The spritely hour of 4am on a Saturday is when the husband-and-wife team of Paul and Ange Beswick begin to make their mark on gameday at the Pakenham Football Club.
Paul drags himself out of bed to pick up the rolls from Longwarry…that will soon be carefully hand-crafted by Paul and Ange into the salad staples that will feed the tribe at Toomuc Reserve for the day.
“We make the salad rolls before we leave home and normally get to the club by 6.30am,” Paul said.
“We load both cars, food in one car and merchandise in the other, and off we go.
“And the cars are normally stacked to the top…we can only see straight and that’s it (laughs).”
Paul and Ange have been inseparable since they first met, when Paul was 20 and Ange was still in her teens.
But it took their two sons, Joshua and Jacob, to ignite their passion for volunteering together at Pakenham.
“Jake (Jacob) followed Joshua into football and started in the under-8’s, but when he played under-9’s that’s when we first got involved…me as team manager and Ange as my assistant,” Paul recalled.
“I was either a team manager or assistant coach, vice-president, became a life member, and Ange and I ran the junior canteen.
“Steve Moloney was junior president, and when he switched to the senior club, he wanted us to come across as well.
“Just before Jake finished juniors, Steve came to our house and said he had a job for us at the senior club.
“So, even before day one, we were already there.”
It’s fair to say that over the last seven years, if you’ve eaten it, or slipped it over your shoulders or feet, the food or apparel has been through the hands of Paul and Ange Beswick.
Their official title at the moment is Merchandise, but they’re omnipresent in many other areas of the club as well.
When you see Paul, you see Ange…and vice versa.
“There’s no Mork without Mindy, and there’s no Paul without Ange,” Paul says with a laugh.
“I always consider Ange in charge, if anyone has got any questions, I always tell them to ask Ange, but if she needs anything done that requires a bit of muscle, it becomes my job.
“We do everything for Jake, so if he’s at the Pakenham Football Club we’re there as well.
“We love watching the kids grow and evolve as people, but we also love how everyone knows you, talks to you, respects you…it’s a great community of people at Pakenham.
“We ran the market for many years as well and the people you meet are amazing.”
Respect…well it’s a big word for Paul.
“I treat people with respect, and if I get it back it makes things even more rewarding because it means we’re doing things the way they should be done,” he explains.
“Just speak to people how you would like to be spoken to.
“That’s the biggest thing, not just in football, but in life…just treat people with respect and good things will come naturally.”
Good things did come naturally to Paul and Ange in their first two years at the senior club.
“In our first year I got made Volunteer of the Year, and didn’t expect it, but then Ange won it the next year and that was the highlight for me,” Paul said.
“It meant more to see her win it than it did to win it myself.
“Not everyone sees what she does…but she works tirelessly.”
Paul, who works so hard despite having rods and wires in his spinal cord, and Ange, who was a talented indoor cricketer in her day, do take time at the end of the season to sit back and unwind.
“It takes a couple of weeks to stocktake and then I’m back into ordering, so we have stock ready for the first day of pre-season, which is normally in November,” Paul said.
“Then at the end of the season Ange and I normally spend two or three days in Melbourne and we go to our favourite restaurants on Southbank and do absolutely nothing.”
Let’s hope that includes sleeping at 4am on a Saturday!
