New player on Elders team

Former Kangaroo champ’s real estate relocation

FORMER North Melbourne AFL champion Anthony Stevens (pictured) knows he has big shoes to fill at Elders’ Geelong real estate office.

But the dual premiership star’s agricultural background stemming from his childhood home on a Western District farm is an advantage.

Stevens has joined Elders’ Geelong rural real estate team after long-time agent Ken Drysdale died in late 2019.

“I’ve been working out of the Melbourne office for the past three years and now I’ve transferred down here and my main focus is continuing the legacy that Ken left,” Stevens said. “I’m excited, actually, and I see a lot of upside here as well.

“Dealing with farmers far and wide in Victoria, southern New South Wales and Tasmania, the biggest thing from a broadacre or agricultural side of things is rainfall and soils.

“That’s an asset from Geelong pushing back into the Western District.

“It’s a blue-chip area from a broadacre point of view.”

Geelong’s schools, proximity to Melbourne’s CBD and plans for a fast train connecting to the capital elevated the lifestyle opportunities, he said.

But Stevens said he thought land was a little under-valued in comparison with West Gippsland, which is closer to the Mornington Peninsula.

Stevens was born at Skipton, where his dad and brothers ran a property at Bradvale.

When he was 12, the family moved to the Goulburn Valley, where his parents worked a dryland cropping farm at Tungamah, then a dairy farm at Waaia.

Stevens and his father have been running cattle on several properties.

“We’ve downsized it now, but essentially my aim is to get a farm on the outskirts of Geelong and have it as a bit of lifestyle property and work a few cows,” Stevens said.

“I’ve got Limousin cows at the moment. We only have three but we had up to 20 to 40 breeders there at stages.”

Stevens played 292 games for North Melbourne and was a member of the Kangaroos’ 1996 and 1999 premiership teams.

He said the team-oriented workplace at Elders suited his nature.

“Just one thing I noticed is the legacy that Ken has left here,” Stevens said.

“It hasn’t surprised me one bit that there’s a lot of loyalty to Elders through Ken.

“The one thing that Ken built over the years was trust and respect.

“That’s an area that I look to continue, being a farmer and I suppose from a football perspective, playing 16 years at North in a team environment.”