Violet Town reached out to Facebook for players, and the response was immense. (ABC Sport: Lauren Bordin)
There are more conventional ways to fill a football side, but for a country club struggling for senior numbers, posting a call-out for ring-ins on Facebook may have saved its season.
Violet Town Football Netball Club is located two hours north-east of Melbourne. The town of around 1,000 people is most famous for its community market, birthing the band Killing Heidi and for streets named after flowers.
But at 2 Tulip Street, the address of Violet Town Recreation Reserve, there was concern for its reserves team after forfeiting round one.
This Facebook post helped Violet Town to field a reserve side for most matches this season. (Facebook)
The coach of the seconds, Ryan Lloyd-Williams, took the unusual step of posting on social media in a desperate attempt for numbers.
There was no offer of payment or petrol money, just a chance to pull on a jumper at a reserves side being beaten by 100 points each week in the Kyabram District Football Netball League.
The Victorian Metro & Country Football Recruiting Page on Facebook is littered with clubs looking for players and players looking for a game.
Each post might receive a handful of likes, but Lloyd-Williams's post went gangbusters.
It received more than 300 likes and comments combined, and Lloyd-Williams said without this response it was likely season over for the Violet Town twos.
"In October last year numbers were looking good and I was quite chuffed," he said.
"We got to the start of the year and they dwindled off, and it got to round one and we had about eight to pick from. So I did this post on this group.
"I thought if we get one or two it's worth it but it blew up. I think it had a couple of hundred likes in a couple of days. I think the next game was three days later and we got eight from that post.
"They brought friends, so I reckon in and out we've had fourteen or fifteen players from it and quite a few of them have played seniors as well.
"We've had to forfeit one other game, but I reckon we would have had to can the year straight away if that [Facebook post] didn't happen."
