Football stalwart and former umpire Terry Eaton steps up as new Great Southern Football League president

Local football stalwart and former umpire Terry Eaton became the 13th president of the Great Southern Football League at a directors meeting last Wednesday night. Eaton was voted in as president by his fellow GSFL directors, taking over the role made vacant by Joe Burton. Burton became the GSFL’s longest-serving president in 2021, with an eighth year at the helm, but stepped down at the annual general meeting on December 6. Eaton has been a GSFL director for close to a decade and jumped at the opportunity when approached by his fellow directors. “I’m very excited to take on the new role,” Eaton said. “I’m ready for the challenge. I have been deputy for the last couple years so I’m ready go to the next step. “It’s a bit sad to lose the likes of Joe and Reggie (Andrew McWhirter), especially Reggie, he has done a lot on our strategic plan and put it in place and did a lot with women’s footy so we are going to miss that but we can still call on them. “My goal is to continue the growth that has been in there and to make sure that the Sharks continue to grow but also to make sure the power clubs in Royals, Railways and North Albany continue to develop to go forward and hopefully we can make sure Mt Barker and Denmark don’t fall in a heap and get good support. “The women’s footy is developing nicely and keep up a really good liaison between the juniors and make sure they get an opportunity when they come through and make football really grow in the Great Southern.” In a major changing of the guard, the GSFL has seven new directors sit on its executive with only two from last season remaining, one of those being Eaton himself. “It’s just about a whole new broom with so many new blokes on the directorship so it’s going to be good,” he said. “We have some good wise heads that have been in charge of clubs like Iain (Woods) and Geoff (Oldfield), then you have others coming through like Jack (Scanlan), Alex (Fry) and Tristan (Padfield). “I’m looking forward to working with the directors and making sure that we give footy a really good voice.” Eaton was up for re-election at this year’s AGM and took on a one-year term on the board.