Small town man makes the big time
By Stirling Coates
When most kids watch their first game of football, it’s the players that catch their eye. In backyards and playgrounds, they spend hours upon hours taking marks, laying tackles and slotting goals just like the superstars.
Most kids that is, but not Brodie Kenny-Bell.
“It was just goal umpiring,” he remembers of his younger days.
“I have no idea why, but when going to AFL games it [goal umpiring] caught my eye. I always thought it would be an awesome gig.”
Now, after goal umpiring for eleven years, Kenny-Bell has finally fulfilled his lifelong dream of being appointed to the AFL senior umpire list.
But at the start of his career, making it to the AFL list wasn’t the only challenge – just getting to an AFL game was difficult. Hailing from Port Pirie in South Australia, a town with a smaller population than many Sydney suburbs, a young Kenny-Bell had to sit on a supporter’s bus for six hours just to get to Football Park in Adelaide and watch a game.
His dedication was impressive, especially considering he wasn’t really going to watch the match.
“By the end of going to AFL games, I was going there equally to watch a game of football and to also watch the functions of the goal umpires and teach myself,” he remembers.
His hard work and enthusiasm paid off. After two years of “helping out” by goal umpiring after his match had finished, and three years of goal umpiring in the Spencer Gulf League, an 18-year-old Kenny-Bell was invited to join the SANFL goal umpiring panel at the end of 2008.
The required move to Adelaide was daunting, but the support of friends and family helped him clock five successful seasons in the prestigious SANFL competition.
During his time in Adelaide, Kenny-Bell became a Subway restaurant franchisee, and in late 2013 another opportunity presented itself.
“Sydney always appealed to me, and one day I noticed a [Subway] store going at a good price and decided to go for it,” he said.
The newly-crowned owner of Subway Liverpool admits he was slightly nervous about leaving SANFL behind to umpire in New South Wales, but fondly recalls how his fears were laid to rest very quickly.
“It was obviously a huge move for myself. But every person umpiring in NSW/ACT made it so much easier than it could have been. Being my first season, everyone was so welcoming, inviting and friendly,” he said.
With the local umpiring community behind him, the AFL hopeful’s first year in the second-tier NEAFL proved to be a massive success. An appointment to the NEAFL Grand Final and a ‘Goal Umpire of the Year’ award put his name firmly in the minds of AFL selectors.
Earlier this month, he got the news.
“When Steve [Keating, then-Elite Umpire Program manager] called me and told me, I had to get him to say it again because it just didn’t feel real,” he said.
“And even now it still doesn’t feel real because it was such an unbelievably huge dream.
“Each day it is starting to sink in more, but I don’t think it completely will until I walk out onto the ground for a game.”
