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Sport

21 July, 2022

Pumas to don bands for Blue Ribbon Day and to honour Maurice Moore

The Maryborough Pumas AFL Masters team will be hosting a special day on Saturday when they play their Blue Ribbon Day match against Woodend. While Blue Ribbon Day is held on September 29 every year, the Pumas — a team that caters for anyone over...

By Michael Thompson

Sean Hellyar  and Trev Chapman pose in support of the Pumas’ Blue Ribbon Day initiative.
Sean Hellyar  and Trev Chapman pose in support of the Pumas’ Blue Ribbon Day initiative.

The Maryborough Pumas AFL Masters team will be hosting a special day on Saturday when they play their Blue Ribbon Day match against Woodend.

While Blue Ribbon Day is held on September 29 every year, the Pumas — a team that caters for anyone over the age of 35 that would like to continue playing football — are using their final home game of the year to spread awareness of the day, in particular continuing to honour the memory of Maryborough Senior Constable Maurice Moore, who was shot and killed in the line of duty on September 27, 1986.

The Pumas’ Matt Broad says that with many friends and family of Moore involved with the club and the community, it was a way to honour the lasting legacy between the town and Moore, as well as continuing to assist the Blue Ribbon Foundation, which in recent years has added a memorial garden at Maryborough Police Station and renamed the Urgent Care Centre at Maryborough Hospital in Moore’s honour.

“It’s something we want to get behind. A lot of the Maryborough community would have been around when the Maurice Moore tragedy happened. It’s something we support anyway, but it’s particularly something we get behind because Maryborough’s got such a significant link to it,” he said.

“Royal Park and Navarre play for the Blue Ribbon Medal every year, so we had the opportunity to do something similar and thought it’d be a great way to bring awareness to the cause.”

Broad said the club chose to use their last home game to spread awareness to as many people as possible, doubling up as their sponsors day in the process.

“The players will be wearing armbands, and we’ll have a talk between the two clubs before the game just letting them know why it’s so significant to the community and why we’re getting behind this. We’ll also be having a talk after the game to the people who supported us too. We thought it’d be a good chance to do it with sponsors day at the club as well,” he said.

Events such as the Blue Ribbon Day match are held by the Pumas as a way of ensuring that the club is able to look out for one another, particularly through mental health, something that Broad and the Pumas pride themselves on.

“When COVID hit and the games were cancelled, we went online with our Facebook page, making a lot of challenges, keeping a lot of contact,” he said.

“For example, one week we made a challenge where players put up a photo of themselves in their footy gear, doing something such as taking mark of the week, jumping up on a trampoline taking a mark over their dog.

“We did that to stay connected and it got a lot of the players through, so we are keeping that presence and continually making sure everyone is connected — so if we haven’t heard someone for a few days, we’re straight on to them to make sure we just have that constant contact.”

The family and mateship aspect is the most important quality that the Pumas share, with the enjoyment of football providing a bonus for players who get together.

“With the Masters, we’re all in it together, it’s a constant message we put forward to people — we’re always here, there’s always someone to talk to and to help you out. Making sure that we’re there for each other is a real theme of ours,” Broad said.

“We’ve consolidated a group of players over the last few years. COVID helped us to see that we were sticking together, and we brought people in who were disconnected from football. We picked a lot of people up like that seeing that it was an opportunity to hang with our mates and still enjoying the social life, the support and the friendships you get with a football club.

“We’re in the at-risk age too, we’re at that 40+ age where you start drifting away and life becomes hectic, and you have kids, houses, mortgages and jobs and everything stresses you, so to have the opportunity to be able to go along and meet people and do so over a common thing, football is the framework, but it’s more about getting to be with people who are like-minded and get to enjoy yourselves.”

The Pumas will be hosting Woodend Hawks tomorrow afternoon at 1pm at Princes Park.

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