Gerry Fay
Article Credit: Carolyn Webb, Sunday Age August 21, 2022
"I No longer needed medication and started to enjoy life again."
"Gerry Fay says walking football has given him a new lease on life."
The year 2020 is remembered as a tough one for victorians, but it was particularly hard for Mill Park retiree Gerry Fay.
Fay’s wife Geraldine, died of cancer in February that year and, during a series of COVID-19 lockdowns, Fay found himself at home lone for long stretches.
He took medication for anxiety and felt “locked up and stressed out”.
One of the keys to Fay getting back to life, once lockdowns lifted, was resuming his involvement in walking football.
“To get involved in an activity again, be planning events and tournaments, that kept me occupied and gave things to do instead of sitting in the house on my own,” he said. “It is all about exercising, having fun and socialising. So this helped me get back to some sort of normality, I no longer needed the medication and started to enjoy life again.”
A new but growing sport, walking football is modified form of soccer aimed at seniors, with smaller teams, no running, the ball is kept below hip height and the focus is on fun and friendship.
Fay, 72, took over whittlesea council’s then-new walking football program in 2017, one of the first in victoria. He had played Gaelic football and soccer when younger in his native Belfast and kept fit with gym, fun runs and playing indoor soccer after migrating to Melbourne.
Fay helps organise Whittlesea U3A (University of the third Age) teams that has more than 25 men and women, most aged over 55, who train on Thursdays at YMCA leisure City centre in Epping, north of Melbourne.
Two whittlesea U3A teams competed in the Pan Pacific Masters Games on the Gold Coast.
Fay says players look forward to his club’s Thursday training and often go out for coffee and have made friends among the group.