Ditchburn joins AWI's Ultimate Wool Team
Kukerin sporting legend Ross Ditchburn has enjoyed the best of both worlds — football and farming — and now he has been nominated as part of Australian Wool Innovation's Ultimate Wool Team.
AWI's The Fibre of Football initiative celebrates two Australian icons — the production of wool and Australian Rules football — which have been closely knitted since the country's native game was contrived by Tom Wills on his pastoralist father's sheep station, Lexington, in Victoria in the mid-19th century.
Launched at the world's biggest sheep event, the Australian Sheep and Wool Show at Bendigo, the campaign involves many initiatives, from placing the natural fibre into football supporter gear, country football wool blend 'MerinoPerform' playing tops, through to compiling images and stories of woollen playing jumpers and nominating people for the Ultimate Wool Team.
An AWI spokesman said at every country football weekend across the nation, the wool industry was represented at the grounds in support of the game.
Countryman spoke to Ditchburn at Melville at the weekend as his son Cody, 14, was continuing the family tradition of putting the boot to ball for the Applecross Hawks on Marmion Oval.
Country football was the beginning of Ditchburn's playing career, which took him all the way to the ultimate glory of the 1982 Victorian Football League premiership team win for Carlton.
"As a young boy, I was inspired by my father's (Bill) play of the game, when it was all-out physical, which is now compared to a more contested game, requiring specialised athleticism," he said.
Ditchburn played his junior football at Kukerin, followed by his time at Aquinas College and then a five-year stint with WAFL club Claremont.
He played 110 games for the Tigers between 1975 and 1980.
At a mature age of 25, he accepted an earlier signed position with Carlton.
Ditchburn was named best first-year player and leading goal kicker in the same year in which the club won the 1982 VFL grand final.
"My two brief seasons for the Blues (91 goals in 28 games) were very memorable," he said.
Ditchburn returned to Kukerin after the 1983 season after his father became ill, and resumed his place on the family farm where he and wife Jodie have raised three sons.
"Cody now wears my Carlton number 8 with pride, and has the same ambition," he said.
The Ditchburns' eldest son, Nathan, 33, continues to play country football for Kukerin/Dumbleyung as a player/coach.
He also works full time on the family's mixed sheep and cropping farm, which produces 130 bales of wool annually.
The Ditchburns run the Golden Hill Merino stud, which has been in the family since 1958.
Nominations for the Ultimate Wool team can be made online to the Football Almanac.
Other people nominated include woolclasser Anthony Daniher and indigenous shearers Phil and Jim Krakouer.
