By Ken Casellas

Oliver Tate, a strong, versatile and highly-respected footballer from Ballarat, will line up for Claremont for the final time in the league match against Peel Thunder at Leederville Oval on Saturday.

He will be sorely missed, but leaves the Tigers with the best wishes of the club.

The 24-year-old Tate will leave Perth next Wednesday to start a full-time job as a podiatrist in Ballarat.

“It’s sad to leave and it’s happening a bit earlier than I was hoping or anticipating,” he said. “I haven’t been able to find full-time work here where I’ve found it a bit hard to get a foot in the door.

“Then a couple of weeks ago I got a call from a sports podiatrist in Ballarat with the offer of a full-time job. This was the only thing that would take me home at the minute. This job is five minutes from home and the opportunity to work full-time, doing what I want to do in my home town was a pull too strong.”

Not only will Tate be missed by Claremont on the field where he has excelled in defence, in attack and on the ball, he will leave a significant hole in the Claremont house in Mt Claremont where he has been looking after some of Claremont’s young footballers from the club’s country zones in the Kimberley and Great Southern regions.

Tate has been held in such high regard as a role model and mentor that he has been chosen in the club’s leadership group in his two years at Claremont. He was a valuable acquisition last year when he finished in sixth position in the league side’s fairest-and-best award.

He has started this season in grand form and will be hard to replace.

“I’ve loved the 25 games I’ve played for Claremont,” he said. “And I’ve loved the 16 months I’ve spent in Perth. Winning games of football has been great and I’ve enjoyed coming into a new group and the social aspect as well as meeting lots of different players, especially those from different backgrounds.

“I have really enjoyed living in the Claremont house for the past four months and meeting many boys from different backgrounds, like Caiden Curtin from Kununurra, Sam Petrevski-Seton from Halls Creek and Matt Palfrey from Albany.

“I’ve also enjoyed working with a lot of good coaches. Broady (Michael Broadbridge) is a very good coach. Having spent five years at North Ballarat with my previous coach, you got used to hearing the same messages. So it’s been nice to come over here and hear something fresh. Broady is very analytical and he sees football in a very strong a positive light.”

Tate and his girlfriend Alysha plan to take ten days to travel back to Victoria. “We’ll see a bit of the State on the way out,” he said. “We’ll spend a couple of nights in Albany and in Esperance before zipping across the Nullarbor and spending a couple of nights in Port Lincoln. We plan to arrive in Ballarat on May 7.”

Tate hopes to return to action this year with North Ballarat, a club with which he has played 55 VFL matches. “North Ballarat does not have an affiliation with an AFL club and has a young and inexperienced side,” he said.

Tate will be back in Western Australia in early June when he will travel to Broome with Claremont teammate Aaron Holt for a five or six-day holiday when the Tigers have a bye in successive weeks.

“I had already planned this trip before getting this offer of a job in Ballarat,” Tate said. “Hopefully, Keifer Yu will take us out in a boat while we’re up there.”