By Berg Millgak
What happens when a middle-aged comedian with a history of five knee operations decides he has one last season of footy left in him? This is the hilarious and heartfelt premise behind One More Year, a new one-man comedy show arriving in Footscray this October.
Canberra comedian Greg Kimball is bringing his deeply personal story to the Pride of Our Footscray Community Bar blending stand-up, storytelling, and a deep dive into why adults invest so much emotion into chasing a leather ball.
At its core, the performance explores Kimball’s relationship with his late father. Growing up, Kimball played the game but supported Collingwood—a choice that was a constant source of disappointment to his father, a lifelong Footscray Bulldogs tragic. When his father became seriously ill, Kimball, despite being in his 40s with two reconstructed knees, decided to lace up his boots to try and play one more year.
“Some of my strongest memories of Dad are of him standing on the boundary watching me play,” Kimball said. “My knees had a different interpretation of ‘reasonable’.”
Following his father’s passing, Kimball committed what many footy fans would call the ultimate sporting sacrilege: he officially abandoned the Magpies and became a Bulldogs supporter.
While the narrative is steeped in the culture of the game, audiences don’t need to be die-hard sports fans to relate. Kimball points out that the show is fundamentally about getting older, navigating family dynamics, and the lengths we go to in order to hold onto the people who matter most. He jokes that his particular midlife crisis just happened to involve footy boots instead of buying a Porsche.
For The Westsider readers, there is an excellent local incentive to get behind the event. Not only is the show being performed just a few kilometres from the spiritual home of his father’s beloved club, but a portion of the proceeds from the season will be donated to the Western Bulldogs Community Foundation.
Get the guernseys and badges back out of the cupboard – this promises to be a fantastic night of storytelling right here in our backyard.
You can catch Greg Kimball’s One More Year at Pride of our Footscray Community Bar, 86–88 Hopkins Street, Footscray from 8–15 October – tickets via Melbourne Fringe Festival
