‘Everyone outside the club f***ing hated us’: The rise and fall of Bendigo in the VFL

The scoreboard told a familiar, forlorn tale for Bendigo.

The Gold had been gritty, but ultimately were no match for Collingwood, slipping to a 46-point loss at the Queen Elizabeth Oval.

It was the final round of the 2014 VFL season.

More significantly, it was also the final siren for Bendigo in the VFL, ending an affiliation that began with high hopes in 1998.

The Gold finished 0-18 in their farewell season, just as they had in 2013, when they resumed as a stand-alone entity after Essendon walked away from the 10-year alignment that produced Bendigo Bombers.

Former St Kilda star Aussie Jones coached the club in its last two years, for no wins and 36 losses.

Yet for all the defeats, for all the snubs and slights he felt from local clubs and for all the lack of support he perceived from AFL Victoria, Jones has warm memories of his time at the regional club.

Reflecting on the 10-year anniversary of the Gold’s demise, he says the club had a togetherness that came from adversity.

The players enjoyed each other’s company and playing together, they were eager to learn and their efforts were unflagging. And the volunteers were loyal and dedicated.

“Our people were our strength,’’ Jones says.

“The friends and the experiences and the memories I’ve got are positive, which is extraordinary considering we went zip and 36.

He says the Gold had little in the way of facilities.

During the week the club could access the QEO only on Wednesday nights.

Jones can remember him and his wife cooking meals and serving them in the change rooms, with the players eating in whatever space they could find.

“While they were doing that, there was a perfectly good social club a sand-wedge away that we couldn’t get into,’’ he says.

“They allowed us in their once, to do a big sponsors’ day, but that was it. To be honest, if you think about any footy club and what it can do, we couldn’t do any of it.’’

The Gold’s last captain, Steve Stroobants, says: “We didn’t really have anything. All we had was a ground and changerooms. No gym or anything like that.’’

AUSSIE JONES GOES FOR GOLD

Jones can remember coming home from work one day and his wife telling him the Bendigo Gold coaching position was being advertised.

It was going to be a tough job, because Essendon had pulled out of an alignment established in 2003.

Bendigo was going it alone, as it did when it kicked off as the Diggers in 1998.

Jones, who was coaching local club Beaconsfield at the time, was up for the challenge of the VFL and did a lot of preparation for his interview with club officials.

He told them he could not only coach the VFL team, but create community links by looking after the local RecLink and school teams.

“I think they were surprised that as an outsider I’d put a bit of time into working out what the footy club could do to be a positive contributor around the community,’’ Jones says.

“I think my personability helped too. I’m not a massive ranter and raver and they needed a coach who could look after the players and give positives at every break, even when there weren’t any. I reckon I made a few up sometimes!’’

Jones and his family relocated to Bendigo.

He says he quickly discovered that the Bendigo league clubs did not share his vision of the Gold being a sturdy pathway for aspiring young players.

“I’ll give you an example. I had a kid who played in the Bendigo Pioneers and was pretty close to be drafted, so he was an absolute perfect fit for us and he committed to me on the phone,’’ he says.

“Then I got a call from him about two weeks later. He said, ‘Mate, I’m not going to play because my old man thinks I’m a better chance to be drafted from Sandhurst than I am from the VFL’.

“It was frustrating for me, because it wasn’t so much our results, but the fact that our players were going to be in front of Geelong VFL, Essendon VFL. We were playing AFL clubs and people just couldn’t get their heads around it.

Defeated followed defeat.

But Jones could never question the players’ endeavour.

He can recall bumping into people in the street and being complimented on the Gold’s “effort and attitude’’.

“It was super, every training session, every post-game. We weren’t challenging for finals or the flag so the boys would go out and have a few beers and that group, on field and off-field, became a really tight bunch of ripping fellas,’’ Jones says.

The coach worked closely with Tim Dickson, who, Jones says, was “president, CEO, everything’’, and assistant coach Mark Adamson.

Dickson and Jones were the only full-time staff members. When it came to resources, the club was closer to dust than Gold.

It went back to Ken Yates’ time at Bendigo as its inaugural general manager in 1997.

He says the lack of support from the Bendigo council was the most difficult part of setting up the club.

With the promise of $300,000 funding from AFL Victoria, Yates had plans drawn up for a three-storey clubhouse at the northern end of the QEO. A gaming provider was also lined up.

The local council baulked, Yates told radio station 3WBC recently.

“That made it tough work for us to survive,’’ he said. “We knew from that day it was going to be hard work. We had no revenue base.’’

*****

INCEPTION

With the nickname of the Diggers, Bendigo was formed as a VFL club ahead of the 1998 season.

