The Local Footy Show’s future is uncertain after 692 episodes across 27 brilliant years
The Local Footy Show has long championed community clubs and taken the AFL to task, yet may have reached its final siren. PAUL AMY was there as the show wrapped for 2024 and spoke with the men who’ve made it great.
“Are we right, ‘Cec’?’’ Daryl Pitman asks.
“We are? So I take no notice of the lights? OK.’’
Technical director Wayne “Cec’’ Steele gives the all-clear. The cameras are rolling and taping is underway for one of Australia’s longest-running community television programs, The Local Footy Show.
They’re focused on host Pitman, sitting at the desk of the small studio attached to the side of his Noble Park home. It’s from here that many of the episodes have been produced.
With Kevin Murphy and Steve McCarthy to his right and his right-hand man Ian Bennett to his left, Pitman introduces the 692nd show and the last of 2024.
“Hello and welcome to The Local Footy Show, 60 minutes of grassroots, Aussie rules, community footy,’’ he says.
Just as he launches into some banter with Bennett, Steele appears from the tech room, shaking his head.
“Hang on, hang on,’’ he says, explaining he has to reset the mixer.
“It’s always the mixer,’’ Murphy says with a laugh.
When they take two, Pitman’s intro comes out just a little differently.
“Hello and welcome to The Local Footy Show, 60 minutes of grassroots, community, Aussie rules footy,’’ he says.
Then he resumes his ribbing of “Benny’’ and they’re away. For the next 90 minutes the panel runs through the various segments – the golden days of football, Benny’s mystery pic, viewer feedback – and the results from suburban and country grand finals.
There’s plenty for Pitman to edit in the following two days before sending off an hour-long episode to Channel 31, ready for Friday night viewing and a Saturday morning repeat.
The Local Footy Show has been a staple of the free-to-air community station for 26 years, enjoying enduring popularity. Not even Covid could keep it off air.
One viewer said recently that he had seen every episode, which means he started watching when it kicked off as The Southern Footy Show on Optus LocalVision in 1997.
As the title suggests, the program then focused largely on the Southern Football League and carried highlights of a match of the round, called live for local radio and filmed for television.
When Optus LocalVision closed in mid-1998, the show switched to C31. It became The Local Footy in 2009, moving well beyond the boundaries of Southern.
It has taken Pitman and Bennett, his sidekick since 1999, all over the state, as well as SA, WA, the NT, ACT and Tasmania, where they walked the gravel ground of Queenstown. “We’ve been everywhere and beyond,’’ Pitman says.
About 530 clubs have been profiled and 3500 stories compiled. They have been welcomed wherever they have travelled, Pitman says, with clubs appreciating the coverage and interest, and a platform to promote the local game.
He says the program has always had an eye towards what the teams mean to their communities and the volunteers who rarely stray from behind the scenes.
“Rather than, ‘So and so has a new ruckman and he’s done this and he’s done that’, we focus on the clubs and their people,’’ Pitman says.
“We look for stories that are probably more social than what’s happening out on the field. But of course we do all the milestones too, the 300 and 400 games or when there are five brothers playing in the one team. Basically we do anything we think might be of interest to the public, but always within the realms of it being local footy.’’
Viewers have responded by sending in material they think may be of interest and from their contributions has come a vast archive of historical footage, including the 1932 grand final between Rosebud and Carrum and Brighton’s 1948 premiership, its first and only flag in the VFA.
This year a Queensland woman sent clear colour film of the 1969 East Malvern YCW grand final team, which had five brothers.
Pitman is happy to give old vision a new lease of life.
“Where does it go otherwise? Who else is going show that sort of stuff?’’ he says.
For years he’s been saying there should be a Victorian local football museum to house it. He says it’s the sort of thing the AFL should fund.
But don’t get Daryl Pitman started on the AFL. He dislikes it intensely, adamant it has neglected the game at grassroots level. And, he maintains, when it has got involved, such as through the creation of regional commissions, the results have often been disastrous.
As Murphy sees it, Pitman’s belief that the AFL has ignored local football has driven him to devote so much of his energy towards it. He thinks Pitman has “made the greatest contribution to local footy, certainly in Victoria and probably in Australia’’.
“He’s absolutely committed to it and I think part of that motivation has been probably the lack of respect it has got compared to the big show,’’ Murphy says.
“He’s one of the AFL’s staunchest critics. I think if the AFL were a strong advocate and driving the game, then Daryl’s contribution would not have been as lengthy or as significant. He’s felt like he’s needed to fill the gap, I reckon.’’
He says few people are prepared to criticise the AFL because many have “skin in the game’’.
“Daryl’s got none and I think he’s enjoyed that contrarian-type role.’’
*****
There’s a looking-back focus to this last episode for 2024, highlighting some of the more memorable segments and incidents over the years.
That’s because, after 28 years and almost 700 episodes, it might be the final siren for the show.
Pitman is “leaving the door open’’, but he says it requires a lot of hours and “I’m not getting any younger’’.
What the years have not diminished is his love for local football.
It was fostered as he grew up in Hamilton, in the western district of Victoria. His father played for Hamilton under the great Fred Fanning and young Daryl was a mascot when the Magpies defeated their fierce town rival Hamilton Imps in the 1959 grand final at the majestic Melville Oval.
He remembers the day vividly. It was the first time the teams had met in a GF. Former Geelong star John Hyde was coaching the Magpies and ex-Port Melbourne VFA player Reg “Bomber’’ Murray had charge of Imps.
