K Rock Football | Chris Wilkie admits Geelong West would not be around to celebrate its 100th anniversary if not for the joint venture it entered into with the GFNL club Geelong West-St Peter’s in 2016.

The Giants president, who has been with the club for 30 years, save for a couple of seasons at Corio in the 2000s, recalled the then Cheetahs struggles ahead of Saturday’s milestone match against the Belmont Lions.

“If this (joint venture) didn’t come in, or this didn’t come to a head, or come to a vote to the players, we probably would not be here celebrating 100 years, we would not have made it,” Wilkie told K rock Football’s Beyond the Boundary podcast.

“We would have, unfortunately, probably closed the doors. Not due to financials… we could not sell anything to anyone.

“Everyone knows Bakers Oval’s got a lot of tradition. You know, (if) those walls could talk, you would be here for bloody years and years and years.

“But, when you are trying to recruit, and you are not winning, and you are trying to sell something, it is a pretty hard gig to try and get people over the line.”

Wilkie says the first decade of the alliance with the GFNL Giants has not always been smooth sailing.

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