General News
16 July, 2024
We’re going where? Brooke heads straight for the map
By ANDREW MOLE WHEN Brooke Arnold first heard of Boort, she needed a map to find it. And when she realised where it was, she turned to her husband with a “no way” look. Brooke was already away from home that had been Melbourne, at university in...
By ANDREW MOLE
WHEN Brooke Arnold first heard of Boort, she needed a map to find it.
And when she realised where it was, she turned to her husband with a “no way” look.
Brooke was already away from home that had been Melbourne, at university in Bendigo because it was the only place she could get her preferred mix to do physical education and health care in the one degree. But Boort. Had she not gone to Bendigo for study, bumped into Kane Arnold, a wastrel from Wedderburn way who had also moved to the “big smoke”, Brooke’s life would not have changed,
Now, all these years later, Brooke wouldn’t change a thing. Except maybe to see the Boort Magpies win a few more flags in netball and football.
Her immediate priority, however, is her beloved C Grade team defending its 2023 premiership.
After a perfect home and away season, a slip-up in the semi-final put Brooke and her girls “on a mission” and they swept through the rest of the finals.
That was then. Now the team is battling hard to maintain its foothold in the top four.
Which means it’s time for Brooke’s secret weapon. Donuts. Donuts?
Donuts, Brooke says, drove the C Grade to its stellar 2023 and now she is bringing them back as she pulls out all stops to get her girls into the post season.
“They’re back for the second half of the year,” she announced.
“It all started last season after I had been a regular at the Wycheproof bakery and buying their donuts,” Brooke says.
“And I thought they would be perfect for the team, so we introduced an idea where everyone got a donut if we won – and we ate a lot of donuts in 2023,” she laughs.
“Now I am expecting the donuts to help our season turn the corner – finals here we come.”
Like so many country netball teams, keeping a side together from one year to the next is a challenge. The premiership C grade side has lost two players to babies, a couple to university and promising young ones to the higher grades leaving Brooke with a vastly different unit.
But now the donuts are on the table it’s a whole new ball game.
Not unlike Brooke’s life when she finally agreed on the move to Boort and told Kane “okay, if this is really what you want, let’s get the butcher shop”.
It was, and they did, running it for several years before selling it to Kane’s brother Jye and his wife Kristy, who still run it.
After that it was a café for a while, which they also loved, but more recently they have gone from entrepreneurs to the ranks of the employed – she works as children’s services manager with Gannawarra Shire, and he keeps count of 1.5 million hens at a Barraport egg business.
Brooke is now so Boort you could swear she has been there for generations.
She recalls thinking about the move, wanting to make sure their son Finlay didn’t miss out on anything, in school, in life, in opportunities and she’s pretty sure he hasn’t.
He’s just come back from nine weeks at a leadership school at Dinner Plain in the High Country and back to his under 14 football side, currently sitting second on the ladder under coach Nathan McNally, who has taken a big raft of new young players into the team and is, as Brooke says, “getting it together and getting it done”.
Playing footy puts Finlay way ahead of dad – who may, or may not, have played one game somewhere back in his primary school days. Indeed, forget footy, he’s just not that into sport of any kind. That didn’t stop him being president of the Boort club for six years, or Brooke from being its secretary since 2019 – and counting.
Which has all been part of Brooke’s Boort experience.
“Everyone in this town looks out for everyone else, this is a real community, and we are a community very focused on the next generation,” she explains.
“Initially I was just worried about Finlay missing something, but in Boort you quickly discover everyone wants every kid to finish their schooling here as well rounded individuals with a good understanding of the whole world around them.
“Just look at the C Grade, we have last year’s dux at school and 2023 best and fairest, Phoebe Malone, doing medical imaging at university.
“Early in the season she was on a placement at Deni, so played every weekend, but now we just hope to get three, maybe four more games but she will be here for the finals,” she says.
“We have three mother-daughter combinations, players aged 17 to 40 (and a bit) with some of the older ones wondering what possessed them to turn out for one more season (probably donuts) and we have supersmart players like captain Kristen Gooding, or our team manager Tracy Bird, who did an ACL last year and would only take the job if I agreed to play with her next year,” Brooke laughs.
“I would have to say Thursday nights are one of my favourite things about playing, about coaching, about Boort. Sitting down for dinner with your teammates, your friends, and sharing that connection is the heartbeat of why this is the best place in the world to be. I love it, we love it.”