Weekly Times | AFTER more than 25 years playing senior football, Guy Stringer can appreciate a good sledge.
Stringer will this weekend be the first player in Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League history to play 400 senior games when he lines up for Sorrento against Tyabb in the Nepean league.
One of the best cracks he’s heard involves a memorable moment when his beloved Blue Heeler, Tules, came bounding onto the ground to check on the welfare of her master — in the middle of a game.
“I remember getting tackled and slammed in the middle of the ground, and as I’m getting up the dog was licking me,” Stringer said.
“She’d got off the leash and run out into the middle of the ground looking for me
“I had to lead her off the ground ... ‘Get your girlfriend off Stringer’, there were lots of chants for that and plenty of other colourful comments.”
Stringer, who turns 43 next month, has done it all. Since he started playing senior football as a 16-year-old in 1989 he has won multiple premierships — including last year’s with Sorrento and a best-on-ground in 2011 — club best-and-fairests, and been a league and state representative.
He also spent time with the Frankston Dolphins and St Kilda under-19s.
But despite admitting he knows he “can’t keep going on forever”, the hunger is still there and he is not looking at retirement soon.
“Really if my body was not holding in there and I was struggling for form I’d retire ... but that hasn’t occurred yet,” Stringer said.
“Mentally I feel good and ready to go each week. I’m lucky to be playing in a good side and at a good club, so I still enjoy that side of it.”
Stringer has played at Pines, Hastings and Edithvale-Aspendale but in 2007 returned for good to Sorrento where he started out and where his father, Keith, won back-to-back premierships in 1979-80. Stringer Junior has played more than 200 senior games for the Sharks.
He says he has no aspirations to coach, and just wants to keep playing and trying to win premierships.
The Sharks, coached by former St Kilda player Troy Schwarze, are fifth after defeating ladder-leader Rosebud by 24 points on Saturday following a 39-point win against Hastings earlier this month.
“To be honest I’m more worried about where we can get to as a team winning football than my individual (honours),” he said.
“But I know I’ll be sitting back one day and really admiring it and thinking I am so lucky to get so far.”
