Dragons fire for diamond anniversary

BELL Park stalwart Brian Grinter recalls the early days of his football club’s existence as if it were yesterday.

With Hamlyn Park not available for the Dragons’ first match, in 1958, the under-15s side (there was no senior team at the time) travelled down the road to use a back-up venue as the team took on St Mary’s Tech.

But for all of the hard work that had been done in the build up to forming a new club, the game was almost a non-event.

“Our first match, our ground wasn’t ready, and we played St Mary’s Tech at the back of the old Geelong West Tech in Douglass St (now Hurst Reserve),” Grinter says.

“But the coach went to the ground in the morning and had to go home and come back to mark the boundary because it wasn’t marked.”

Next year will mark the 60th anniversary of Bell Park Football Club’s first season and Grinter, the club’s first captain, says it will be a major celebration.

Now an established team in the state’s premier country football competition, the Dragons will likely commemorate the occasion a little differently to how it was done by the players in the early days.

“I’ve got pretty good memories of those early days,” Grinter said.

“We had to outlay money (to play) so the footballers would do all the work and run the raffles, go for bottle drives, and we’d have dances.

“You’d come off the footy ground covered in mud and have a quick shower and then go and clean the rooms up, and have a Saturday night dance. It was all good fun and the camaraderie was always there.

“We’re planning something for next year. I don’t know what we’re going to do with it, but I think it should be a big thing. Sixty years is a long time.”

Grinter now serves as Bell Park’s club historian and will have some work to do as the milestone approaches.

One person sure to feature is the Dragons’ first coach, Eric Lynch, who still attends games at 94 years of age.

“I wouldn’t think there were too many clubs about that have still got their original coach and original captain still involved in the club,” Grinter said.

“Eric Lynch is 94 and goes up all the time, he does it all and I’m still on the board.

“There are a lot of people who have been there for 50 years who are still participating and that to me is why Eric and myself are still there, because the club is such a good club.”