Anderson: “Noel had a big influence on me as a young lad”

And at the forefront of it all was legendary Melbourne half-back Noel McMahen.

Capping off his illustrious 175-game career at the Demons as captain of the club’s 1955 and 1956 VFL premierships, McMahen was lured to the country town of Rochester a year later as captain-coach of the football side.

And while the on-field success McMahen brewed here speaks for itself, his influence and aura around town arguably entered another stratosphere.

For Anderson, Noel’s arrival was the clincher for his personal allegiance to the Melbourne Football Club, which remains to this day.

“It’s only natural as a young kid you follow the team that is successful, or you’re influenced by family or a good friend,” Anderson said.

“It just so happened Melbourne was very successful in the 1950s and my mother barracked for Melbourne.

“But my dad was really involved in the Rochester Football Club and was one of the committee members who got Noel McMahen to come up here in ‘57.

“Noel had a big influence on me as a young lad, watching him.”

A young kid with a front-row seat to McMahen’s masterful tenure at Rochester, Anderson’s connection to the man continued for some years after.

“I moved to Melbourne when I was 18 and Noel was coaching at South Melbourne then, so I often went down there when they had their night football and would catch up with him,” Anderson said.

“And I saw him a couple times when I went down to the MCG to watch Melbourne. He used to call me one of the Andys, as there was so many of us.”

Reflecting on the days of Rochester’s success under McMahen, Anderson said it was unlike anything he had seen at the time.

“It was absolutely huge,” he said.

“When the home game was here in Rochester, I think there was 5000 people at the games.

“My father was on the committee, and they were really annoyed with the league. They would give Rochester only a percentage of the gate taking.

“Bendigo Football League was huge back then, and it was a real scoop to have Noel here.

“Everyone spoke about football here and when I first went to Melbourne in 1969, you’d just have a casual conversations with someone and they would say where are you from? You’d say Rochester, and they’d say, you had a really good football team in the 50s and 60s and where Noel McMahen went.

“When we won our first grand final (in 1958), from the edge of town past the hospital, people were lined up all down the main highway past the pubs and post office and around into Gillies St to the Shire Hall, where they had a big reception.

“They were two or three people deep all that way.

“It was absolutely packed and people out in the streets and in the pubs.

“It was a fantastic time of the year as a kid.”

Rochester went on to win another two premierships in 1962 and ‘63 following McMahen’s departure, and a year later, Anderson was in the stands of the MCG cheering his beloved Demons to their most recent flag in 1964.

“I was 14 at the time, and I went down with my father, my uncle, my cousin and a friend of my father’s and they were all Collingwood supporters, and I was Melbourne,” he said.

“Driving back to Rochester, I learnt very early not to say too much; they were really pissed off.”

Since that fateful day, it’s been a long time waiting for Anderson and every other Demons supporter.

The club now has its first opportunity since 2000 to break the current longest premiership drought in the AFL on Saturday against Western Bulldogs in the grand final.

“I’ll probably be pretty nervous sitting here,” Anderson said.

“There has been years I’ve thought we’ve looked like we would go well, then we didn’t and then went backwards.

“It’s been frustrating and disappointing, and it probably annoyed me when friends would have teams who had not won for say 10 or 15 years and they’d get grumpy.

“But if we win (on Saturday), I’ll be thinking of the Demons supporters not here any more.”