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Here in central Victoria we have attracted, and continue to attract, our fair share. So over a period of three decades I've seen quite a few.
Every club has a character or three among its ranks. They don't have to be paid-up members, although the clubs would clearly like them all to be fully subscribed.

The most colourful and most enduring to the memory are those who support their club passionately. I don't mean the sort who gob off week in-week out at the umpires. Any galah can do that.

I mean the people who make a pithy comment at appropriate moments, or who demonstrate a deft ability to be able to sum up a situation in a few, short words.

Here's a selection of some of the people I've seen at first hand and indeed eyeball-to-eyeball in some cases.

RAY "BLUEY'' WATTS: an enduring symbol of the Eaglehawk Football and Netball Club's fortunes - good, bad or middling.

"Bluey" was a trainer at the Borough when I first started watching the Two Blues and my favorite memory is his outburst at the QEO in the 1980s.

Tough Eaglehawk on-baller Alan Williams had the nickname ‘Bruiser'. South Bendigo centreman Gary Cowling was also known as "Bruiser", but his moniker was not as universally known throughout the league as the one carried by Williams.

"Bruiser'', said Bluey scornfully as the Bloods' Cowling hit the deck just in front of the Eaglehawk boundary line brains trust. "There's only one "Bruiser" in this league, and you ain't him!"

HARRIE SIMS: the long-time BFL clearance and Tribunal secretary.
Apart from an idiosyncratic spelling of his Christian name, Harrie was a character in his own right at the regular Monday night Tribunal hearings.

Before the panel chairman could conduct a preliminary roll call of the alleged strikers, strikees, umpires and witnesses for that evening's proceedings, Harrie would assemble them all --- umpires excepted --- on the verandah of the old Weeroona Oval official rooms.

He'd give them a rundown on the seriousness of collusion and collaboration when his back was turned. Suitably chastened and keen to exit the premises as soon as possible the long faces bore testimony to Harrie's less than gentle ministrations.

DR WALLY McGREGOR: the official Northern United F.C. medico.
It wasn't so much what Wally said, although he could be quite amusing, but what he did that I'll never forget.

The Swallows' gun centre half-forward Gavin Exell was on crutches on the Monday leading up to a mid-1980s grand final. He might even have had a plaster sheath covering an injured leg.

Whatever, all of us in the media were convinced Exell had no chance of playing in that weekend's grand final so we wrote and said as much in the local print and electronic outlets.

Guess what happened on grand final day? Yep, there was Exell in all his glory marking everything and kicking goals. As United won the premiership.

Wally had effected if not a miracle cure, one that went pretty close.

[Exell, of course, also played for Geelong and Fitzroy until a serious eye injury curtailed his VFL/AFL career. Still playing country footy, he was well into his 40s before he called it a day.]

JUDITH HALL: as ‘Bluey' Watts is to Eaglehawk, Judith is to Sandhurst. She follows the Dragons with a passion, a passion which has endured right through the decades.

She knows all the players in the club, with a particular love for the under-18s. Judith is always on hand to help at home game half-time afternoon teas in the Hurst rooms under the QEO grandstand.

Woe betide an opposition player who bumps, let alone flattens, one of her beloved Dragons. She'll bustle out from the little tunnel leading to the Sandhurst rooms.

"You dirty mongrel" is her favourite line and to Judith's credit I must say I've never heard her use any profanity no matter how stirred up she gets.

DICK TURNER, 3BO BROADCASTER: a jolly, rotund little man- behind-the-mike who loved his local footy deeply.
Dick's biggest problem was that everyone knew he barracked for Golden Square, After all, he was a revered member of the Square Fire Brigade just down the road from the Wade Street oval and clubrooms.

The Eaglehawk faithful used to bucket Dick whenever the 3BO team went to Canterbury Park to call a game. So he had this specially rehearsed line to help appease some of the rabid Two Blues' followers.

"Here we are at beautiful Canterbury Park in Eaglehawk --- in the Borough, where they're born with a football boot on one leg and a dahlia between their teeth," he'd say. Fairly frequently, too.

A dahlia? Well, Eaglehawk stages an annual Dahlia and Arts Festival through its streets every March and Dick, as a city councillor and Mayor of Bendigo, certainly knew his festival calendar.

One time we had to call an inter-league match between Bendigo and Northern District at the giant Cohuna Oval. The only way up to the commentary position was through an aperture similar to the hatch on a submarine conning tower.

After much hefting and shoving from the ladder below Dick's ample rear quarters were finally levered through the opening. He didn't bother coming down until the match was over!

MORE BFL characters as the season unfolds.

Richard's selections for Round 6: Eaglehawk, Strathfieldsaye, Golden Square, Maryborough, Sandhurst. Progress tally: 21.

By Richard Jones