Tokyo Goannas Life Members
Tokyo Goannas Life Membership is an exclusive Gentleman's Club and is only available to those select individuals who have made a dedicated, long term commitment which has enhanced or improved the Club over a number of years. Life Membership is subject to specific selection criteria and nominations are voted on, by the elected Committee, during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) conducted at the completion of each season. Please see below for a list of Tokyo Goannas Life Members - congratulations one and all and thank you again for your marvelous contributions.
The Goannas Newest Life Member
Travis Wilson - TGLM006
- Wait for the write up it will be worth it
Kim Bebbington
Kim Bebbington lived in Japan for fifteen years before recently returning with his family to Perth. Kim was one of the engineers behind the formation of the club and its success over the first 10 years. Kim loves to tell the story of how the five original Goannas came up with the concept for the club and its name. These first 5 Goannas came up with the concept in a bar and mulled over names with an Australian flavour—the Goanna definitely fit that criterion. They also looked for Kanji characters suitable to use for Goanna. Interestingly, the Kanji character “GO”means Australia and can also be the number five. On the other hand, ANA means hole. So they came up with “ 5 Holes (arseholes) or Australian Holes. Musing on this level, these five pioneers named our club (which turns 15 years old in 2007). Kim gave enormous service to the club as president for one year and powerbroker behind the scenes for many, many more years. He was also the editor of The Bungarra, the newsletter of the club which provided news, information and hilarious insights into the bumbling attempts of Aussies attempting to fit into daily Japanese life. The newsletter was so well written we often had people turning up at club events wanting to meet the characters featured within its pages.
Peter Apps
Peter Apps was also one of the Goanna pioneers from that first meeting. Peter (Appsy) took the Goanna presidency for one year and worked on the committee for many others. Appsy was passionate about the Annual Ball and he was a driving force behind turning into a magnificent evening attended by over 200 people at some of the swankiest venues in Tokyo. Appsy was always in the background helping and encouraging those who took on committee responsibilities and other duties. Another feature that stands out with Appsy was his passion for the Big V. Whether playing, coaching or supporting, Appsy's passion for the Big V versus the World matches made him the Teddy Whitten of Japan (Big V versus the World matches were a huge event on the football calendar in the first 10 years and allowed Japanese, South Aussies, West Aussies, Queenslanders and even Taswegians and Poms to join forces against Victoria). In one year, someone put an advertisement in the Japan Times looking for any Victorians with reasonable eye-hand co-ordination. To this day the rumour remains that it was Appsy that placed the ad. Appsy, was also very supportive of Goanna members who struck trouble with accommodation. Often members were temporarily down on their luck (in many cases this meant booted out by their girlfriends). At one time as many as five Goannas lived in Appsy's house. In an edition of The Bungana, Kim Bebbington once referred to Appsy's house as the Battered Mens Shelter. Appsy still lives in Tokyo today and still attends Goanna games and function. Congratulations to both these guys—very worthy recipients of Goanna Life Membership.
Simon Evans
Simon arrived in 1993 and got involved with the Goannas in 1995. Simon is life member of Box Hill North. He won the Goannas best and fairest three times in 1996, 1997 and 1998. Apart from contributing to the Club on the field Simon was involved on the committee and was President of the Club in 1998. He has been very supportive in helping the JAFL develop and still is a tireless worker for Japanese boys as well as helping other teams. I think the greatest compliment I heard about Simon was from the old Goanna president Shane Flanagan after a match against Box Hill North when he said “We always have to watch him on the field even though he much older than us he continually gets the ball and uses it very well” …and in finishing he said, “I would like to have Simon’s commitment at that age”
Gareth Jones
Gareth lived in Japan for about 15 of the 17 years spanning 1988-2005. Fluent in written and spoken Japanese he worked as a teacher, translator and salaryman. His involvement with the Goannas began in the mid 1990s as a player and he was soon one of the most passionate members of the club.
In the early 2000s, the Goanna numbers fell to very low levels. Gareth decided to act and joined the Committee as Vice President. In this role he was the key person behind initiatives such as Goanna recruiting drives, restarting the Ball, establishing a base for football in Narita, organising BHN player scholarship stays, ensuring the Goannas toured Osaka each year and the restructuring of JAFL. Gareth also made a huge contribution to the Japanese University teams. He personally attended the freshman sporting club recruiting days and singlehandedly recruited 15-20 new members. This had huge benefits for the JAFL competition and also enabled University rival teams to emerge.
Aussie Takagi
A key figure at the club from 2000 to 2005, Aussie Takagi played a prominent role during the rebuilding years (2000 to 2003). Many players left to join the newly formed cricket team the Wombats, and other club stalwarts either returned to Australia, got married or were lured away from the club due to work or other reasons. In addition to these challenges the website went down and remained down for nearly three years.
During these difficult years, Hidenori Takagi, known to all his contemporary lizards as “Aussie”, became more and more important to the club. The Goannas kept all its equipment at Aussies house and gave him an official position on the committee as Property Steward. Aussie was always available to bring the BBQ, balls or any other equipment at very little notice. Aussie’s wife washed the team jumpers for three years and helped with any social activities. Never missing a Goannas function or training in 5 years, Aussie’s reliability was a shining light in a period of instability for the Goannas. Aussie was famous for attending each training in a different AFL jumper ; Kangaroos one week, West Coast the next. When Aussie visited Australia his first stop was the AFL shop. Cameron Brooker, Goannas coach at the time, estimated that Aussie had more AFL goods than could be contained in a local Melbourne AFL shop. Based on Aussie’s AFL purchases, we often extrapolated to the extensive AFL profits in Jumper sales alone should AFL gain a significant following in Japan.
Goannas Calendar