Preparing to take in the AFL reserves teams, AFL Victoria officials wanted the regional centre in a statewide competition with linkages to the Under 18 competition, the TAC Cup.

In Bendigo’s case, it was the Pioneers.

AFL Vic officials debated whether to give the licence to a Bendigo league club or start a new entity. Golden Square, Kangaroo Flat, Sandhurst and South Bendigo had expressed interest.

They chose to create a club, which was named the Diggers after a competition in the Bendigo Advertiser newspaper to come up with a nickname that best encapsulated a region known for its gold.

The jumper was designed with the help of local university students.

Former North Melbourne defender Ross Smith was appointed senior coach and Yates was lured across from Bendigo Harness Racing Club as general manager.

He started in May, 1997.

“I walked into an empty office to form a VFL club from nothing,’’ Yates says. “It was a unique experience to form the club at VFL level.’’

Yates had an early win on the sponsorship front, locking in Jetport Security Parking at Tullamarine as the major backer in a deal worth $100,000 a year.

It was regarded as the most lucrative sponsorship deals in the VFL.

“That got us off the ground and up and running,’’ Yates says.

Fifty support sponsors also jumped on board.

As Yates went about the process of recruiting for the inaugural season, covering ground as distant as Gippsland, he picked up on the fears of local clubs.

“I think the boards of those clubs hated to see us come in. They were worried we were going to take their best players,’’ he says.

“I arranged meetings with all the country leagues and I went to each country league, from Sunraysia right through, and addressed the issues that we did face and what possibilities there would be for players to try Bendigo. I secured a lot of those players. As I said to the local leagues, ‘They’re going to play for Bendigo Diggers at a higher level, the VFL, then when they’ve finished their time, go back to their clubs and pass that experience on.’’

Coming off a premiership with Ainslie in the ACT, Smith was 33 and chose to be a playing coach for a team full of young hopefuls.

The Gold met fellow regional club North Ballarat in Round 1.

ABC telecast the match and called the locals to a seven-point loss.

But they had their first victory the following week, by 23 points over Coburg, and finished the year with a creditable four wins and 14 defeats.

Yates thought it a “fairly promising start’’; the club’s objective had to been to win four games.

Smith’s season had been ruined by a knee injured he suffered at Port Melbourne.

Taking an assistant’s role at Geelong, he bowed out at the end of the season and was replaced by former Richmond wingman Nathan Bower.

Bower says it was an “exciting role’’ for him, personally and professionally.

He hailed from north-west Victoria – he was drafted from Mildura – and saw the club as a pathway for the region’s aspirational players.

“We really tried to pitch ourselves as the VFL club for north-west Victoria, all the way up to Mildura, Swan Hill and the like,’’ Bower says.

“I was adamant there was so much talent in that region.’’

But it was tough going for Bower: his two years in charge brought only three victories.

He found it difficult to prise the best Bendigo league players out of their local clubs.

“We couldn’t pay as much – we had a very strict salary cap ($100,000) – and we trained three nights a week,’’ Bower says.

“Pretty much every weekend game was on a Sunday and every second weekend we were playing in Melbourne. So it was pretty hard to sign a substantial player from a Sandhurst or a South Bendigo. It was just harder than I thought to get the local talent to come and play VFL.’’

The retention of the players was an issue too.

Bower believes he would have had a “pretty good, competitive side’’ if he could have combined the 1999 and 2000 lists.

In Bower’s second season, Yates resigned to become general manager of Mt Coolum Golf Club on the Sunshine Coast and the competition absorbed the AFL reserves.

Some club chose to run their own teams and others formed alignments.

Bower says it made it even harder to compete.

Almost 25 years later, his view about the VFL hasn’t changed.

“My controversial take on the system is that it’s tough to get any integrity into it,’’ Bower, who has a sports strategy role at Camberwell Grammar, says.

“You’ve got some stand-alone teams who struggle to get players … and just cannot compete against the AFL teams or the aligned teams, like Box Hill Hawks.

“It’s not a fair playing ground. We felt that in my last year of coaching. There was one game I remember where one of the Box Hill Hawks players was on nearly double our whole club salary cap.

“We had uni students and plumbers, builders, teachers and everything in between trying to play against full-time professional athletes. And nothing much has changed since then. It’s not in a great state. The sooner they bring in the AFL reserves competition again, it will be much better.’’

And his opinion remains unaltered on the concept of Bendigo having a state league team.

He says it’s a shame talented players either have to move to Melbourne or “give up on the dream’’.

One of Bower’s warmest memories of his time at Bendigo was playing on the QEO. He says it was a privilege to run on to “just the most majestic oval’’.

“It was pretty special, to train and play on it,’’ he says.

