Pure joy: Kelly O’Donnell and Reg Hickey holding the premiership cup.
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As Melbourne fans across the Goulburn Valley wait with bated breath for the premiership cup to make its stop at Shepparton Marketplace next Monday, one lucky Demons diehard managed to skip the queue and have a private audience with the elusive piece of history.
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Shepparton’s Reg Hickey utilised his connection to club legend Noel (Kelly) O’Donnell to have a private viewing of the cup, as he and a small group of close friends were given half an hour to hold the prized piece of silverware in an experience they will never forget.
A crazed supporter of the club for decades, Hickey explained the overwhelming sense of joy as he placed his hands around Melbourne’s drought-breaking trophy.
“I have never been struck by lightning, but when you hold the cup in your hands and you see the Melbourne Football Club as premiers for 2021 written on it, I guess that is what the feeling might be like,” Hickey said.
“It is so empowering, so invigorating and a very emotional experience, although you had nothing to do with it other than to barrack it is just a very empowering moment that genuinely brought a tear to my eye.”
He explained how the secret gathering came to be, as the club let O’Donnell bring the cup up to his home town of Katandra as a tribute to his late parents and uncle and aunty.
Taking it in: Reg Hickey has a moment with the premiership cup.
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“The club is keen to have the cup go on the road, and a friend of mine and the Goulburn Valley Kelly O’Donnell put up a case to the club’s management for his own personal needs to bring the cup up to his family and get some photos around his parents’ grave sites,” Hickey said.
“So, knowing he had approval to bring the cup up here, I said to Kelly what’s the chances (of seeing it) and he said if you can get the boys together, who are all hardened Melbourne fans, and keep your mouth shut I can be around at your place, and we can have a photo shoot which turned out to be a life-changing 30 minutes.”
A love affair that has spanned decades, Hickey explained how his relationship with the Demons began.
“It goes back to the days when the Goulburn Valley was the recruiting zone of the Melbourne Football Club and lots of kids you went to school with were asked to go down and play with the club’s thirds, seconds and seniors, and I trained with them too, so to go down every Saturday afternoon and watch them play that’s where my love of the game started,” he said.
“Over the years Melbourne haven’t been too successful and it has been hard yards but stuck with it through thick and thin and to be rewarded with this premiership has made it all worth it.”
As the region prepares for the cup to make its official unveiling next week, Hickey urges as many Demons fans as possible to get down and experience the incredible joy of seeing the trophy in person.
“I urge anyone to get out and get in the queue and take the kids and so forth along because it is a really unique experience, it puts a bit of faith back into a couple of tough years with COVID and some very long and fruitless years barracking for Melbourne,” he said.
“It is a really good thing the club is doing, so charge on out there and have a real good experience for yourself and your family.”
