This year, 23 local sporting legends are being inducted to the Honour Roll and Junior Honour Roll categories in the Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame.
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The News is featuring stories on each of the inductees in the lead-up to the induction ceremony on August 16. Today, News journalist Laura Briggs speaks to Ian Fitzsimmons, who is being inducted to the Honour Roll for his influence as a cricket and football administrator.
Most people are all about playing the game, but it’s people like Shepparton’s Ian Fitzsimmons who play a major part in keeping local sporting clubs alive with their behind-the-scenes work.
From cricket and football to lawn bowls and tenpin bowling, Fitzsimmons has poured more than six decades into numerous clubs, filling in the gaps by throwing himself into a vast range of roles.
It all began when, aged nine, Fitzsimmons scored for Shepparton Youth Club Cricket Club as a way of filling in his Saturday afternoon.
By age 14 he had made special memories that he would look back on for the rest of his life.
‘‘The day the Pommies came to Shepparton, where the new stand is in Deakin Reserve there used to be an old stand there and I sat on the top of that with the ABC Sport with Dick Mason, who was the top sportsman back in those days, and I scored as a 14-year-old.’’
Fitzsimmons went on to score multiple major games in which Shepparton came up against teams including Queensland, West Indies and Pakistan.
Throughout his 25 years involved with the club, Fitzsimmons jumped from one role to another — scorer, player, president, selector, committee man — you name it, Fitzsimmons did it. And one sport led to another.
Within years of getting among the cricket crowd, Fitzsimmons was in with the football fanatics at Shepparton Football Club — an organisation with which he has filled various roles across nearly 50 years.
Through that time Fitzsimmons said he witnessed many changes and progression in local sport.
‘‘In 1955, 1960, Deakin Reserve was a mud heap.
‘‘I was a trainer for Shepp football club back in those days and when we used to run out to the players we’d be sinking four or five inches into the mud.’’
He said the foul-smelling ground gave rise to jobs that trainers would not consider having to do today.
‘‘One of my first jobs as a trainer, at the end of the game I’d have a wet towel and I’d go and wipe the blokes' legs if they had a scratch and put mercurochrome on it so they wouldn’t get infected.
‘‘That’s how bad the grounds were.’’
He said the local grounds today were incomparable to those of earlier times.
‘‘Now you could play on it in your slippers.’’
Fitzsimmons said while the grounds were the real game changer in local sport, time on the field also altered dramatically throughout the decades.
‘‘Between about 1970 and the middle 80s I would only get the Saturday off around Christmas time between the cricket and football — one would finish and the other one started,’’ he said.
‘‘I remember the third year that I scored, I scored on Christmas Eve and finished at 6pm.
‘‘Now they have a week before and two weeks after.’’
While local sport was continually changing, the dedication Fitzsimmons showed to the local clubs remained constant.
‘‘You just got in and did whatever possible.’’
His commitment shone in all things sports, but nothing showed that more than the number of consecutive games he attended as a trainer.
‘‘I did 487 games without missing a Saturday. Plus the seconds and probably about half that amount again for the thirds.
‘‘So you add another 487, plus another half ... that’s how many games of football I’ve been involved in as a trainer,’’ he said.
Fitzsimmons said he had a similar reputation with the cricket club.
‘‘I’d have been lucky to have missed four games in 25 years.’’
In addition to his countless hours spent volunteering with the local football and cricket clubs, Fitzsimmons completed a 10-year stint with Shepparton Tenpin Bowling, during which he took on the secretary position for three years.
He also got on board with Shepparton Golf Bowls Club in 1995, where he has contributed as a president of five years, selector and player.
Now with five life memberships, Fitzsimmons said he was honoured to have been heavily involved in local sport throughout the decades.
‘‘You don’t really look for it but I’ve been very very lucky to have received those.’’
While Fitzsimmons now drives school buses as a day job and delivers The News overnight on a casual basis, he still finds the time to keep up his involvement as a statistician with the local football club.
In effect, he's still keeping score.