General News
3 April, 2025
Demon brothers- two will run out for 250ths
SATURDAY’S opening round of Loddon Valley football will be one for the record books for Calivil. The traditional heritage round clash aganst Maiden Gully will see the Demons in the heritage Northern United colours and two club legends notching up...
SATURDAY’S opening round of Loddon Valley football will be one for the record books for Calivil.
The traditional heritage round clash aganst Maiden Gully will see the Demons in the heritage Northern United colours and two club legends notching up their 250th games.
Jordan Lea reckons he and Calivil teammate Evan Ritchie have played together about 150 times over the years.
It’s not quite Pendlebury and Sidebottom and their 300th shared match, and it won’t attract the media circus the Collingwood players drew recently, but the two Demons will hit the milestone together.
It’s rare enough for a player to reach 250 games, and rarer still for two players from the same club to do it on the same day.
Lea, 34, began playing under-17s football with Calivil aged nine and made his senior debut at 15.
He said on top of the 250 senior games he had played about 100 junior matches for the Demons, with a year spent at South Bendigo and two summer seasons with the Waratahs in the Northern Territory thrown in.
That NT experience saw him play on ex-Essendon forward Leroy Jetta as well as local legend Cam Ilett.
The latter didn’t go too well.
Lea and a teammate shared tagging duties on the star in one game: “He still got 40 (disposals).” Most of all, back pocket and 2017 premiership player Lea is happy to have played nearly all of his career for his local club.
“It’s a pretty good feeling, knowing a lot of people play at a lot more clubs.”
Ritchie, now 40, has spent his whole career at Calivil after he joined a few mates from university in Bendigo for a kick back in 2006.
He said he was injury-prone in his early years at the club – “little half-season injuries” such as stress fractures, knee problems and even a fractured face – and had never imagined he would still be playing in 2025.
The string of injuries meant Ritchie missed Calivil’s glory years – the six flags in a row from 2003-08 – but he did play in the 2017 premiership alongside Lea.
He described himself as a “utility who never had any pace but can still cover the kilometres. I’ve always had more endurance than speed”.
And of the great milestone, Ritchie said: “The 250 itself is nice but it’s just a number. The fact that I’m sharing it with Jordan makes it special.”