Given the chance, the couple will happily talk about their long involvement at grassroots level that is driven by their passion to provide people with the chance to stay active.

For the past 15 years, they have been heavily involved with the Horsham City Netball Association.

Mrs Short’s involvement in the association goes even further back to 1975 when Elaine Breuer approached her to help with the Saturday afternoon competition.

At the time, she had been coaching under-12 girls but she soon found herself doing more and more.

“We umpired and just generally looked after the girls,” she said. “Elaine asked if I wanted to coach some more girls and it went from there.”

Not long after, she became part of the association’s committee and eventually became vice-president.

“I said I never wanted to be president because that was always Elaine’s job,” Mrs Short.

She remembered serving coffees and drinks from what she described as the old tin shed on Park Drive after the association had moved from further west in Horsham.

“Eventually we got some grants to move out of that old tin shed so we had decent toilets, a kitchen and somewhere to make tea and coffee,” she said.

Mr Short came on board as the association’s secretary in 2003 when his daughter was president.

“I had been secretary of St Michael’s Football Club for 17 years and had been out of it for two years,” he said.

“Helen had still been on the committee at that point but stepped down after she decided it wouldn’t be great if we were both on there at the same time.”

He said stepping into the secretary role at the netball association was an eye-opening experience because it was totally different to the work he had done with the Saints.

“It was totally different – especially at meetings,” he said.

The pair continued their close involvement with the association right through until last season. They stood aside prior to the 2018 season and will be notable absences courtside on a Saturday morning.

Mrs Short said they had stayed involved so that girls who weren’t able to compete at a Horsham District or Wimmera association level could still play netball.

“They could come down to our association and continue to play netball,” she said. “It might have only been for an hour early on the Saturday morning, but at least they got a game. The parents brought them down, and they had their own teams, their own names. 

“Grenville did that part of it and they just all fell in love with him because they thought he was marvellous.”

Mr Short said there had been plenty of changes in the association even during his relatively short time involved.

“The courts have been improved a lot and we’ve been working with the tennis club to also get new courts on the northern end,” he said.

“There has also been about extra lots of seating put in in my time down there. Another big thing is that we now take individual entries as well as teams – then when we got enough players we would put them into teams, provide uniforms and balls – all they would need were some umpires and a coach.”

Numbers had dramatically fallen within the association to a point where there was only six teams, six years ago. Discussions as to whether the association would survive played out, but Mr Short was adamant it should continue.

“Once you pull the pin, it’s so hard to come back from there,” he said.

“It would have been 60 or 70 girls who were not going to get a game, so we kept going. We had 14 teams down there last season. It was well worthwhile and I really loved it.”

Mrs Short said it was important to keep active.

“A lot of the girls who played down there have grown up and gone on to better things,” she said. “They have no idea how to play when they start at Horsham City but they improve so quickly once they start.”

She said the first aspect she would teach new players was just to enjoy themselves.

“Because we had modified age groups, we could show them what they were doing wrong,” she said. “It gave me so much enjoyment to see how much they picked up each year. I could sit and watch them all day.”

Mr Short said it made him proud to pick up the newspaper and see familiar names in the Wimmera and Horsham District league results during winter.

“Being able to see kids start off little in modifieds before going onto bigger and better things just gives us so much more enjoyment,” he said.

“We just love being involved in sport.”

While netball has dominated their Saturday mornings in recent times, their love for sport stretches far beyond that.

Mr Short was made a life member of the Horsham Saints, formerly St Michaels, in 2017 and continues to play bowls for Coughlin Park. He will operate the scoreboard for the Saints during winter while Mrs Short sits the car by herself with the windows up so nobody hears her barracking.

“We are certainly sports orientated,” Mrs Short said.

“They say, ‘Don’t go to the Short’s house because they’ll just be watching some sport.’

“It’s either football, netball, golf, cricket or whatever – but I can’t talk him into getting Foxtel so we can watch even more.”