By Russell Bennett
AT about 9.30 on Saturday night at the Gembrook clubrooms, Brookers legend Con Licciardi draped his famous club jacket around the shoulders of current day gun Chris Vernal. In more ways than one, it was the perfect fit.
Licciardi played 240 games for the famous hills club and wore his jacket to last year’s 1965 premiership reunion. Vernal told him how much he loved it, and Licciardi promised to hand it over if his current day Brookers won another flag.
On Saturday night he delivered.
Earlier in the day Gembrook Cockatoo raced out of the blocks against Kinglake at Yarra Glen in the AFL Yarra Ranges Division 2 Grand Final – booting four unanswered goals in the first term – before ultimately coming away with a 39-point win, 15.10(100) to 8.13(61).
Vernal was brilliant – winning the medal for the best player on the ground – while Paul Gramc booted five majors and Ricky Causer and the Scott boys, Leigh and Dylan, were also among the side’s best.
The Brookers have been through hell and back since their three successive heartbreaking Division 1 grand final losses from 2010 to 2012. They were relegated in 2013, and last year were shaken to the core – along with their famous rivals from Emerald – following the tragic deaths of Sharn Walker, Jason Breakwell and Felisha Allen in an Avonsleigh crash.
But Saturday was a celebration about everything – and everyone – that makes this great club so great.
Brookers legend Matt O’Neil returned to the club as senior coach this year in its hour of need and he stood with fellow legends Harold Ramage, and 400-gamers Len Ure and Steve Pantorno in front of the current playing group prior to Saturday’s game.
They spanned the generations, but they all had one thing in common – green and white running through their veins.
The Brookers have been through plenty this year as well, with stars Nathan Leversha, Ricky Delphine, Luke Frazzetto, Eamon Tomlin, Andrew Shipp and Causer missing for large parts of the season – if not the whole thing. They didn’t look like potential premiers for the most part, but O’Neil knew all that mattered was the business end of the season and playing great footy right when it mattered most.
The mid-season recruitments of Gramc, Simon Ponter and James McLean-Brunton worked a treat, while the remaining members of the 2010-2012 sides were spurred on by those agonising defeats.
Back at the rooms on Saturday night, there were familiar faces from far and wide – many of them players at other clubs in other leagues – all there to celebrate the Brookers’ return to the top flight.
O’Neil presented premiership medals to former gun AJ Walker (who was forced into a premature retirement through a spinal injury), Pantorno, Leversha, and Shipp (whose storied career came to an end in Round 15 after he ruptured his ACL) among others.
Shipp later pledged to hand his medal over to Frazzetto – who suffered his own season-ending knee injury but will play a large role in the future of the senior side in Division 1. That’s the magic of this side. From Gramc and Ponter, to Frazzetto, to Shipp, Pantorno, Licciardi and Ure – once a Brooker, always a Brooker.
Brookers’ favourite son and champion ruckman Craig Clarke – now 37 – called time on his brilliant career following Saturday’s win.
Club president Damian Kee paid the ultimate tribute to him on Saturday night, telling the Gazette: “Clarkey continued to play because without him the club might not have even survived.
“He couldn’t finish on a high in the three losing ones he didn’t want to walk away and leave the club.
“When we went down to second division he was still there but I don’t think there was any way he was going to leave the club in second division. I think he, personally, has a lot that everyone needs to thank him for in hanging around and making it.
“Without a big bloke like that there’s no way that anyone is going to come to your footy club and play. Put everyone else aside, he’s an inspiration.”
With his body tired, battered and bruised, Clarke still finished second in Division 2 league best and fairest this year while Shipp also polled particularly well.
Kee also paid tribute to O’Neil for returning to the club in the blink of an eye, and heart and soul figure Shannon Richardson – who finally gets to call himself a Brookers senior premiership player.
Now the Brookers are back in Division 1, they’re hell-bent on staying there.
“All of our history is in Division 1 and it’s where we should be,” Kee said.
“I know our community is a lot smaller than others but the passion and the spirit is up there with the best of them.”
