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With a move to North Queensland in his early teenage years, he
played football for the East Mackay Australian Rules Football Club (now Eastern
Swans) in the Rugby dominated State. There were no junior teams back then so
was playing for the seniors from 15 years of age for three seasons winning
various awards ending with the club “Best & Fairest” in his final season
at 17 years of age. This was
his first Committee experience being on the General Committee for the final two
seasons. With a move back to Melbourne after completing Year 12 to start an
apprenticeship in Fitting & Turning, Stephen
continued playing Football for the Black Rock, Cheltenham United and finally
Fairpark Football Clubs (Now Eastern
Lions). This was halted in early 1982 when he was involved in a serious
motorcycle accident resulting in 16 months in hospital and rehabilitation for
compound leg injuries. He took advantage of the time off work by completing various
advanced Engineering studies in Toolmaking, a four year Drafting qualification
and finally specialising in Computer Aided Design courses with the highest
qualification of a post Graduate Diploma in CAD/CAM at Swinburne University of
Technology in 1989. During the late 1980’s, Stephen joined the Victorian
Road Runners and took up “fun runs” around twice a month, mainly in the
10 Km events and also ran in four Marathons. In 1990, he went overseas on a three year working holiday that
turned into seven working as a contract Automotive CAD Designer with two years
in the UK, two years in Europe and three years in the USA for various automotive
design companies. In 1991, a new Australian Rules Football team, Sussex Swans
(today London Swans) started
up in Brighton for the recently formed British Australian Rules Football League
which had only started the previous year. Stephen played this first season for
Sussex Swans and was also on its General Committee. After coming back to Australia in 1997 and finally settling back in
the City of Knox (Bayswater) in 2000 he works with his own business as a
contract Automotive
CAD Designer for companies such as Holden, Ford and its “tier one
supplier” Design Companies. After a 30 year break from Little Athletics, he took his older
daughter to “Bring a Friend” Day in 2001 and was amazed how much the Knox
Little Athletics Centre had progressed throughout the time away.
She continued in U/7 Girls for the rest of season 2001/02. Stephen joined the Bayswater Bullets General Committee in the following season in 2002/03 and then became Club Secretary, a position he held from seasons 2003/04 to 2006/07. He has been Club President since season 2007/08 and started the club website in June 2002. Stephen went on the Knox Centre Executive Committee in season 2006/07 as Assistant Website and Handbook and took over the Knox Centre website in Season 2007/08. He was on the Knox Centre 40th Anniversary Sub-Committee as Chairperson as well as the History Co-Ordinator where he wrote the history section for the special edition season 2008/09 handbook. Stephen has been a Chief Official on competition days since season 2002/03 gaining “Level 2” qualifications in January 2006 and Athletics Victoria "Throws" Level C theory in December 2007. As the most recent club historian, Stephen has continued on with the great work done by past Life Member Kerry (Hodgkinson) Semfel and is ensuring that our athlete’s achievements are recorded. These are done by various means such as the club website, newsletters, annual photo CD, the fully detailed Annual Reports so each season's records and all club documentation are retained for future Committees. This enables today's athletes to be able to look back onto their memories of Little Athletic when they are into adulthood. More recently, with a Local History Grant from Public Record Office Victoria, a 40 Year club history computer DVD project was completed and is available for $10 each. In 2003, Stephen joined the Knox Masters Athletics Club in the
summer months competing in both the Victorian and Australian Championships and
played Football for the Knox
Lions Superules Football Club in the winter. He was on the Committee as
Treasurer for the Knox Lions in season 2004. He had to give up
playing sport completely in April 2005 when he developed knee injuries which had
its foundations from the 1982 motorcycle accident and all the years of running on it
not to mention that of age catching up. Clare his older Daughter competed in Little Athletics for four
seasons and has since taken up other activities while his younger daughter Annie
is into her seventh season. His wife Libby helps out in the background with the
club’s various fundraising activities. |
For club enquiries, or queries about this website please send an email to the Secretary Sharon Peebles at bayswater@klac23.org.au
Copyright © 2002-2010 Bayswater Bullets Little Athletics Club Last modified: September 24, 2011 |
Stephen,
the current club President was first involved with Little Athletics as an Under 10
athlete for