KIMBA Districts footy club president Peter Woolford finds it rather funny that Corey Enright has become one of the most decorated defenders in AFL history.
Woolford coached Enright when the five-time All Australian was making his way through the grades at his home club in rural South Australia, and he remembers a kid who wasn't overly keen on playing in the backline.
"Corey loved pushing forward and kicking goals," Woolford told geelongcats.com.au. "He absolutely loved kicking goals.
"That's something that amazes me from where he started as a kid to where he finished up at Geelong. He really was a great goalkicker in his younger days. Wherever the goals were, he was going for them."
Enright spent his childhood in the town of Kimba, which has a population of around 600 and is famous for The Big Galah and its claim to being halfway between Australia's east and west coasts.
"It's basically a farming community in the middle of the Eyre Peninsula," Wooldford explained. "We've only got the one hotel and the one service station, then there's a lot of silos and stuff like that. It's a big grain-growing area.
"The town is getting smaller. When I was going to school, which is a long time ago, there were around 460 students. Now there's only around 140.
"But we're proud of the town. We work hard to keep things going, and the local sporting clubs are such a big part of that."
The Big Galah! (Dirk Veltkamp)
During his childhood, Enright, who was nicknamed 'Boris' by his brother Mark, was involved in most of those sporting clubs. He showed plenty of promise on the cricket field and the basketball court, but footy was his first love.
"I coached him in the junior footy grades," Woolford said. "Even when he was only knee-high, he always had a ball in his hand.
"That's one thing I'll always remember about Boris. As a kid, he was always up the end of the oval, kicking the ball around corners or dribbling it through for a goal."
A young Corey Enright wearing a South Australia jumper
Enright started out in Kimba Districts' junior teams, and he was an eye-catching player from the start.
"As a junior, he was only a scrawny kid," Woolford said. "There wasn't much of him. But he was always a good player, because he had so much talent.
"Like a lot of country kids, he came through the ranks with a group of mates that were very good players as well. They had all that peer pressure about being better than one another, and they developed that competitive edge.
"The lads he grew up with here, they were all bloody ratbags, I tell you, but they were a great group of lads. Whenever they got together they had a good time.
"Corey was one of the cheekier lads. He always had a sly grin and made comments from the background. He wasn't the big, boisterous person in the room. He was reasonably quiet, but he was certainly a funny bugger."
Corey Enright the teenager
Enright had a growth-spurt in his mid-teens. Then, at the age of 15, he made his debut in Kimba Districts' senior team.
He played 32 senior games for the Tigers across the 1997, '98 and '99 seasons, and he made a huge impact. He was runner-up in the Eastern Eyre league best and fairest in 1998, then won it in 1999.
"When he was in senior footy, he was playing in the centre or on the ball," Woolford said. "When he was picked for the Eyre Peninsula side that went to Port Lincoln to play in the Mortlock Shield, he played across half-forward and kicked a few goals.
"But we always thought Boris could play anywhere, because he had the ball on a string when he was playing for Kimba. He could do things that not too many others could do."
Geelong's recruiting guru Stephen Wells took a liking to Enright when he saw him playing for Port Adelaide Magpies in the SANFL under-19 competition.
But given Enright played only a handful of games for the Magpies, the people in Kimba rightly celebrate him as player who pretty much went straight from bush footy to the AFL.
"You don't see that happen much anymore," Woolford said. "Whoever the recruiting officer was, I'd give him a gold star."
Enright is not the first person from Kimba to make it to the AFL. In fact, the town has overachieved in that regard.
Darryl and Shane Wakelin, who played 513 games between them for St Kilda, Port Adelaide and Collingwood, came through Kimba's junior teams, as did Robert Schaefer, who played 11 games for Richmond in 1993.
But Enright is undoubtedly the town's favourite son. The community is so proud of him that the local footy ground was recently named the Corey Enright Oval.
"I think the big thing for me and a lot of the people here is just the way Corey conducts himself," Woolford said. "He's a great role model for young lads because of the way he plays his footy and the way he conducts himself off the ground."
On Sunday, the many proud footy fans in Kimba will gather around their TV sets to watch 33-year-old Enright play his 300th AFL game when the Cats take on Melbourne at Simonds Stadium.
"We're very excited," Woolford said. "We just hope that he has a great day. The town and the club is very proud of him. He's achieved so much.
"But I still can't quite believe that he's about to play his 300th AFL game. It's amazing, really."
Kimba's footballers, netballers and supporters recently gathered to pay tribute to their favourite son
(Kerri Cliff: www.fresheyrephoto.com)
Woolford and his mates at the Kimba Districts footy club hope that Enright has many more appearances at the highest level left in him.
But they'll be straight on the phone once he does call time on his AFL career.
"The only thing he's got to do from here is come back and play a game for us in the black and gold," Woolford said.
"When I was the senior coach we had the Wakelin boys come back and play a game or two for us, and it was brilliant. The crowds came to see them play.
"We hope Boris will have time to do the same thing. It would be fantastic. It would be a massive thing for the town.
"And he's still got a lot of mates here, so they'll all be getting into him if he doesn't, don't worry about that."
