How 'Auskick for oldies' is saving lives in country Victoria

David O'Brien is in the "echo" of his football career.

The 55-year-old reckons he's played about 860 games in his lifetime, and for the past seven years, all those games have all been in Masters football leagues, competitions strictly for over 35s.

In Country Masters footy they don't keep official scores. Kicking goals are beside the point.

It might be a bit slower, sloppier and less serious than the younger men's competitions, but as long as you're playing, you're a winner.

"I call it Footy Valhalla," O'Brien says, sitting in a shed of his Great Ocean Road farm, a bit more than an hour before he heads to Torquay for game number 861-or-so.

"So, your real footy career was your proper footy career where you're playing for points and where it matters. Don't try and translate that 'rah-rah', high testosterone energy into Masters, it's not really what it's all about.

David is a Masters football evangelist — singing the praises of the over-35s game which is booming in country Victoria.

Player numbers in the Victorian Country AFL Masters competition have almost doubled over the past five years, with 819 players now registered across 16 teams. They're all men's teams for now, but the league hopes to launch a women's competition soon.

While the health benefits of staying active while aging are self-evident, the benefit Masters players enjoy comes from simply being involved and is more intangible.

For a demographic most at risk of social isolation and suicide — regional men aged 35-54 — Masters footy may literally be saving lives.

'Bring your boots'

David O'Brien is one-of-a-kind.

He's a farmer, a barrister, a musician and has a few business ventures including selling alpaca-wool beanies and 'honey-wine' mead. He was also previously a National Party MP and country town hotelier.

He's the kind of guy you might see dressed in a full suit and tie one day, and then blue jeans held up by a hay bale chord the next.

As a devoted amateur footballer, he has also been busy sharing the gospel of Masters footy close to home — helping launch new team the South Coast Sharks in 2023.

David's lacing up his boots for the Sharks today, preparing to ditch the pressures of an eclectic, busy life and spend a few hours focusing on little more than having a kick with mates.

"[As a barrister] I deal with some not pretty things in society, and so seeing just the simplicity of a game of football… it is, I guess, 'me' time, but it's 'us' time for the team," he says.

Before the bounce

Winter is breathing its last gasps in Torquay. It's the last weekend of August, and the final round of the Country Masters season.

The forecast rain hasn't appeared on the coast, so the Ballarat Diggers arrive to a brilliantly sunny afternoon — albeit with just enough players to fill a single team, rather than the double-header originally planned.

It's no problem in Masters football though, where the distance between clubs often means the away teams come up short.

The men decide to combine the age groups and play a game of "six quarters", with a few Sharks players happily kitting up for the Diggers to further even out the playing field.

It's an example of the contrast between competitive club footy and Masters, where the focus is on participation over performance, and the motto is 'football for fun'.

That being said, there are some more official differences.

A few minor rule modifications are in place to help avoid injuries and keep the focus on fun. Rough tackles are out, so is raising your knee in marking or ruck contests.

Games are played fortnightly instead of weekly, giving older bodies a bit of extra time to recover, and most games aren't officially scored.

In the Away Team rooms, the Diggers are stretching and strapping dodgy knees, ankles and shoulders. Black electrical tape is also being wound around players' left arms.

The impermanence of life has been on Ballarat Coach Shane Jewell's mind this week.

His great mate and beloved club stalwart, Frank Cranage, died three days ago following a long-term illness. He was the third Digger to have died of health issues in the last few years.

Standing arm-in-arm with his teammates for his pre-game address, Shane only manages a couple of words before his voice falters, and tears break through.

"Looking at you guys now, we don't know what's going to happen down the track, so you really gotta enjoy everything, okay?" he says.

"'Cos you don't know what's going to happen five or 10 years from now.

Numbers booming

You're never really alone on a football field.

Shortly after the dressing room tears have been wiped away, Jewell is in a circle of 50-odd men in the middle of the Torquay footy ground, arm-in-arm with both his teammates and the Sharks.

Smiles have replaced sorrow by the time today's umpire gives the group a last-minute address.

"We all wanna go to work on Monday, so footy for fun — let's go enjoy ourselves," he says, before the players head to their positions together, already chatting and joking with one another.

The emphasis on mateship had Country Masters Vic President Jason Aspland immediately hooked after joining his local Shepparton Masters club four years ago.

"What I noticed straight away with Masters was the camaraderie," Aspland says. "The group were very much about making sure everybody was having fun."

"Instead of worrying about winning or losing, we're more worried about participation — making sure everybody's enjoying themselves, making sure everybody gets to work on Monday, nice, safe, and healthy.

The game is booming in country Victoria, with official participation jumping from 441 registered players in 2021 to 819 signed-up this year.

This official increase of 86 per cent in five years is widely considered to be lower than the real numbers — with likely hundreds of unregistered players joining in regular trainings or unofficial social groups attached to the league's 16 clubs.

There's an argument that Masters football may be the fastest growing form of AFL, but Mr Aspland doesn't see any particularly exciting reason behind the increase.

