A range of factors can motivate a footballer to play more than 250 games.
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For Koroit five-time premiership veteran Joe McLaren, who was awarded a Hampden league life membership on Sunday, there was one simple factor.
“I enjoy playing footy and I am going to keep playing until I can’t,” he said.
“Footy is footy and you get to meet great people when you are playing footy.
“It has been a huge part of my life and with a bit of luck I might keep going for a little while.”
McLaren, a former coach of the Saints, said his love for his club was just as strong, if not stronger, than it was for the game itself.
The 2005 Maskell Medallist spoke of the how much wearing the red, black and white meant to him.
“The Koroit footy club is everything,” he said.
“When I started back in I think it was ‘94 when I started my senior career at Koroit, I was sort of 14 or 15 years of age, and to be still sort of being involved and being able to put the jumper on it means a lot.
"I obviously wear the number nine, which is a family number, which I have been lucky enough to put on my back.”
The dairy farmer, who played AFL for North Melbourne and St Kilda, said he could not have achieved what he had without his supportive family.
He said for most of his career his family had been in the background allowing him to have the career he had, and felt they deserved plenty of praise for their role behind the scenes.
“My wife and my kids, sometimes they probably come second in many ways with footy. And to their credit they have stood by me and backed me up the whole way," he said.
“And Sarah has just been the rock behind me really in regards to my footy, so I can’t thank her enough.
“And mum and dad, the support the old man has given me being able to let me go away and work and I suppose let me have a sleep in on a game day and all of those sorts of things.
“What they have both given me in support is incredible and I can’t thank them enough.”