Doors locked and star recruit signs

By Justin Robertson
A TRUE test of a footballer’s character is resisting cash lures from rival clubs.
For some players, it can be a difficult decision to either play for a local club you’ve grown up with or to take the cash and strap on the boots for an estranged team with whom you have nothing in common. For Pakenham’s Brett Dore, the decision was simple: stay loyal and local.
After receiving a handful of cash offers from Narre Warren, Peninsula clubs Langwarrin and Frankston Bombers and Eastern teams Noble Park and Mulgrave, Dore’s loyalty won out over the cash offer frenzy and he’s back at the club where he grew up – Nar Nar Goon.
Narre Warren offered around $800 per game to play, while Mulgrave topped the list with an attractive $1000 per game.
“Money is not every thing for me,” Dore said.
“I just wanted to play where I was happy. At the end of last year at Frankston, I was a bit unhappy and was not enjoying my footy, so I wanted to come back to Nar Nar Goon.”
The key forward is back at the Goon after spending four years at Frankston, the Peninsula’s marquee VFL team.
But he said he couldn’t be happier with the decision.
“I played all my junior football at Nar Nar Goon and then after my time at Frankston, I’d had enough,” Dore said. “I wanted to play with my mates again and win a premiership with them.”
It was during last year’s Mad Monday when the 23-year-old made the commitment to play again for his old club.
He was driving past the old clubrooms after work around eight in the morning – and being close to a lot of the players at the club – thought he’d drop by for a visit.
Good mate Shannon Stocco greeted him wearing only a dressing gown and they spent the next 10 minutes catching up inside the clubrooms with mates. When Dore was about to leave, Stocco bailed him up in the clubrooms, locked all the doors, and wouldn’t let him leave until he signed a napkin – “a contract” to say he’d play football for Nar Nar Goon in 2010.
Dore signed it and the rest is history.
“It was pretty funny actually,” Dore said. “I’m pretty loyal. My heart has always been at Nar Nar Goon and I have mates and family ties there. I couldn’t say no to the ‘Goon’.”
Dore has been picked in the VCFL representative team and was told over the telephone three weeks ago that he will compete in the national Australian Country Football Carnival to be held in Canberra in the last week of July, along with Mathew Wade and 1000 other country footballers.
“I was rapt about that,” Dore said. “I’ve come back to Nar Nar Goon but still really want to have a crack higher up, so this is like a little sniff through the door.”