“The crowd was eight to 10 deep all around the ground and they were packed even on the steps in the grandstand,’’ Pitman says. “You couldn’t have put a needle in there.’’
When there was a 50-year reunion of the Hamilton premiership team, Pitman returned to the town and did a story on it.
“I was brought up with local footy and I’ve always loved local sport,’’ he says. “I used to say to people, ‘What’s happening in your own community and your own backyard, where you live, where you work, where you go to school, is more important than what’s happening in Hollywood’.’’
The Pitmans moved to Melbourne in 1960. The Hamilton mascot started playing football for the Carnegie Under 13s and later crossed to Caulfield in the old Federal League, playing under the coaching of “Froggy” Crompton in 1970.
He made his senior debut at the age of 16, “against Glenhuntly, behind the racecourse’’.
What sort of player was he?
“Oh, I dunno. Not big enough, not fast enough, probably,’’ he says.
He broke an ankle but never had it properly set, and in the following few years it would swell and he could barely get through a game. Pitman stopped playing when he was 23.
But he found another calling in football. In the early 1980s he started commentating on matches at Noble Park, where he met Steele.
He branched out to call grand finals for the South East Suburban league and cover games for Southern FM in Moorabbin.
Later, Pitman, a trained compositor who for years worked in the printing industry and operated his own business, published Southern’s football record and wrote for Leader Newspapers, his late wife, Helen, organising his busy schedule.
The Southern Footy Show was an answer of sorts to the Diamond Valley Footy Show.
“One day in the back bar at Noble Park I said, ‘Hey Cec, there’s this show on Optus Vision for the Diamond Valley footy league, I reckon we can do something as good as any of them’,’’ Pitman says.
“So we started it. We ended up filming the first two or three years at Johnny Martin’s place. Johnny is friends with Cec and we’d film in the spare bedroom. We’d go to four in the morning with the old VHS crash editing. If you did something wrong, you’d have to do it all over again.
“Even if I say it myself, we quickly became the benchmark. We were doing different things, like miking up umpires and having people around the grounds, giving score updates.’’
The Southern show thrived, giving the league great publicity and a point of difference from other suburban competitions.
In 2000 it won a major award as the best grassroots television program. Other gongs were to follow, from AFL Victoria and Antenna Australia.
But at the end of 2008 the Southern league baulked at continuing to fund the show. Pitman had sourced all the sponsorship anyway (not that he’s ever made money from it).
He, Bennett and Steele, the technical director since day one, decided to plough on, taking the show to the bush and other parts of the ‘burbs. In the years since they’ve seen not only country towns but entire districts pull together behind their clubs.
“We’ve done stories this year at Noradjuha/Quantong and at Kalkee in the Horsham District league and they’re only regions,’’ Pitman says.
“We went to the Cudgewa-Bullioh grand final in the Upper Murray league … Bullioh has got a population of 80 and there’s hardly any buildings there. But they’ve got three or four footy teams and five or six netball teams. Amazing.’’
*****
In the second-last show of 2024, Pitman had hinted the show could be coming to an end.
He puts it like this in episode No. 692: “It’s hard to keep up the workload, basically, that’s required to put this program together every week. We’d love to see it keep going but it would be impractical of us to say, ‘Yes, we’ll see you next year’. It might not be the case.’’
The suggestion that The Local Footy Show may not reappear on screens next year set off hundreds of comments, all complimentary, on social media.
From Andrew Cochrane: “The local footy community is incredibly lucky to have such a marquee show to bring us all the news and highlights that we really struggle to get these days, especially given the death of the footy record in so many leagues.’’
From Bill De Groot: “One of the best shows and it would be a tragedy if this little show ended.’’
From Monique Walsh: “It’s the highlight of my Friday night viewing.’’
“We might end up doing a little half-hour show,’’ Pitman responds when told of the comments. “But we can’t maintain what we’re doing at the moment.’’
Murphy was involved in the show for 16 years. For a long time he’s marvelled at Pitman’s commitment to it and the standards he set.
“He’s the kind of guy who, if he’s passionate about something – and he’s passionate about a lot of things – he dedicates himself to it and local footy is one of those examples,’’ Murphy says.
“We’ve been pretty lucky to have him, because his skill and his craft are as good as those who have been paid professionally over many years.’’
Between now and next football season, viewers will cling to the hope that “Cec’’ Steele will again get the cameras rolling.
The show, they say, must go on.
THE LOCAL FOOTY SHOW
Started: 1997 (as The Southern Footy Show)
Episodes: 692
Clubs featured: 530
Stories: 3500
Panellists: Daryl Pitman, Jacqui Harvey, Dieter Lehmann, Ian Bennett, Trinity Ballis, Emma Stewart, Ian Dougherty, Kevin Murphy, Ross Sutherland, Steve McCarthy
Reporters: Daryl Pitman, Ian Bennett, Terry O’Callaghan, Ian Dougherty
WHAT THE VIEWERS SAID
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Brian Barris: Say it ain’t so, fellas. Your program is incredibly important to local footy and I’m honoured I got to be interviewed by y’all.
Richard Smith: If you guys make a return next year, that’s great. If not, thankyou for all your efforts over the 25 odd years (sorry if I sold you short). You’ve all been an absolute ornament to the game of “Local Footy” and are so appreciated by your viewers. You’ve been an institution for me on a Friday night and will be missed.
Karl Bianco: I hope this isn’t the end, but if it is congratulations to you all on a magnificent innings. You guys have made a significant contribution to community sports media and have been an inspiration to many.
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