Weekly Times | DESPITE being the Upper Murray Football League president for the past 26 years, there was only ever one club Gordon Nicholas was going to let his kids play for growing up — Corryong.
That parochial view is clearly a genetic trait that has been passed on. His daughter, Nadia Edwards, is now Corryong club president, and his eldest son, Evan, is the Demons’ senior playing coach. Thomas, Gordon’s youngest son, also pulls on the navy and red guernsey.
“There’s a lot of pretty staunch families up our way that have a lot of history with their clubs and you’ll find they rarely stray far from that,” Gordon said.
“I started playing for Corryong back in 1968 or ’69 and was involved with the club for years and years before then becoming involved with the league itself.
“So it was always a done deal really, I was always going to make the kids commit to the colours.”
But Gordon said there were times he had to convince them to stick with Corryong, especially if their friends were playing elsewhere. “It’s all part of how you bring them up, getting them into the right colours early,” Gordon said.
“Otherwise that’s bad parenting in my books.”Nadia said it was impossible to play netball for anyone else growing up, and she “bleeds red and blue”.
Nadia is one of three female presidents in the six- club competition, and is enjoying her first year in the role despite Corryong’s standing on the ladder.
The Demons are winless at the foot of the ladder after nine matches, but reduced a 150-point losing margin against Federal in April to 20 points on Saturday.
“It hasn’t been our greatest year ever that’s for sure,” Nadia said. “But we’ll keep battling away as best we can.”
Gordon, who has been league president since 1989, admits the competition is also facing its own battles, but was confident it would survive well into the future.
“The league has its troubles for sure, there’s a real personnel shortage for a lot of clubs, particularly with juniors,” he said. “But we’ve done well at looking at different ways to combat this — having 16 players, juniors playing up, things like that — and I firmly believe this league will be around for years and years to come.”