In the first of our ‘In the spotlight’ series we sat down with Burwood President Andy McVeigh to discuss his footballing career and just how he came about being named a world champion at the age of 50.
In the first edition of our ‘in the spotlight’ series we headed down to one of the two newly renovated home grounds of Burwood Football Club, Blair Park, to catch up with their number one supporter and dedicated president, Andy McVeigh.
McVeigh’s footballing history is quite incredible once you begin to scratch underneath the surface of the centre back turned striker.
From representing NSW in the state championships as a schoolboy to turning out in one of Australia’s premier footballing competition in the 1970’s, McVeigh has plenty of stories to share with CDSFA and is the perfect candidate to kick off our new series.
McVeigh’s footballing career began in the Gladesville Hornsby region with much of his youth spent at the West Epping Redbacks and West Ryde Rovers before he transitioned into the local representative team set up.
A young Andy at Parry Park after winning the U/12’s tournament with West Ryde Rovers. Image: Supplied
His rapid rise to the top culminated in him being selected for the state side that won two successive national championships.
“In both of the finals, we played against Northern NSW, the first one [grand final] was in Tasmania and the second was at Hindmarsh in Adelaide”, he said.
“There was definitely a bit of a rivalry between the two of us,” he said.
“We’d played against them at a variety of different tournaments.”
As a youngster he was fortunate enough to feature in some high profile curtain raisers in front of packed out stadiums.
“One of them was between Israel and Australia, a World Cup qualifier in the old Sydney sportsground when it fit around 30,000 people,” McVeigh remembers.
“We were probably finishing up about half an hour before the match. The crowd was raucous, and they were giving us stick.
You just make a mistake and there’s 10,000 people screaming at us, I got pretty intimidated by that.”
After a couple of seasons representing Gladesville Hornsby, McVeigh and his teammates linked up with Granville-Parramatta in the NSW state league competition.
A 17-year-old McVeigh was fortunate enough to make his first grade debut for the club in the AMPOL Cup - a match he remembers all too well.
“There were some pretty serious players out there. One of our guys pegged a ball into the box five minutes into the game and I outjumped the keeper and knocked it in and we went 1-0 up.”
“They ended up smashing us 4 or 5-1, anyway we were 1-0 up for a little while there.”
“It gave me a taste of football at that level.”
After a few seasons at Granville-Parramatta and Manly, McVeigh made the move to the south coast to pursue a business opportunity.
“While down in the Nowra region I continued to play his football for the Sussex Inlet Seahawks.”
“I had a good first year, we won everything there.”
His time at the Seahawks allowed him to fine tune his craft as a striker and led to him registering an absurd number of goals that most strikers could only dream of.
“I scored 56 goals in the first year. I actually learnt how to perform the role properly.”
McVeigh in action for the Sussex Inlet Seahawks. Image: Supplied
His stint at the Seahawks came to an unfortunate end with a horror leg break two years later forcing him into early retirement.
For the following 25 years or so, he turned his attention to his IT business before eventually coming back to the game he loved so much in the mid 2000’s.
At this time in his life, he had moved within arm’s reach of Centenary Park and decided to join one of Burwood’s over 35 sides.
After a couple of season with the club, the opportunity arose to represent Burwood at the 2009 World Masters Games Gold Medal as Player and Team Manager for the Over 50s dream team.
‘We were all turning 50 that year and there was an over 50’s comp, so I thought beautiful. We got four or five who played in the state soccer and a few of the guys that I played with at Burwood.”
“We got this team together in a very short period of time. We were pegging the ball around at training and we realised that we actually had something special going on.”
World Masters Winners over 50’s Burwood FC. Image: Supplied
A compact schedule which saw them play eight matches within 10 days seemed to play in their favour with McVeigh’s side possessing a trick under their sleeve before the semi-final.
“Just down the road from the venue there was this fantastic aquatic centre. We found the spa, sat in the spas and had lunch there and went on to win the semi in the afternoon.”
“On the Sunday we played the final against the Thai team. The match ended up going to penalties.”
The first five penalties were scored by each team and we ended up coming out on top 8-7.
“It was a pretty euphoric moment; we were effectively the world champions.”
Since their title triumph 12 years ago, the towering defender went on to take an administrative role with Burwood which has culminated in his current role as President.
He was at the forefront behind the latest upgrades to their two home grounds (Centenary Park & Blair Park) which now boasts a fantastic state of the art pitch at the latter and renovated clubhouses at both fields.
The way the club were found out about the funds made for a funny story: “We had a meeting with the Treasurer, and he said, ‘these are our books’. I said, ‘What’s all this money doing here?’ and he said that was our building fund.”
“There wasn’t enough to build anything with it, so we started using that as wedge when we went to councils and local government in an effort to back us.”
However, a doubling up of funds from the Federal and State Government saw the necessary funds raised for both fields.
The $3.3 million investment has placed Burwood in perfect stead as they clock over into their 50th season this year.
By CDSFA Communications Officer – Samuel Greco Schwartz
