In the year 2000, “It was just myself and a truck”, Peter Sadler told me as he sat across from me in his office.
Walking into his Laverton depot, I noticed the big blue trucks rolling around this enormous site. It was clear that Peter has grown his business into something special in the last 20 years.
Peter is also a proud and committed Premium Partner of the footy club.
Earlier this month, the club erected the ‘Peter Sadler Removals and Logistics Scoreboard’ along the garden wing at Fearon Reserve as a part of a long term partnership agreement. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to utilise this amazing resource in 2020 due to the cancellation of the season, but, we are looking forward to it being a feature of our club in 2021.
Peter Sadler’s connection with the CYs runs deep. He says the club has been a second home for him, and he is not the only Sadler to have had heavy involvement within the club.
His father, Peter Snr was the club president in 2001 and Peter’s wife, Jenny was president from 2005-2007. His mother and his aunty also ran the canteen for a while.
Peter also took on other roles, such as, looking after sponsorship and being a committee member at one stage.
He is a close friend and former teammate of club great Dene ‘Guru’ McLeod, it was Dene, Damien Grigg and Grant “Spud” Case who first introduced Peter to the club, it’s no coincidence that his five closest mates to this day all played for the club.
Peter played most of his footy at centre half-forward, in the ruck and was also vice-captain and assistant coach under ‘Guru’ when the pair played and coached in the 2000s.
Peter also played alongside his brother, David Sadler at some stages which was a proud moment for him.
Playing under Alan ‘Oopy’ Elliott in the early years, Peter says he spent the early days trying to work out the intricacies of the game; where to run what to do when the ball was in motion.
“It (the club) had a really good family atmosphere. I can remember the after-game events and the things that went on in those clubrooms were really fun.”
“It had a really welcoming feel about it.”
Peter says the reason behind him volunteering in the past was due to his love of the local community.
Peter re-joined the club via his company sponsorship in 2010.
Peter was at the Club function at the Italian Social Club across from Fearon Reserve after the Seniors and Reserves won their Premierships on the same day last year. He noticed 27 people in the room that worked at Peter Sadler Removals and Logistics, either now or in the past – some of them were ex-players, some were current which included star premiership players, Dylan Jones and Lachie Fairley.
I also asked Peter about the struggles of being a major sponsor during a pandemic, he spoke about the idea of reconciliation.
“You reach a certain age in your own life where you start to reconcile and start to work out what has been important to you in your past and what is important to you now, and I think one of the things I’ve reconciled within myself is that I’ve realised the CYs were a big part of my life at a certain point and it was one I really enjoyed.”
“So to give back really is for me something that makes me feel proud, proud for my family, proud for my parents, my wife, my brother and my kids.”