It’s an old cliché, but never has it been truer for the Cohealth Kangaroos; football is much more than a game.
Three years ago, Glenn Scott hit rock bottom. Brought up in Broadmeadows in Melbourne's north, he started using drugs and alcohol at 14, he says, because it was easily accessible.
After three decades of addiction, he found himself sleeping rough for six months on the streets of Melbourne’s CBD.
“I felt emptiness or self-blame, and I hit rock bottom,” the 47-year-old Yorta Yorta man says.
“[But] I came out of it, not many people can say they did that but I did,”
Glenn Scott says football is helping to rebuild his trust and place within society.
Now, he says, community sport is helping to rebuild his trust and place within society.
“When you’re in the drug world, it’s only you and you don’t trust anyone or anything, you’ve lost all trust in everyone. So when you come off it, you have to rebuild your socialisation, friendships, communication even how you relate to people.
“Like you did when you did as a child. You start from the beginning.”
And he's not alone.
A player puts on an armband to honour the death of a player's father.
CoHealth is a Victorian not-for-profit community health organisation and the
team's weekly Wednesday match is not just a chance to kick the football around, but an opportunity to re-engage with others.
“It’s definitely not about the footy, the footy is a really good gateway, but it’s about connecting and re-engaging them to the community, but the biggest and best outcome is linking our clients to employment opportunities,” says the team's homeless outreach worker Beau Branch.
The team formed more than 20 years ago and all wear the same jersey, adorned in an Aboriginal art piece, but a coloured vest indicates different ability levels and an adjustment of rules; for most, tackles are forbidden and a touch counts as a mark.
Gary Barnett, 52, has been playing for 14 years and says it keeps him on the straight and narrow.
Cohealth Kangaroos player Gary Barnett.
Born with a disability, Mr Barnett is unable to work and struggles to maintain his privately rented apartment while waiting on the list for public housing.
“If you don’t do [anything] it makes your life a lot worse because you turn to drugs or alcohol, but this way keeps you clean and healthy; it gets you out there and helps you support other people,” he says.
This way keeps you clean and healthy; it gets you out there and helps you support other people.Gary Barnett, Cohealth Kangaroos player
He is one of the regular 16-plus team members who are ferried to matches every week, a key part of the program to ensure no player is left behind.
“A lot of these clients are isolated and they’re not just going to rock up to these events, you’ve got to get out there, put the effort in building that rapport and trust,” Mr Branch says.
He describes the team as step one in the process; once players know and trust the team, they can start talking about connecting with health, employment and training services.
Cohealth's Beau Branch.
Mr Branch says Cohealth also uses the training and match days to check in on vulnerable clients as for many players the Wednesday match is the only social interaction they have.
He says since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in Melbourne, enrolments in the team have spiked, more than doubling since the start of the season.
The Cohealth Kangaroos team.
The side has lost 10 players recently, poached by employers and others taking up opportunities in training courses. But it’s not a loss they’ll be lamenting, with victory in this team based on the bigger picture.
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