General News
5 July, 2024
Swooper shares his journey in book
A DERRINALLUM football player turned coach has published a book filled with his experiences growing up in the country.
‘Swooper: My Journey’ recounts John ‘Swooper’ Northey’s life, from his early days playing for the Derrinallum Football Club to coaching Richmond.
Mr Northey said he started collecting stories from his life over the years.
“Growing up in Derrinallum – I have features of that period of time, so I started writing more about that and my life in Derrinallum and then followed the process of what my life was mainly through the sporting area,” he said.
“I played a lot of tennis and that sort of thing.
“I went to Camperdown High School.
“With what I’ve been able to do, I thought I may as well put something down on paper.”
Mr Northey is most well-known for coaching Richmond, but has also coached the Sydney Swans, Brisbane and Melbourne.
He said he has always kept Derrinallum close to his heart.
“I’ve had a great time. Derrinallum was a wonderful place,” Mr Northey said.
“In the book, it tells how the Soldiers Settlement, when it first came to the district, it certainly helped the many towns around.
“It was, to my mind, the making of a lot of the little towns.
“It certainly was in Derrinallum too because there were so many people, and they all had families and sporting – all the facilities that Derrinallum had were just boosted so much by the Soldiers Settlement.”
Mr Northey said the Soldiers Settlement helped the town “enormously” but was also where his love for football began.
“From there, that gave me the opportunity in the football field – we had so many of these great old players playing football that we all learnt so much from them,” he said.
“It was a gradual way that I progressed my life of football, first in Derrinallum and then going to school in Camperdown was a great time for us.
“My biggest problem was I focused too much on the sport and not on the scholastic skills that one needs.
“Derrinallum was a wonderful town to be able to grow up in, like most country towns.”
Mr Northey’s book discusses his coaching career alongside his playing career, sharing some of the things he has learnt along the way.
He said ‘Swooper: My Journey’ provides an insight into some of the highlights of his career
“It just goes through my life and my thoughts on things, and how certain things that, when I got involved into coaching, you need to be able to change things around,” Mr Northey said.
“It was also about trying to get to everybody which I was taught at Derrinallum and then at Mortlake when I played with the great Bill McMaster, who was coach, followed by Jack Elliot at Derrinallum.
“Those fellows could instill things into you, and those things helped carried me through into my coaching.
“Those sort of things stay with you, and it helped me enormously to coach and play and to get the players to perform at their maximum.”
Mr Northey said he always tried to involve the whole community in local football leagues, not just one small town, regardless of what they do towards the game.
“I’ve always said how important that all