PETER Riccardi happily admits that many of his friends thought he was crazy when he told them he was signing on as coach of North Shore in late 2009. Their response was hardly surprising. After all, the Seagulls - one of the most historically successful clubs in the Geelong Football League - had recently gone through an entire season without a win. ''They were all wondering what on earth I was doing,'' Riccardi recalls.

Yet the affable 38-year-old, who played 288 AFL games with Geelong between 1992 and 2006, was inspired by the challenge. He thought to himself, ''Why not take it on and see if we can do something about it?''

Riccardi's first year at North Shore was a struggle. While his team was often competitive, it once again failed to notch a victory. In 2011, however, Riccardi is seeing his project come together.

A month ago, in round one of the GFL season, North Shore broke a 37-game losing streak when it defeated Newtown & Chilwell by 51 points. The scenes in the rooms afterwards were joyous, although not quite reminiscent of the seven premiership celebrations the Seagulls enjoyed during the 1990s.

''It was a great feeling after all the hard work we've put in over the last three years,'' says North Shore president David Milsome. ''We kept pretty calm about it. We enjoyed singing the song and we had a few beers that night, but it was only one game.''

Last weekend, North Shore's supporters were smiling again when their boys beat Lara, a team that is expected to play in the finals. While the glory days are still some way off returning, the wins have breathed new life into a proud club.

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''We knew we'd have a trough at some stage when we'd take a few punches, and we did,'' Milsome says. ''But winning does change everything. Now it feels like the last two or three years have gone by fairly quickly.''

Based in the suburb of Norlane, in which the Housing Commission built thousands of workers' homes after the Second World War, North Shore was a Geelong league powerhouse for three decades, winning 14 flags between 1974 and 2000.

But demographic change hit the Seagulls hard. While the club was winning its most recent premierships, its traditional supporters - the folk who worked at places such as the Ford factory - were moving away to bigger houses in more affluent areas. Their children inevitably joined footy teams closer to their new homes.

It took some time for this trend to impact on the Seagulls' win-loss ratio, but a slide to ninth on the ladder in 2007 proved a sign of things to come. Sensing the club was in trouble, a number of players departed for cashed-up district league sides in 2008. With few talented juniors to replace them, North Shore became the GFL's whipping boy, regularly copping hidings of more than 100 points. It was even worse the following year. Less than a decade after winning its sixth consecutive premiership, North Shore suffered the ignominy of going through a season without a single victory. Something had to be done.

Milsome heard that Riccardi, who had been a playing assistant coach at Geelong West-St Peter's in the year after he retired from the AFL, was keen to develop an off-field career in footy. He and Ron Watt - the man who coached the Seagulls when they were at the top in the 1990s - decided to contact the former Cat. To many people's surprise, they got their man. Riccardi won over the people at North Shore by remaining upbeat throughout last season, despite the often hefty beatings dished out to his team. ''You wouldn't meet a more down-to-earth bloke, who's played 280-odd AFL games,'' Milsome says. ''He's just a ripper bloke to have around the place.''

The Seagulls rotated 47 players through their senior side in 2010. While they were unable to score a breakthrough win, Riccardi saw signs of life. ''When I first got there and took my first training session I thought, 'Geez, what have I got myself into?' But especially in the last six weeks of last year, when all of a sudden the boys started playing the way I wanted them to play, we really did improve.

''There were some games there where we played the top sides like South Barwon and Bell Park and we probably got beaten by 15 goals, but it didn't feel like a 15-goal loss. We knew the performances were a lot better than what the scoreboard showed.''

This year, North Shore has been bolstered by the addition of around a dozen recruits. Some were targeted, while others fell into the club's lap. Among the players in the latter category is half-forward Bobby Garley, who became a free agent when his previous club, Great Western, went into recess over the summer.

Garley booted three goals in last weekend's upset win over Lara, while gun midfielder James Byrne, who captained Geelong to the 2007 VFL premiership, was best on ground. Ex-Collingwood midfielder Paul Licuria also gathered a number of possessions. Licuria, who is an assistant coach with the Magpies, hopes to play four or five games for North Shore this season.

''Beating Lara was massive for the belief of the players,'' Riccardi says. ''Lara are going to be one of the sides in the finals and we need our boys to believe that what we're doing at training and in games is working. We now know that if we do the basics right we can beat sides like Lara.''

Despite the on-field improvement, there are many long-term challenges for North Shore. None is greater than the need to build up its base of juniors, and on this front the club is moving to embrace the recent influx of migrants into its area.

''We want our club to be a place for the new families to participate in sport,'' Milsome states.

''We've got some Zimbabwean kids in our juniors and they're just full of life. They're great kids. We see that as a way for the club to keep growing.''

Eventually, there might be youngsters from Afghanistan, Iran and Sudan in North Shore's blue-and-yellow guernseys. But for now Milsome is hoping the club's current batch of players will get to sing their song a few more times this year.

''I think our opposition clubs were glad we were taking a few beltings, because we gave plenty of those over the years,'' he reflects. ''Now we've won a few games, people ... are saying it's good to have North Shore back up there. If we can win five or six games this year we think that'll be a great achievement.''

By Adam McNicol

Article first appeared The Sunday Age, May 15 2011

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