By JARROD POTTER
SOUNDING the siren and hitting the stop-watch is not the most glamorous job at a football club, but Noble Park senior timekeeper Brian Duggan would not have it otherwise.
Duggan, 80, who now lives in Narre Warren, has recently knocked off 50 years at Noble Park sporting clubs after first getting to the club in the 1960s and sinking his teeth in immediately with junior football.
“First arrived in 1963 on the committee of the footy club then in 1965 Mick Pitcher was managing the under-14s – as it was an off-shoot,” Duggan said.
“Mick bought a milk bar and I asked him who is running the juniors and he said ‘you look like a likely recruit’.”
After a few decades helping the juniors and moving onto the committee, Duggan started the stop-watch on his time in the Moodemere Street bricked scoreboard in 1992 and has been a mainstay of the club through multiple EFL premierships and over half-a-century of service.
Duggan notched a rare century of service to Noble Park sport – the cumulative seasons he served for the senior football, junior football, bowls and cricket clubs ticked over a total of 100 seasons this year.
Aside from premierships and celebrations around the club, Duggan also remembers copping a whack from Jim “Frosty” Miller as he watched his son play for Dingley against Miller’s Berwick, but he took it in his stride and had a laugh with the illustrious full-forward after that 1970’s game.
Perhaps it was his penchant to have a chirp at the umpires and the opposition that earned him the hit, with some saying the brick surrounds help keep Duggan from causing too much havoc anymore.
“There’s a story going around here that they put Duggo in the timekeeper’s box to shut him up,” Duggan said.
“But I’ve had a good time.”
He’ll blow the siren for game 400 on Saturday when Noble Park runs out against Vermont. Make sure to look up to the scoreboard and celebrate the quadruple-centurion who has devoted a lot to the club.
