Timekeeper Derek ‘Diesel’ Crawford ensured that everything ran on time at the EDFA grand finals on Saturday.
On Saturday morning, arguably the first person at Ports Oval bright and early for the start of the six grand finals, was the EDFA timekeeper, Derek “Diesel” Crawford.
Crawford has been a constant in the timekeepers’ box at all grounds since 1999, making sure that the day of football runs on time.
“I’ve done 25 seasons of Gibson home games and in 2021 I had the timekeepers box named after me out there,”- Derek Crawford
“I took over from the late Brian Piercey at Gibson, then a year or two later I was helping Paddy McGrinder out at Ports with the send offs and running scorecards out to the umpires.
“I also did it at Newtown-Condingup for four years when Richard Brown and Karl Brearley roped me into doing it for them and I actually taught Karl how to do it, so I could go back to doing Gibson’s only.
“I’ve also helped out at Esperance as well, most recently when Kim Thornton went to the Darwin Cup this year.”
Crawford said that the most challenging part of the timekeeper’s role was when there were yellow cards issued to players.
“As soon as a couple of yellow cards come out it gets a bit crazy; it throws everything out, but I have extra timers to keep track of the time left (for the players sent off the ground),” he said.
When asked about the day’s schedule, Crawford was hoping for a similar outcome as last year’s grand finals at Gibson.
“Today we are hoping for it to go like we did last year; to keep the day moving along so the League premiers have their medals around their necks at around 5.30pm,” Crawford said.
“That may change if we get a game that goes into extra time, like the Women’s match did a couple of weeks ago.”
Even though he was a primarily an EDFA representative for the day, Crawford was not hiding his allegiance to the Tigers, proudly wearing his Gibson shirt.
“I hope they win all the grand finals that they play in,” he said.
