Weekly Times | MARK “Willo” Williams, who has played his 500th game on Saturday, knows a thing or two about football.
Training will shorten your career, warm-ups are too taxing and forget about the ice baths.
“I’m too old school for that. I’d rather have my shower and walk out and have a can and watch the seniors play,” the 48-year-old said.
Willo started with South Barwon in the late 1980s, spent two years at Anglesea in the Bellarine Football League and then joined the Campbells Creek Magpies, just outside of Castlemaine, in 1998.
It was also the year of his most memorable game.
“When I first came up to Campbells Creek, they used to cop a few hidings and had not won a game in two years,” he said. “But against Royal Park one of our blokes kicked the winning goal after the siren. It was a good night, and the Sunday was pretty full on, too.
“I think we only won the one game for the year.”
Willo contemplated retirement a decade ago, but thought better of it.
Instead, he takes it one year at a time.
The secret to his longevity, he says, is to keep training to a minimum, especially in the past four years when he started playing reserves.
“I normally get there on a Thursday night after they have done their warm-ups. I reckon that’s the hardest part of training,” he said.
Willo, who works at the bacon factory in Castlemaine, has had a blessed run with injuries.
The worst of it was a year on the sidelines in 2001 with a dodgy knee.
Still, once they gave it a scrape and patched up years of wear and tear, he was ready to go again.
For his entire career Willo has been a half-back flanker who rarely kicked a goal. And only once did he end up in the umpire’s book.
“Yeah, that was many years ago at South Barwon,” he said. “It was an all-in brawl and I think they just picked me out. I got off because the umpire did not turn up for the tribunal.”
The thing that keeps Willo going is the kids.
He would love to play a game alongside his 16-year-old son Tyson, who made his senior debut last week, but he loves playing against them.
“A lot of them hang sh-t on me at the start of a game and then after that, if I play all right, they say, ‘ah, well played you old so and so’,” he said.
“I take that as a compliment. As I said to Mum, ‘if they are hanging sh-t on me, they must be worried about me.’”
Willo is right when he says he is old school — he never uses a mobile phone except when he goes up the river fishing.
That means he misses all the text messages from the coach. Not that it ever worries Willo.
“I’m assistant coach for the reserves, so it’s pretty hard not to get a game,” he said.