50 years on – still one fantastic season

THIS past Sunday marked the fiftieth anniversary for the 1969 under-18 Ballarat YCW football side that successfully went through an entire season undefeated and capped it off with the premiership.

A junior club for most of their existence, YCW was a cornerstone of Ballarat’s youth system until their eventual merger with the Wendouree Football Club in 1994 to form the BFNL powerhouse, Lake Wendouree.

Starting together in 1963 as the CYC, the vast majority of players stayed together and that under-14 side was the foundation for the success that followed six years later.

Past player, Michael Walsh, described the time as, “Just simply the best time and the best footy,” and said, “All the boys just loved it… it goes to show that you don’t necessarily have to have the greatest change-rooms and facilities if you got that good mateship for football.”

YCW were to utterly dominate in the 1969 season winning by a whopping average margin of just under 100 points per game and producing some of the best talent that Ballarat had to offer in the years going ahead.

“Every player that played in the Grand Final that year (1969) for us went on to play at least senior football in Ballarat and when you look at footy now we sorta say if we can get two or maybe even three of our under-18s to play senior footy then we have done well so it was quite a remarkable feat there alone,” Walsh said.

Some of the more well-known players to come out of that team were the likes of Frank Segrave – who’s the games recorder holder at the Ballarat Swans and the captain of the side, John Austin – who went on to play a couple hundred games for Sandy Bay in the Tasmanian Football League,

current City of Ballarat Deputy- Mayor Jim Rinaldi, and of course Walsh played his senior football for the now also defunct Golden Point Football Club.

Every year, on the third Sunday of May, the surviving players from that premiership side will continue to meet at the Red Lion Hotel as a true form of comradery and mateship to celebrate what was a very special time of their lives.