in the strong Denis Knight-coached teams after Noble’s switch to the Eastern league in 2000.

Hamish Ogilvie, now AFL club Adelaide’s recruiting manager, coached Hughes in the reserves.

“He wasn’t the most talented player but he was a tough little bastard,’’ he says.

A knee injury in round one of the 2003 season put a stop to Hughes’ playing days.

Greg Siwes was coaching the reserves that year and asked him to help.

“He just wanted to keep me involved. That generated a bit of a coaching bug in me,’’ Hughes says.

He sat in on match committee meetings, listening to Knight and learning a lot.

His step into senior coaching came in 2006 at the age of 27, at Springvale Districts in the Southern league.

Districts had attracted some good, experienced candidates for the role, but went with the novice.

“I wanted him,’’ former coach Tony Cooper says. “He presented really well at the interview. I just thought there was something about him. He sold us what he wanted to do, sold a bit of a plan and a vision. There were no layers to it. He was honest.

“He did enough to convince me, and I’m a hard arse. I thought if he could convince me, he could convince the players.’’

The young coach took the Demons to the Division 2 flag in 2007, repaying the club for giving him his start.

Wanting to gain experience at a higher level, Hughes linked with NAB League club Sandringham Dragons in 2010.

“Hand on heart, it was the best learning curve of my footy life,’’ he says.

Dale Tapping, now an AFL assistant at Essendon, was the coach.

“I never learnt more than under ‘Taps’,’’ Hughes says.

“He’s still a mentor. I think everyone needs one. I thought I knew a lot about footy until I met Taps. And then I realised I really didn’t know much at all.’’

Wayne Hughes has been an AFL recruiter for many years, appraising talent for Carlton, Fremantle and now St Kilda.

His son started scouting too, part-time and mostly covering the VFL.

A return to senior coaching came in 2015, with Bonbeach, where he had five seasons, highlighted by a grand final appearance in 2017.

Then came Noble Park.

He had applied for the senior position in 2010, missing out to another former player, Mick Fogarty, who oversaw the 2010 and ’11 flags.

Wayne Hughes was on the selection panel.

“Steve wasn’t happy with me when he didn’t get it, I’ll give you the tip!’’ he says.

When Fogarty finished up at the end of 2019, the Bulls turned to their one-time mascot, with president Grant Connolly and football manager Steve Coats noting his “huge passion’’ for the club.

Covid wiped out 2020 and led to the abandonment of last season, when Hughes had the Bulls 8-2.

The year finished a few weeks early. But Hughes saw it as the start of something.

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Last Thursday, two days before the grand final, Steve Hughes organised for Denis Knight to return to the club and speak to the players.

“He was incredible,’’ Hughes says. “The boys wanted to run through a few brick walls. Denis just gets in this zone, and he got into the zone last Thursday night.’’

Fellow Noble Park greats Craig ‘Block’ Meade and Peter O’Brien spoke too.

As Hughes saw it, they “sort of crystallised my message … OB (O’Brien) talked about playing in a premiership together and creating a bond you keep for life’’.

Hughes gave each of his players a USB stick with their season highlights, as well as a handwritten note.

The parent of one player thought it “magnificent’’, saying the note would stay in the family.

After the grand final, a Noble Park player introduced Peter O’Brien to his father, describing him as a legend.

O’Brien responded: “You’ve just played in a premiership. Now you are too.’’

With Noble Park well ahead of Rowville late in the match, Hughes walked around the boundary to hug his wife, Brooke, sons Charlie and Harry, and his mother.

“That was pretty special,’’ he says. “Emotional. It’s something I’ll never forget. It’s a day I’ll never forget.’’

Wayne Hughes has not been surprised by his son’s achievements as a senior coach.

“Well he grew up in football,’’ he says.

“He was there every weekend at Noble Park, from when he was whatever age. He’s always had a great knowledge of the game and how it should be played.’’

A few days before the grand final Hughes had visited the house of a player and told him he wasn’t going to be picked.

“He went around and knocked on the front door. He didn’t want to embarrass the kid in front of his teammates on Thursday night,’’ Wayne Hughes says. “Little things like that make a difference. He’s big on the little things.’’

Hamish Ogilvie has followed Hughes’ progress since he made his start in coaching at Springvale Districts.

He knows he is biased, but he says his former charge may well be “the best coach in the country outside the state leagues’’.

“He was always going to be a coach. Even back when he was a kid he was smart and understood footy,’’ Ogilvie says.

“I love what he’s done. A Noble kid, battled to play, what, 40 to 60 senior games maybe, and he’s become a great coach. He could coach in the VFL, no worries.’’

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The great local football writer and commentator Daryl Pitman published his history of Noble Park Football Club, A Noble History, in 2020.

It’s an outstanding book and the last page deals with the appointment of Steve Hughes as senior coach.

With one senior premiership to his name, the former mascot is writing the next chapter of Noble Park’s history.