Ex-footballers from across the State gather for Imperials Football Club 30th and 40th grand final reunion

It was a day of celebration and reminiscing as more than 70 ex-Imperials Football Club players returned to Manjimup in honour of the 30th and 40th anniversary of the 1982, 1983 and 1993 grand final victories. Laughter and conversation filled the clubroom as players recollected the highs and lows of their football careers with the 106-year-old club and reflected on their incredible respective grand final wins. The reunion — which celebrated the league and reserves 1982 premiership win, and the 1983 and 1993 league wins — featured a display of memorabilia and several speaker panels containing ex-players and coaches who shared their football stories with an enthralled crowd, skillfully hosted by John Ipsen. 1993 league coach Ron Waugh — who also played in the 1982 and 1983 grand finals — said reunions like these were great because they provided an opportunity to catch-up with all the “guys you played with and coached, and share in the memories”. “It’s great to catch up,” he said. “A well-organised reunion is very good and this one was well-organised.” 1982 and 1983 league premiership coach Mick Fox said he was grateful to have the opportunity to get together with the men he had formed such strong bonds with in his earlier years. “I drove down 540km today and the whole way I was thinking about players and this and that, who would be here and who wouldn’t be here,” he said. “It’s a bond that you form I think once you’ve been in a grand final and you’ve played together, even though you don’t see each other that often.” Mr Fox said he was lucky to have coached for such a strong club during a time when football was a dominant sport and player numbers were high. “This club is a very strong club and it’s always been a strong club too,” he said. “Manjimup is probably the best football town nearly in Australia; to supply three teams into the league is incredible in this town — it’s a credit to the area that they’re supplying that many teams.” Several ex-players could be found in groups reminiscing on their time playing together for the club, including Vic and George Giannakis, Rod and Richie Lee and Wayne Rodwell. George Giannakis — who was always known to be bouncing a football around town from an early age — told the Manjimup-Bridgetown Times it was a privilege to be back around his teammates and coaches and foster his appreciation for his only premiership win. “It’s pretty special to be here because you share something that at the time I took for granted,” he said. “I was young, I was playing with great people, great leaders, great men and I was only a boy but I appreciate it all now. “No one can take that photograph away from me, you’re a part of that... you’ve got that special bond with everyone, so that’s pretty cool.” Vic Giannakis added to his brother’s comments and said was great to be back in a room with the “amazing role models” that helped provided great life foundations for him and his fellow teammates. “We had the best strong foundations growing up through juniors which provided the right foundations for everything else you wanted to do in life so you could face challenges and adversity.” Three-time premiership player Richie Lee — who also coached the league side to a premiership win in 1989 — said living on a farm in Nannup didn’t stop him and his brother Rod from committing to IFC. “We lived in Nannup on a farm... but our interest was football, which is why we kept coming back and forwards.” Mr Lee was a six-time Imperials best and fairest player and a 1983 Sunday Times Medal winner, an award given to the best and fairest player of the Lower South West Football League. “I haven’t seen some of these guys in the last 30 years... this is brilliant that we can just catch-up,” he said. “Some of the talk and stories is just like yesterday.” The new clubrooms where the event was held were built in 1992 however Imperials also lost that year’s grand final, which Mr Lee said was “devastating”. “Yes we won in ‘93 but we should have won in ‘92,” he said, “It was only a few points in it... the oval was 100 per cent mud, it was absolutely bogged. “1993 grand final was my last game as I was 35-years old then. Mr Lee laughed when he said some of the players used to call him granddad. “I’d been around for a long time.”