He handed over the position to experienced local coach Neville Massina, who had steered Maryborough to two premierships and the Bendigo league to a country championship.

The Diggers went 0-20 in his only season.

Massina, 74, says now that he was out of his depth at VFL level.

“Too hard for me. That was all over my head,’’ he says.

“It was a very, very hard job. The players they had did a good job. You couldn’t fault what they were doing.

“But we didn’t have a home, really, and we had no money.’’

Massina believes the Bendigo club’s problems began with its inception.

He says the VFL licence should have been given to a local club – as had happened with North Ballarat – rather than creating a new entity from scratch.

“When they started that show, it’s my understanding not one person was involved in Bendigo football. For mine, to build a new club out of nowhere was a massive undertaking,’’ Massina says.

He says he has no great regrets about his time in football, “but that would be one I wouldn’t do again … I wasn’t the right fit, there’s no doubt about that’’.

The Diggers’ financial problems became apparent during 2001, when the board announced it needed a major sponsor and an injection of cash or an alignment with an AFL club to continue.

At the end of a winless season, AFL Victoria officials weighed up the future of the club, eventually giving it approval to go on.

The Diggers pulled off a coup when they secured former Fremantle AFL coach Damian Drum as coach for 2002.

But like Massina before him, he did not get to see his players sing the song.

They did, however, eke out a draw.

When the VFL was revamped in 2000 to take in the AFL reserves teams, Essendon had decided to field its own side.

But, eager to set down a footprint in a strong football region, it entered an alignment with the Diggers to create Bendigo Bombers.

Former Dons player Peter Banfield was locked in as coach for the 2003 and ’04 seasons, and the mix of VFL and AFL players improved results.

Between 1998 and 2002, the Diggers scraped together just seven wins – and many more losses.

The alignment lasted 10 seasons, taking in the coaching of Banfield, Matthew Knights, Adrian Hickmott, Shannon Grant and Hayden Skipworth.

Knights’ first season, 2005, produced the club’s first finals appearances. With the inspirational Nick Carter as captain, it finished at 11-7, defeated Port Melbourne in a semi-final and then fell to eventual premier Sandringham in the preliminary final.

The Bendigo Bombers were finalists again in 2007.

But it was like the Diggers all over in 2009, when the Bombers went through the season without winning a game under Hickmott.

Twelve months earlier, Essendon managing director Peter Jackson had reaffirmed the AFL club’s commitment to the Bendigo Bombers.

But he said the alignment needed to start producing results.

Jackson said Essendon went into the alliance because it believed it was the best option for the development of its young players and that it could create a pathway for local talent.

“We are still committed to, and believe, this alignment can work in the long term. It was always going to take some time but with the right people in place, and the right support from the local community, it is time to make that a reality.

“It is critical the local community provide real support for the Bendigo Bombers. It will underpin a club that has an important role to play in the development of football in the region.

“Sport, and sporting clubs, also have a critical role to play in the wider community and for that reason it is important that the Bendigo Bombers survive and thrive.’’

By the end of 2011, the Dons decided to jettison the alignment, declaring they would go back to operating their own VFL team in 2013.

The Bendigo board was keen to push on as a stand-alone, with chair David Joss telling Inside Football he believed it was financially viable. He said the club would focus on developing footballers and “good citizens’’.

Out went the Bendigo Bombers and in came Bendigo Gold, the club’s third nickname in 15 years.

Jones was hired as coach and it just so happened that his tenure began against Essendon.

The Round 1 meeting of 2013 brought a 90-point loss to the QEO.

Things didn’t improve: the margins of defeat were 164 points in Round 2 against the Northern Blues, 85 against North Ballarat in Round 3, 116 against Collingwood in Round 4 and 87 points against Box Hill Hawks in Round 5.

A break for the state game brought temporary relief. Then the thumpings resumed: a 76-point loss to Sandringham and 176 points against Williamstown.

The closest the Gold came to a victory was in Round 8, when they ran Coburg to 10 points.

They finished the season with a percentage of only 34.4.

******

FAREWELL TO QEO

Jackson Sketcher was a key Bendigo recruit for 2014.

A Morrish Medal winner with Sandringham Dragons, he had played in Perth in the WAFL in 2013 and broke a contract to play with the Gold, who eventually had to pay a $10,000 transfer fee.

Sketcher was based in Melbourne. But he stayed in Bendigo when the Gold played Friday night games, crashing at the house of teammates Jake Aarts, Galen Munari and Daniel Toman, and sometimes going jet skiing on the weekends.

He says the players were close and “always had a crack’’.

“But we just didn’t have the cattle,’’ Sketcher says.

