Scott Sowerby will play his 400th game tomorrow.
Toowomba’s Scott Sowerby will line up for his 400th senior game on Saturday, for University.
Sowerby, who started playing Aussie Rules for Mt Gravatt in the under-10s, said he could never have imagined he would reach such a significant milestone.
“I remember they used to swap me between the bench and the forward pocket, figuring that as most of the action was down back as we were usually getting flogged, it wouldn’t be such a risk to expose me out there,” he said.
“If you were taking odds on which one of the kids on that team would play 400 senior fixture games, I reckon I would’ve been at 400-1.”
After an inauspicious start, Sowerby moved over to the Toowoomba Tigers for under-15s, before joining the University side in 1990.
Twenty-three years later, he is still at the club and his passion has certainly not waned.
“The excitement of looking forward to the contest is something which is just as strong now as when I was 18,” he said.
“I have sore spots throughout the muscles in my legs, shoulders, neck, back – I have joints which creak and crack with every step I take.
“But will I be giving it away anytime soon? Unlikely.”
As well as his on-field contribution, which includes seven premierships, Sowerby has held numerous committee positions in his time at the club, ranging from vice president to “canteen stocker”.
Currently University’s senior registrar Sowerby has also taken it upon himself to resurrect the keeping of a club scrapbook.
“I came across some similar scrapbooks from the early days of the club which I found fascinating, getting to know people who I’d never met through their pages,” he said.
“I noticed that the records of the club begin to die off into the 90s and 2000s, so in 2004 I started this up again and vowed never to let this happen again on my watch.
“Who knows when the next club tragic will come along and find comfort in the happenings of yesteryear?”
Over his time playing footy, Sowerby estimates that he’s played under 21 coaches, but there are two who stick in his mind.
“The ones who probably had the most influence on me were Jim Urquhart and Austin Evans in the 90s,” he said.
“One had an aura and a passion about him and was a natural leader of men, while the other gave me really good tuition to play in the backline and the confidence I needed to do so.”
Sowerby has tried his hand at university, partially completing degrees in journalism. Applied sciences and teaching but the 40-year-old said footy has always been his true passion
“The only thing I ever graduated in was AFL and I don’t regret this whatsoever,” he said.
“It has transcended and outlasted many other facets of life and been the constant I have had to lean upon and revolve around.”
With three sons in under-8s now, there’s no danger of Sowerby’s connection to footy being lost anytime soon, either.
The University Side takes on the South Toowoomba Bombers at the USQ AFL Oval on Saturday at 4:15.
