ACROSS the table, Kevin Sheedy is wearing the two-toned blue guernsey of the Prahran Football Club, the jumper he wore as a 15-year-old.

Sheedy’s rise to senior football was rapid. From kicking around the backstreets of Prahran, two years as a junior with the Try Boys Youth Club and then donning the royal and light blue for just one season before graduating to the VFA.

At 16, he matured quickly alongside teammates who were in their 30s, running their own businesses, and playing good football – good enough to win the 1966 flag.

But playing senior football at that age was about much more than the game itself.

“You’re trying to catch every moment of your life between that period when you’re a teenager and an adult,” Sheedy says.

“And I think the people in between were the cushion. And that was the women’s committee.

“Who taught you to dance in the barn dance at the Prahran Football Club?

“It was the women’s committee. No footballer’s going to get up for a barn dance unless Mrs Sheedy or Mrs Pearson or Mrs Simmons got you up.”

Sheedy’s reputation as a coach is one of getting the most out of footballers, on and off the field. His own experiences as a youth are testament to the value he holds for personal development through football.

“Football clubs are there interweaving in society to try and help youth. And that’s why I love the game,” he says.

“Whether it’s the women helping the youth at the club, or the men through the playing side and expectations of a driving force of getting everything out of your talent – whether it be a large pool of talent inside of you, or a small pool of talent.”

Sheedy’s aspirations were developed early, between the ages of 12 and 16. He barracked for Essendon during Melbourne’s glory days, and recalls going home from games in tears after the Bombers were defeated in the 1957 and ‘59 grand finals.

But watching the fierce determination of Melbourne’s Ron Barrasi was an inspiration.

“When you’re a little kid, you watch the club you love but you also watch your opponents and you build a healthy respect of ‘gee, that player really is good, even though he’s not in our guernsey, the one I love, the one I barrack for’,” he says.

“And I think that’s one thing the game also teaches you.”

He cites the best current player as Chris Judd: “His talent is what the game needs. He’s done what every kid will want to do by the time he’s 25.”

But on a personal level, his most exciting time is one that only someone with experience, someone who has truly lived, can appreciate. It’s from his childhood, around the age of ten.

“My most exciting time was playing footy with Kevin Bartlett when he was a kid, and watching him develop into a marvellous person, a sensational player.”

“Kevin Bartlett’s as good a person as what he is a footballer, and that’s pretty special.

“To see him going through from a skinny little kid playing in the backstreets of Prahran to play 400 games and win five best and fairest and win five premierships is just a marvellous story for a little kid from Prahran.”