"I think the biggest growth in Masters football across the country — not just Vic Country — is education," he says. "It's learning that Masters football is here, and that there are other options for footballers once they're finished playing Saturday football."

It's a balmy Sunday afternoon, and the Diggers and Sharks are having a blast. Together.

The Sharks are the classier team throughout the first couple of quarters, stretching out a commanding lead in a game where the score will never be officially recorded.

Suicide and social isolation

Opposition is a misnomer in Masters footy.

After scratching their competitive itch for a couple of quarters, the Sharks are winning 71 to 6.

So, they ease off. A few of the handier South Coast players pull on Ballarat jumpers and the game swings into a more evenly matched hit-out.

It might not be the footy of their heyday, but players on both sides execute brilliant passages of play with somewhat unexpected regularity. As the well-worn footy cliche goes, form might be temporary, but class is permanent.

The game rolls on in the afternoon sun, with each goal met with cheers and high fives for the goalkicker, delivered by players from both teams.

It's this camaraderie which shows just how fortunately positioned Country Masters is to provide an antidote to two key challenges faced by older men in regional Victoria: social isolation and suicide.

Regional and rural Victorians have higher rates of social isolation compared to those in the city, with men aged between 35 and 54 most at risk of suicide.

Sharks coach Luke Vassallo, who helped launch the Sharks with David O'Brien, sees Masters football as an invaluable way of combating loneliness.

"I think the hardest pressures in life come through from sort of 30 to 50, you know, bringing up young kids, mortgages, et cetera," he says. "And people keeping their jobs and trying to build a family and build, I guess, a legacy for their own family.

"One of the big things that we've established and witnessed and experienced here at the Sharks is venting with your mates at training, in particular, and at game time, talking about life.

"It's tremendously important to be able to share that and not feel alone."

Jason Aspland sees a clear comparison to one of regional Victoria's most-loved community spaces for older men.

"It's a place where those that are mature age can find other like-minded people, they can gather friendship in that way, they can then go out, have a kick of the footy, have some fun, come back at the end and have a chat, tell stories, do all their bits that may not have been able to be possible for those people if they didn't have Master's football."

David O'Brien has seen firsthand how the impact of suicides can seep through regional communities. He's also seen the preventative power of social connection.

"It really hurts," he says. "I've had three or four people suicide… it is a terrible thing and it affects those left shockingly for a long period of time.

It's all about connection

Matt Jones could be a poster boy for the adage of class being permanent.

'Jonesy' gave footy away when he was 22 and had started working weekends back in Gippsland. Now 49 and living in Anglesea, he's into his second year with the Sharks.

Despite the 26-year footy hiatus, he's still got a bag of tricks to go along with his silver-blonde hair and seemingly perpetual grin.

Clean hands, a quick first step and a dead-eye in front of goal, this afternoon he's showing signs of what so many Masters players like to joke about — how good they were 'back in the day'.

But reliving the glory years is not what Matt Jones is getting out of Masters football. It's all about just being involved.

"It's just been awesome. One of the best things I've done," he says, grinning.

"Socially, like half a dozen or so of the boys, we swim every morning at 7 o'clock, go for an ocean swim… [and] just around the street we're always bumping into each other."

While there's no single, simple solution to social isolation and suicide, the opportunity to connect with community offered by Masters clubs is invaluable.

Founder and coach Luke Vassallo never predicted just how quickly the Sharks would build a close-knit community of its own on the Surf Coast.

"Now we've got something like 130 members," Vassallo says. "So, I've met 130 people I never met in my life, in a reasonably small country town.

"You bump into people at the supermarket and all of those things, which I think is a tremendous thing that we've built."

And much like Masters football throughout the state, the Sharks are still growing.

After the final siren

The simple beauty of Masters footy is easy to see in Torquay, as the sun begins its slow descent towards the horizon.

As the final siren blares, nobody on the field bothers to look at the scoreboard.

Instead, the players shake hands and continue the laughter that has permeated a unique six quarters of football. Then, they walk off the ground together, as one.

After hot showers all round, players from both sides join together for the post-game meal typically organised by the home team — which today is paella.

For the final hour or so of the afternoon drinks are shared, awards of the day are announced, old war stories are relived between mates, and a few dozen over-35 men do what they all really came here to do — be a part of a community.

The next day

Footy in country Victoria is a game full of simple life lessons, David O'Brien reckons.

"It's unpredictable," he says, sitting in the shed where he'll soon be shaking off any soreness from yesterday's footy game to get his sheep shorn and crutched.

"There have been some masters — Gary Ablett, Buddy Franklin, people who can just dominate the game — but for the rest of us mere mortals, it's a challenge to try and do the things that you can sometimes do.

With about 861 games now under his hay bale cord belt, there's still little sign of slowing down. Even despite the knees, which ache more than they used to, the nuisance of a couple of recently broken fingers, and the occasional limp-inducing corkie.

"It is a game I will probably play all my life. I threaten to give up every now and then, but I've been doing that for years. I've retired more times than Johnny Farnham," he says.

"There'll be hopefully another good couple of seasons left, and that's what it's all about."

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