Family first: Rikki Busch with his wife Hayley and children, Vada, Indigo, Zarli and Tully. The 34-year-old has played his last game with Lancaster after a career which started as a teenager.
Memories: Rikki Busch has the complete set of premierships with Lancaster Football Netball Club, having been a member of the 2004 under-18 premiership team, the 2015 reserves premiership and a pair of senior pennants, 2011 and 2022.
Three decades later: In 1991 former Lancaster club president Rod O’Neill (left) played with Girgarre in a grand final team that beat Lancaster for the Kyabram district league title. On Saturday his son Coby was a premiership player with the Wombats.
Lancaster footballing father of four Rikki Busch announced his retirement just hours after he had secured his fourth Kyabram district league premiership with the club —describing the club as an extended part of his family.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
The 34-year-old has played all his football with the Wombats and is among an exclusive club that has been involved in under-18, reserve grade and senior premierships with Lancaster.
Lancaster’s reputation as the “family club’’ received a significant boost on the weekend when everywhere you looked there were brothers, cousins, in-laws and historic connections to successful teams of the 1970s, 80s, 90s and more modern times.
Two of the highly successful sporting organisation’s former presidents welcomed 2022 president Steve Elliott into a unique club — Matt Carver (2011) and Tony Hansen (1992) other former leaders to have been at the helm when Lancaster won senior and reserve grade titles.
The fourth of those, Graeme Lancaster, passed away in recent years.
For Busch, who had played only five senior games this season before the finals, it was a quartet of grand finals wins.
Busch played 10 reserve grade games before making his first 2022 senior appearance in round 12. He was a member of all four winning finals teams, including the grand final at Mooroopna.
A veteran of more than 200 senior games, he kicked 16 goals (including a bag of six against Dookie United) in his nine games at the top KDL level.
He was a member of the 2004 under-18 premiership, seven years later involved in the club’s 2011 senior premiership win and also played in a winning 2015 reserve grade grand final.
In that 2011 year the diminutive Busch kicked 49 goals at senior level from 20 games, having kicked 51 goals in 17 games a year earlier
“I had a friend coaching in 2015, so I played reserves almost the whole year,” he said.
Tom Davies and his younger brother Luke were among several sets of brothers involved in the two grand finals, along with Sam and senior captain Adam Vick (brothers of Kyabram’s Cooper), reserve grade brothers Sam and Joe Jackson and the Orrs, Bradley and Michael, who played in the senior and reserve grade teams respectively.
Add Matt James and Dean Moore to the mix, along with the generation before — Darryl James (father of Matt) and Ashley Vick (father of Sam and Adam) — and the connection grows further.
Matt James and Moore were both in the reserve grade winning team, James a cousin of Sam and Adam Vick, while Moore is marrying Caitlyn James in March.
Matt James was just 10 days old when he attended Lancaster’s 1993 losing grand final with his father, Darryl. In a twist his own 10-day-old son, Archie, was dressed in the same knitted Lancaster outfit his father wore — just 29 years later.
His big brother, four-year-old Chase James, was also at the game.
President of the last four years Rod O’Neill was among the brainstrust on the bench for the grand finals, watching on as son Coby played in the senior victory. Cousin, Riley, had played every senior game this season prior to losing his spot for the senior grand final.
His was the hard luck story, having kicked 17 goals in 19 senior games this season, before playing with the reserve team in the grand final.
He was among two changes — replaced by Sam Spedding — as Northcote Park recruit, Sam Aanensen, also made way for Jake Mills’ return.
Ironically it was Mills, who had missed the previous match through suspension, that brought 24-year-old Aanensen and 25-year-old VCFL medallist Cameron Simpson to the club.
A week earlier Aanensen had kicked the goal which gave the senior team victory in the preliminary final against Stanhope.
Close connection: Matt James, Dean Moore and Darryl James (back) with Sam and Ashley Vick. They are among an intricate network of family connections at Lancaster Football Club.
Wombat proud: Matt, Paul and Ben Squires were celebrating the dual Lancaster premierships on Sunday. Matt had played 10 senior games during the home-and-away season, while Ben was the grand final runner.
Cup kings: Lancaster’s footballing Davies brothers, Tom and Luke, with cousin Jack Elliott and reserves premiership captain Steve Grima — who is married to club president Steve’s daughter Caitlyn, whose other Nicole is the club secretary.
Medal men: Brothers Bradley and Michael Orr with the senior and reserve grade Kyabram district league premiership cups on Sunday.
Cup connection: Lancaster reserves premiership coach Brad Tinning and senior coach Tom Davies with the premiership cups at Sunday's club vote count.
