Stephen Barnes went from star player for his Southern Football League (SFL) team in the early 1990s to standing against the threat of collapse when the league hit financial hard times a decade later. Thirty years on, he is taking up a new challenge to try to turn around the fortunes of a fledgling SFL team. Mojo meets this humble footy hero.

By BEN POLLARD

STEPHEN Barnes doesn’t do selfish. Well, not any more.

Perhaps the 59-year-old’s modesty is a product of driving forklifts around a warehouse for a living, but it is as though Barnes doesn’t realise the magnitude of his contribution to the Southern Football League (SFL).

While he makes his living at the warehouse, Barnes’ life has mostly been spent at local footy grounds in Melbourne’s south-east.

It has led to him holding rare standing in the SFL community – life membership. Not that he likes admitting it.

“I’m a little bit embarrassed by it. There are other people out there that haven’t got it that are more deserving of it than me,” Barnes says.

“What some of the people do in this organisation leaves me in awe. I don’t think I’m humble – I reckon I know my place.”

So what is Steve Barnes’ place in the SFL?

He began his playing career as a rover with McKinnon in the Federal Football League as a 17-year-old, captaining the senior side at just 19. At 20, he transferred to Murrumbeena – an inaugural club when the SFL was formed in 1993.

“I needed money. I was going to be a dad.”

Barnes had told the club if it recruited him, he would win them a premiership. They made him their highest-paid player.

Brash, yes, but in his first of four years at Murrumbeena, Barnes was the best and fairest in a premiership team.

At 22 he became captain-coach, an experience that set him up for an important later role in the SFL.

“As a coach, you had to make some really hard decisions. I learnt I had a stronger character as a coach than as a footy player,” he says.

“My character was probably a little bit selfish when I was just a player.”

Fast forward to the mid-2000s and any youthful selfishness was long gone.

The SFL was in dire straits. Clubs were leaving, its public perception was poor and AFL Victoria was considering breaking up the league.

Barnes was asked to join an under-resourced board in 2006 and help turn around the SFL’s fortunes.

“I said no quite a few times. But it was either jump out of it or try to make a difference.

“My wife said: ‘You’ve got to make a difference. You know quite a few people.’”

So Barnes made contact with the countless people he had developed ties with through his good nature and love of local footy.

Community interest was generated. Board positions were filled.

Long story short, the SFL is today a strong and viable competition.

“The quality of the people that came forward – they’re the real ones who made it happen, because mate, I’m in a warehouse on a forklift,” Barnes laughs.

“I’d like to think I’ve made a contribution, but I’m not the accountant, the lawyer, the commercial person.

“To be allowed to go along on their coattails – just as the ‘footy head’ – it was one of the best experiences of my life.”

Barnes’ fondest memory of the “draining” process of rescuing the SFL was helping get an under-18 competition off the ground.

Despite the many naysayers, Barnes was instrumental in turning one interested club in 2007 into 14 clubs in 2012.

“Always good to do something people said you couldn’t do,” he says.

The Barnes Medal is awarded to the best on ground in the under-18 grand final, but again, Barnes sees the honour as slightly embarrassing.

“I said I’d only accept it if they recognised the Barnes family, not Steve Barnes.”

Barnes disagrees with using the word “instrumental” to describe his role in the league’s survival, but SFL administration manager Maree Heverin thinks otherwise.

“Without a doubt [Barnes was instrumental]. He got the board together and from then on, the league hasn’t looked back,” she says.

“The beauty with Barnesy, it’s about the game and the players. There are times when he really brings it back to what it’s all about.

“It’s about the footy and that’s what we’re here for. That’s one thing I’ve really learnt from him.”

Heverin says as long as it involves local footy, Barnes will be looking for new experiences.

Take his stint as a goal umpire, for example. Or as a host of the SFL’s Sunday radio show. Or take his upcoming role as president of the SFL’s new Carrum Patterson Lakes club in 2013, a role he relinquished his directorship for.

Heverin says the start-up club faces an immense task, but knows Barnes’ hands-on approach will hold it in good stead.

“If other people in the community see that Steve Barnes is involved, they’ll say: ‘These guys are serious and are going to do a good job.’

“He’ll get the support of the league and he’ll get the support of the other clubs, just because it’s Steve Barnes doing it.”

Barnes himself, of course, would not buy a word of that.