The Pennant Hills Football Club - an unlikely success story

The Pennant Hills Football Club is a sporting success story, but it really shouldn't be. If you wanted to find the least likely place In Australia to find an AFL nursery, you'd go to a local Sydney club with modest facilities whose modest income is thinly spread to field 4 teams in the local competition. You'd go looking for a club that prides itself on producing great people, not great footballers.

Essentially, you'd be searching for the Pennant Hills Football Club.

Realisticly, the Demons SHOULDN'T have produced a single AFL listed player, but they've managed to produce 26. To celebrate the club's success, former club captain (and Sydney AFL Hall of famer) Barnaby Howarth has organised to have a Demons jumper (number 44) signed by all 26 PHAFL players who have been on an AFL list and is auctioning it off to raise money for the club.

The auction will be finalised on October 18 at "Give it a Crack" - a club fundraiser, but an online auction will run until 12pm that 18/10. To place a bid on the jumper, go to: www.32auctions.com/signedpennoafljumper. The current leading bid is $850

The 26 Pennant Hills AFL listed players are:

Kieren Jack
Brandon Jack
Peter Berbakov
Jarrad McVeigh
Stefan Carey
Terry Thripp
Barnaby Howarth
Jackson Potter
Nick Potter
David Brown
Ken Couchman
Tony Redshaw
Lenny Hayes
Jackson Ferguson
Blake McGrath
Ranga Ediwickrama
Mark McVeigh
David Dighton
Adam Chatfield
Scott Reed
Josh Duncan
Aaron Duncan
John Ironmonger (not signed - living in Colorado)
Wes Smith
Pat Wellington (not signed - deceased)
Denis Lenaghan (not signed - uncontactable)

Sometimes things just work out for you

Sitting at my table as a guest at the National Stroke Foundation's $250 a ticket fundraiser on Wednesday night where my motivational speech was featured in the silent auction, I got an overwhelming sense that sometimes things just work out for you.

This feeling was an accumulation of events over the past couple of weeks - when I started planning my event, "Give it a crack" to be held in October, I was a little daunted as I have no experience organising events, but people have come on board to help, which makes me feel like things are working out for me. The first help came from an ex-teammates family. That teammates mother has organised kitchen staff, food, tea and coffee, decorating, a pack up crew, and 2 cases of wine, while her husband has arranged to have 17 cases of beer donated.

More help came when Cafe Haus in Thornleigh agreed to donate 150 noodle boxes, so the guests will be treated to sensational food to go with their sensational entertainment. The part of the night I was most daunted by was the audio set up, but an ex-Pennant Hills under 18 player got his hands on the required audio/visual equipment, and will man it on the night.

I could ramble on about how things have worked out for me over the last 8 and a half years (like my 100th game for Penno being played on the Ern, standing on top of Kilimanjaro with my sister and my mate, starting a motivational speaking business that has just got to the point where my message has crystalised and I feel confident about launching it to audiences, being invited to do the Bridge Climb at the end of September by the National Stroke Foundation), but I'm well aware that sometimes things don't work out. If they did, I wouldn't have been diagnosed with diabetes or had a stroke, so I'm not trying to tell you that if you ALWAYS make the right moves, things will ALWAYS work out for you. Sometimes life just sucks and is incredibly unfair, but rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, but sometimes you just have to get over it and go and play in the puddles.

I don't have a 10 point plan to overcome adversity, I don't have a saying, a book, an idol or a magic recipe that I refer back to when I'm down, I just try and give everything I have to the task in front of me, then keep moving forward to the next task and let the big picture sort itself out. At this very second though, I feel like things are working out for me, and I wish I had a failsafe formula to help you feel like I feel right now because it feels really good, but I don't. All I can tell you is that what works for me is making what I think is the right decision every time, and sometimes things will work out, sometimes they won't, but when they do, it feels bloody good!