Hamish Easton wins AFL Victoria Junior Coach of the Year

QUEENSCLIFF Football Netball Club junior football coach Hamish Easton has received the ultimate honour of being crowned the David Parkin Junior Coach of the Year at the AFL Victoria Community Football Awards.

At an official awards ceremony a fortnight ago, Mr Easton found out he had ousted nominees from all around the state to take out the major honour, one that he said brought him plenty of excitement yet a bit of embarrassment.

“It’s a good feeling and nice to feel appreciated, I certainly would rather that feeling than someone tapping you on the shoulder and saying we don’t want you back,” Easton said.

“To be honest, it’s almost a bit embarrassing to be awarded this, it can be a bit much, I’m not one for promoting myself too highly and I don’t do it for these types of things.

“However, it is nice when parents and then the football club nominate you.

“It was amazing to be shortlisted and then to win the award.”

Mr Easton said he has been around the club since 2018, having been brought down to Queenscliff by friend and senior coach at the time Steve Clark.

Prior to his time at Queenscliff, Easton was part of the Leopold Football Club, however felt strong ties to Queenscliff when Clark asked him to jump on board as a senior coach in his first year of his tenure.

“We still live in Leopold and my son Cooper said he wanted to play footy in 2018, I thought that it was going to be pretty interesting to see where he wanted to play [Queenscliff or Leopold],” Easton said.

“Luckily, he said he wanted to play for Queenscliff and that made it a lot easier.

“I’ve now been doing the juniors with Cooper from U/11’s, to U/12’s this year and then we will move into the U/14’s next year.”

The Leopold resident said that he puts the award and his longevity so far at the club down to the people around him and the amazing sense of community that he feels at Queenscliff.

“I’m originally from a small country town and I love that Queenscliff has that feel,” Easton said.

“Having the success of your football club dictating the success of your town is what I grew up with.

“I love the community aspect of it, we are very lucky down at Queenscliff, we don’t have four teams in each age group, we’ve got one team and more often than not we are chopping and changing players to play in the age group above.

“The involvement from the parent group has been tremendous, you can never fault them on asking them for a goal umpire, first aid or timekeeping, you’re almost having an argument sometimes because so many people want to do the role.

“It makes it easier for us coaches to know that we have good parents and people around the club.”

Easton said his goal for the future is to continue growing the club through finding unique ways to attract more kids to play for Queenscliff from surrounding areas.

He also hopes to keep progressing football in the region through the Geelong Footy Academy which he has been running during summer and autumn for U/12 to U/16 players.

To see more, go to Geelong Footy Academy on Facebook and Instagram.