By JARROD POTTER
REVELLING in Noble Park’s football success has been the driving force behind Tracey Walden’s incredible volunteering spirit.
Ms Walden has been a Noble Park Football Club mainstay for the past 35 years and is always one of the first to chip in to help out the mighty Bulls.
While the spotlight isn’t where she likes to stand, her three-and-a-half decades at Moodemere Street were deservingly celebrated on Tuesday after she received the City of Greater Dandenong’s Volunteer of the Year Award.
“I was totally humbled and embarrassed by it – I don’t do it to get awards and recognition, I just do it because I do it,” she said.
“There are people around that help the club you go ‘there’s a job to be done and you just do it’.”
She’s seen a lot in her time helping out the junior and senior teams since her dad Jim started bringing her to the club when she was seven.
She has seen the club move from the Southern competition to Eastern Football League and the juniors started their rise in the South East Juniors and throughout it all Walden has chipped in for the greater good.
In her passionate speech at the city’s Australia Day celebrations, Ms Walden said her blood was “blue and gold” and to paraphrased a classic quote to “ask not what your club can do for you, but what you can do for your club”.
But it wasn’t necessarily just the premierships that she’s loved the most – her ability to help the club engage with the community and help those in need has been just as rewarding.
“Premierships are always up there as great things, but in the last few years it’s been able to help the charities,” Walden said. “We had Ando (Craig Anderson) with Zayne and the Leukaemia Foundation – and now with White Ribbon and Pink Ribbon for breast cancer and BeyondBlue a few years ago.
“Raising awareness for these fantastic charities and getting the spotlight on them and they’ve been the great highlights we’ve been able to work through.”
She wanted to thank everyone at the club – especially those other volunteers who go unnoticed and do what it takes to make the club great.
“All the past presidents and volunteers of the Noble Park senior and junior club – without these guys or girls we wouldn’t be where we are today,” Walden said. “Wouldn’t be able to put the guys on the field, wouldn’t have the teams or the great facilities and reputation we have.
“All the volunteers and the future ones – they’re all needed and always do a great job.”
Walden was acknowledged alongside another Dandenong sporting mainstay – Michael Findlay – who was announced as the inaugural member of the Sports Hall of Fame while Aaliyah Corles won the Sportsperson of the Year accolade.
