It’s great to see that even though we all take our Football seriously on a Saturday afternoon that young men still have the time to think of more serious and life threatening issues such as Cancer. 

An initiative first touted by Jeremy Nichols leadership organisation “The Mettle Group” who thought it would be beneficial and rewarding for the Under 19 group to undertake some sort of charity/community work during the year to help raise awareness for those less fortunate than themselves.

Driven by the Under 19 OM’s leadership team of Matt Collister, Marty McCoy and Tim McLardy, the playing group thought of many ideas but the most strongly supported and football relevant charity suggestion was the “Call to Arms”, a charity set up by The Cancer Council and Adam Ramanauskas to assist in preventing men’s cancer.

The first step involved registering the club’s details and deciding which match day to complete our charity duties. Whilst the official “Call to Arms” game was held on the weekend between Essendon and Melbourne, the OM Under 19’s decided to do it a week earlier on Saturday 26th July against traditional school rivals Old Hailebury at the MGS school grounds at Port Melbourne.

To endorse our support on the day, every player and coach who participated in the game from Old Melburnians wore a yellow arm-band, with every member contributing $20 each towards the charity. With also a strong following of parents from both Old Hailebury and OM’s the day was a great success with over $750 raised, which is a tremendous result and typifies the seriousness in which all the boys have taken it.

Finally all members of the OM’s Under 19’s should be applauded for the way they have gone about the charity work and the spirit in which the game was played on the day.