Sport veteran growing old gracefully

Kevin Geyer lives and breathes sport and at 88 is still going strong.

The sporting veteran has even landed his name in the National Archery Hall of Fame, representing Horsham in the 1950s.

Alongside his extensive archery career, Geyer has played ‘just about anything going’ in his time.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, he could be found playing croquet at Kalimna Park Croquet Club in Horsham, where he is still well-known for his dead-shot accuracy.

Geyer was born and raised in the Wimmera, starting his sporting career playing football and cricket.

Before discovering archery at 18, he played in Horsham District Football League for Homers, later renamed North Horsham, in the 1940s.

But a game in Melbourne in 1949, resulting in an ankle injury, turned him away from the sport for good.

It was while recovering from his broken ankle he found a notice in the Horsham Times newspaper about an archery demonstration at Horsham Racecourse.

“I hopped on my brother’s bike, carrying my crutches, and went down there. A few people were demonstrating archery,” Geyer said.

“I was standing there trying to have a shoot with a crutch under one arm and bow and arrow in the other, and from there it instantly sucked me in.”

Following the demonstration, the Horsham Archery Club was born and quickly became a hub for the sport across the region, attracting more than 50 members.

In 1952, club members got word archery would make it back into the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics for the first time since 1920 – a target Geyer firmly set his sights on.

From that point on, Geyer’s steel bow and his duck feather fletched arrows became the tools of his trade, practising ‘every waking hour’.

He even took up wrestling at one point to further develop his upper body strength.

“In 1952 they told us archery would be in the Olympics, in Melbourne in 1956,” he said.

“I’d start work at 5am as a pastry cook, knock off about 2pm and then go straight to the archery club to put in between three and six hours of practice,” he said.

“In ’54 I went to Adelaide for Australian champs and placed third. I thought ‘beauty I might actually have a shot at this’.”

Reaping reward

A year later his hard work was starting to pay off.

He won the 1955 Australian championships in Sydney.

However, his years of preparing for the Olympics were ripped away from him in circumstances beyond his control.

“In 1956 they told us there was a muck-up in the application and archery would not be in the Olympics,” Geyer said.

“That was one of the biggest disappointments as far as sport was concerned in my career, considering the time I put in. I really dedicated myself over those years.”

A string of bad luck followed. Nerves got the better of him while competing at the 1956 national championships in Brisbane.

“1956 was a bit of a disaster. I went to Brisbane for nationals and I had the 1955 national cup with me, looking after it,” he said.

“Someone was going to pick us up at our hotel and take us to where the archery field was.

“We packed our gear and waited, with the cup beside me on the step. A car stopped to pick us up and the driver told us to hurry, and away we went.

“We got to the archery field and a bloke said, ‘glad to see you, have you brought the cup with you?’ Talk about calamity, I realised I hadn’t grabbed it, so we went back to the hotel and it was gone.

“I was a bundle of nerves after that.

I went back and we started shooting. I couldn’t do it, I was too upset – I think I placed about sixth or eighth in that tournament.

“After we went back to the hotel, I asked the reception if they had seen the cup. They said no. I told them it was wrapped in brown paper and they said, ‘oh, is that it?’ It was sitting on the shelf. We got the cup back, but it ruined my day.

“If I’d lost that cup I would have been rubbed out of archery.”

The following year Geyer was even more determined to regain his title.

Tactical advantage

A tactical advantage of changing his arrow fletchings to swan feathers had allowed him to dominate his competition on a rainy day in Melbourne.

“I sent my arrows down to Ballarat to be re-fletched,” he said.

“I started shooting at the nationals. After lunch it started raining. We were shooting and everyone yelled out to stop, but I said ‘no, keep shooting’.

“We kept going and my feathers were standing up beautifully. Other people’s arrows were going all over the place. By about 3pm, I was that wet the water was running out of my boots and everyone said, ‘that’s it, give it away, no more’.

“I was about 60 points ahead. They gave me the cup that year. I thought, ‘beauty, I’ll do the same thing next year’, but by the end of the year they changed over to plastic fletching – well that messed up my little lurk.”

Geyer gave away archery in 1958 after marrying his wife, the late Doreen Geyer.

He replaced the bow with a croquet mallet in 1990, following Doreen’s decision to join a Horsham croquet club.

The husband and wife croquet duo represented the Wimmera in competitions across the state.

Today, sport is still a key part of Geyer’s life.

He said he owed his fitness and wellbeing to his dedication of staying active.

“I’ve always been a great believer in doing exercises. I get up every morning and do exercise,” he said.

“Croquet is a good form of exercise because there’s lots of walking, bending over and thinking involved – a lot of elderly people say, ‘take up croquet and you grow old gracefully’.

“It’s not too hard on the body and it’s most enjoyable.”