Weekly Times | BUCHAN Football Club will return to the field this weekend, seven months after it was booted from the Omeo and District Football League grand final.
The Cavemen were ejected from the decider after admitting they fielded an ineligible player during the finals.
Buchan opens its new campaign against Lindenow South on Saturday.
Last year’s club president and current committee member Kate Hodge said players at the club were “very keen to right a wrong”.
“It’s been a really difficult period for the club and it’s been difficult to keep everybody positive and not allow it to consume the club,” Hodge said.
“It goes to show the character of the people in the community to not point fingers and stand up and decide to be positive about this.”
Just days before last year’s grand final, Buchan admitted Matthew Bedggood was on its Round 14 team sheet when he was in Bali.
Bedggood played three home-and-away games last year, one less than the league’s requirement to qualify for finals. He was one of the Cavemen’s star players in both the semi and preliminary finals.
Buchan was eliminated from the premiership race on the eve of the grand final and fined $2000 — $1000 of which was suspended for two seasons.
Then-coach Rowan Ingram and team manager Tim Woodgate were banned from holding match-day positions this season, and Ingram was barred from playing or coaching.
“The penalty hurt more people than just those who were responsible for the decision-making,” Hodge said.
“That’s why people are feeling like there’s unfinished business.’’
She said Buchan accepted the penalties, but had lost some supporters and the “ugly part” was the wider impact on the club’s other teams.
Garry “Pedro” Neille, the father of last year’s Omeo league best-and-fairest winner Josh, has taken over as coach.
Bedggood, who is waiting for a clearance to North Gippsland club Heyfield, was not penalised.
Omeo and District secretary Rod Twining said the league believed Bedggood was unaware he had been put on the team sheet and did not know the qualifying rules.
“The club ... the whole town was humiliated, we’re not going to go on a witch hunt because they’re hurting as it is,” he said.
