Q&A: Engaging kids, Stadium design & Gilby fan club

Transcriptions done by robots in Descript app (they are getting better but not yet perfect)

Question three. came by Andrew via the website. can you share a story you might not have shared on the podcast? well, I think I have shared a lot of stories on the podcast, over 270 odd episodes. I'm not too sure if I have shared this one. I'll tell you the story of the Gilby fan club. and I guess this is probably my earliest fan engagement story. This is back before fan engagement was a thing. Before it was a term. I'm still not convinced it, it is a term. as , a teenager growing up in country town, two hours from Melbourne, Ballarat. in country Victoria. and my, job as a teenager was to be a basketball referee. So I was a basketball referee at Ballarat stadium, playing for the BYC Wildcats. and my brother and I we would referee basketball games from pretty much 8:30 on a Saturday morning with under 10s all the way through to 4:30pm games that afternoon. It was great, refereeing games all day. Got some money in my pocket, hang around with your mates and play basketball and, and, just be around a sport that you loved. On a Saturday night in the SEABL the Ballarat miners, the local basketball team would be, would play in our play against a rivals like the Bendigo So we would go to the miners game and, and sit at the back, with, Eric Cooks who went on to play the NBL. His son now plays for the boomers, as wel as Eric Hayes. names like that. And, there was this one guy that, that came off the bench and had a, had a big hops, legs like steel Springs, as you might say. And his name was Craig Gilbert. And so we decided just for, just for fun, we would be the, the Gilby fan club. And so we had a, we had a friend of my dad's who was a character artist he did a big cartoon mask of, of Gilbey. And so there was about eight of us probably up to about 12 or 15 in the end. And every time Gilby got the ball. we just went berserk and just lifted the crowd and jumped up and down and just became a lot of, just a lot of fun. so there'd be Gilby Gilby Gilby Oi Oi Oi!. Every time he scored, he'd get a dunk and it was just a lot of fun. That's how, that's how I was passing Saturdays nights in Ballarat, as a 16-17 year old. and then I came down to, came down to Melbourne to go to university, at Swinburne is a bachelor of info tech, and, Gilby also graduated to the NBL playing for the, for the Hobart Devils. And so this was a time, many, many years ago, when Melbourne had four teams in the NBL, Melbourne as a town. It had the, South Melbourne Saints, North Melbourne Giants, Southeast Melbourne Specters, the Melbourne Tigers. So. I said to my mates, look, Gilby is this guy from Ballarat. We used to follow every time, every game. And we say, when there's four games in, in Melbourne, when he's gonna play, we're gonna reform the Gilby fan club than just go to an NBL game.and just go bananas. When this, 10th, 11th man gets off the bench. And so, yeah, we went to a couple of games. I think there was one game that actually clashed with their university, a university ball, and, me and my, me and my mate Marcus or Skipper is, he's known. we actually turned up to the game at the glass house, in full tuxedos because that's where we're hitting to after the game. so it was very funny standing at the top of the stairs. and people would come past us and they would show us their ticket stubs thinking we are some kind of ushers. So again, just for the fun of it, so let's have fun. We directed so many fans to the wrong seats that night. it was, it was a lot of fun. So I think we, yeah, we went to a couple of games then the last game of the NBA season, my actually organized a bus, from Ballarat. So organized as a 17 year old. I was 18, then organized a bus of 60 people that drive to come down to, to the Melbourne Glasshouse to see a, the Hobart Tassie Devils versus the Southeast Melbourne. specters. And, at that time, if you follow the NBL, Bruce Bolden was a big, was the star of the Southeast Melbourne. Specters. and yeah. Hey, we go to the line and he had a, had a free throw free throw, a routine of two really large bounces, really strong bands to the basketball before shooting a free throw. And one of our routines when watching a game was, was to mimic the, the opposition for free throw shooter and, and do that bounce bounce. And because Bruce had this really pronounced. Loud bounce. it really worked well cause we got 50 people in a dead silent Glasshouse to go bounce, bounce. And it was still almost like that, that comic book, your, you know, the, the, the, the double-take. Like Bruce looking at the ball, thinking something was wrong with the ball. so it was really, it really great, to support Gilby played one year in the MBL. you know, he had had a couple of, at a couple of matches where he got some points, but, you know, he's, he's one run, in the NBL. I was lucky enough to, you know, caught up with Gilby after the game. He, I've still got his, Hobart Cascade Tassie Devils blazer. Read my, in my closet. So there's, there's, I guess, want to, you know, his closest thing is to a Sports Geek, origin story. I'm still president of the Gilby fan club. next time you see me, I've still got my, Gilby fan club membership in my wallet. but that's how I got my start and, in understanding fans and, and just loving sport. And so, at, at this time especially, I'm really looking forward to for when sport comes, comes back.