Sunday, May 02, 2010 at 16:37
Gidday Col
That's the bloke.
I did a Google search today and found Bob Steven's had already written a book on him entitled 'Buckleys Chance'.
Here's an article from the Age for those who might be interested:
Pretty cheeky on the wing
April 26 2003
Nabbing goals or flying a plane, Ben Buckley was almost out of bounds, writes Paul Daffey.
In giving his all for Benambra, the most isolated football club in Victoria, Ben Buckley is renowned as one of the more colourful identities in the game. Stories of his deeds stretch far beyond his
home town outside
Omeo, in the high country of East Gippsland.
For several years, Buckley often finished a day's work as an agricultural pilot by swooping on the players at training. On one occasion, a player responded by booting a footy at his light aircraft. "I saw the ball come over the plane," he said.
Another time, he tipped his plane on its side and flew through the pine trees behind the Benambra oval.
Such antics prompted former television host Mike Willesee to send a reporter to egg on Buckley, who during the 1980s was the mayor of the
Omeo shire. Buckley played up for the cameras by dumping a load of plasterers' lime on the Swans as they went about their drills.
The shenanigans didn't go down
well with aviation authorities, who tried to cancel his licence. "Around here, we use the rules as the guide, not the gospel," Buckley said.
His attitude reflects a life of not quite ignoring the rules, but keeping them to one side. The third of seven children, he made his initial break with convention when he left his family's dairy
farm at Balnarring, on the Mornington Peninsula, at 15.
"It got a bit crowded," he said. "I became an adventurer."
He worked at Mount Buller hooking felled trees up to tractors and in Queensland at a sugar mill. At 18, he became a deer hunter in New Zealand.
To prove a killing, he was required to cut the skin off the last joint of the tail and hang it from his belt. His record was 18 in a day, which earned him ?30 - more than three times the average weekly wage. "That was in the days before helicopter-harvesting," he said.
Buckley earned his pilot's licence in NZ at 21, setting him on the path towards fertilising crops from the air. Back in Victoria a few years later, he set up business at the foot of the mountains.
Buckley's marriage into a Benambra football family ensured that he would leave behind his days as a winger with rugby union club Rotorua High School Old Boys and return to his native game.
He hared up and down a wing or tried to steal goals from a forward pocket. "I was an enthusiastic tailender," he said, throwing in a cricket twist.
On retirement, he served Benambra as goal umpire and, in recent years, as president. Last month, the 66-year-old stepped aside to allow Mick Gribble to take over. "It was a bloodless coup," Buckley said.
The handover of power had been delayed by the fires that ripped through the high country in February. During the disaster, Buckley ferried firefighters around in his plane and, with his family, turned his
home into a wayside stop for those escaping the flames. A
sign proclaiming their house as the Benambra Refugee Centre, written in Texta on a plastic lid, remains fixed to the front fence.
The fight over the past month has been to ensure that Benambra keeps its football team. About five players have been turning up for training under Gribble, who continues to search for a senior coach.
Doug Vickers, the former
Richmond football manager who became principal of the Benambra school, which closed last December, has agreed to fill in as coach in the Swans' opening match of the season at
Buchan today. Fourteen players have committed to taking the field, including a carload from a share-house in Glen Waverley.
Secretary Anne Faithfull said the club was confident of fielding a full team. She was also confident that Buckley would do a sterling job in his customary role as goal umpire, where he waves flags that are white with a red "V", emulating the Benambra guernsey. Still, Faithfull said his sense of fairness was beyond question.
"There's no doubt about him," she said.
Regards
Kim
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