Midway through the 2014 season, as the losses piled up and financial forecasts became increasingly grim despite the unstinting support of the Bendigo Bank, it became clear the club would struggle to go on without AFL Victoria intervention.

Jones recalls accompanying Dickson to a meeting with AFL Vic, with the pair “going in hands out’’.

“We needed some support from the stakeholders and it wasn’t there.

“There wasn’t enough care, not enough interest, to keep it going.’’

On June 25, 2014, Dickson brought the players together and told them the Gold would be playing their last season.

He said the club would not be renewing its VFL licence.

That night, he said it had been one of the hardest decisions “I have ever been part of, and it was certainly one that was made after exhausting all options’’.

“While it is a devastating blow for our community, the decision is the right one,’’ he said.

Stroobants, captain of the Gold in 2013-14, has a clear memory of Dickson delivering the news to the players.

“We were sitting in the pool changerooms there at the QEO. He had all the chairs lined up and we sat down and got some pizzas. He stood up the front saying it wasn’t going to be viable for the club to continue on,’’ Stroobants, 35 and now coaching South Bendigo, says.

“I’d had six or seven years in the VFL system by then, so I was thinking more about the kids.’’

The players vowed to stick together and see out the season.

Jones had expected them to; he says they were at the club “for the right reasons’’.

“They wanted to test themselves and play the best footy. Some of them wanted to be drafted. Whether that was realistic or not, that’s probably been shown.’’

Unfortunately they were unable to win a game.

In their last match, they led Collingwood by two points at half time, but were outscored 14 goals to six in the second half.

Sketcher was named best for the Gold and Kyle Martin was named among the best for Collingwood (a few years later they were playing together at Noble Park).

Sketcher remembers the Bendigo team talking about how to keep Martin quiet.

“I said, ‘Whatever we do, let’s not get into him, let’s not fire him up, let’s not poke the bear’,’’ he recalls.

“Sure enough, ‘Polly’ (Alex Pollock) goes up to him and says, ‘You’re nothing but a f***ing plumber Martin, you shouldn’t be on a list!’

“And I’m going, ‘Oh no, what are you doing? ‘Marto’ kicked three or four that night and every time he kicked one he’d say, ‘Just a plumber you reckon mate?’’’

Nathan Bower, still feeling an attachment to the club, made the trip to Bendigo for that last match.

He was at least happy to see a big crowd see the Gold off.

They finished the season at 0-18 and with a percentage of 45.9.

But they did have a win at the draft, with forward Tyrone Downie rookie-listed by Gold Coast Suns. Downie had kicked 31 goals from 17 matches to top the club goalkicking.

Another 2014 Goldie, Jake Aarts, played on in the VFL at Richmond, was drafted by the Tigers and managed 42 AFL appearances.

Toman won the best and fairest.

Stroobants won the admiration of his teammates and coaches for his leadership.

“Absolutely loved him,’’ Jones says. “Wore his heart on his sleeve but he backed it up because he was proud Bendigo footy and proud Bendigo Gold. He dragged the boys along with him.’’

Sketcher says: “He’s a beauty.’’

Stroobants returns the compliment to Jones, saying he helped the players “in every way he could’’.

“He wanted to get to know the person, not just tell them how to play footy … you hear that a lot these days about the AFL coaches,’’ he says.

The players have a chat group, but no one has posted on it this year.

Memories fade. In that last match against the Maggies, Comanche Walls wore No. 24 for the Gold.

For the life of him, Sketcher cannot remember Walls. “What’s his name?’’ he asks.

Much like Jones, Stroobants says his time at the Bendigo club was enjoyable despite the lack of success.

He says of the Gold phase of the club: “We didn’t win a game for two years but now that I’m closer to the end of my career than the start, it was a couple of the most enjoyable years I played.

“We were all really close mates.’’

Stoobants had joined the club in 2008, when it was Bendigo Bombers, and played through until the end. He went on to VFL stints at North Melbourne and Coburg.

He recalls what he terms “heartbreak losses’’ in the final two years: by five points against the Northern Blues, when Nick Holman kicked a goal in the final few seconds; and by two points against Casey Scorpions, when a young Max Gawn ran around the QEO.

“Would have been really to get one win, but it wasn’t to be,’’ Stroobants says.

Jones ponders what the club might have achieved if it had harnessed the best local talent, drawing on the Goulburn Valley and surrounding district leagues, besides the Bendigo competition.

He’s adamant the region missed a gold-plated opportunity.

“No one up there will ever say it or admit it,’’ he says.

“But if they’d committed to the VFL, there are players up there who might have been able to run and play 40 or 50 AFL games, like Jake Aarts. That’s the disappointing part, that chance being taken away from them.’’