“All I ever wanted to do was play footy. It puts a smile on your face and a sparkle in your eye.

“You get to hang out with your mates and when there is hard work to do you do the hard work.

“I reckon it’s the greatest game in the world.”

They are the words of Simon Duckworth, wheatbelt farmer, father, husband, and quintessential West Australian football legend, who is still racking up goals at age 47 with Kulin-Kondinin in the Eastern Districts Football League.

The West Perth premiership player and former West Coast Eagles’ squad member is closing in on his 1000th career goal - it was 940 at last count.

It won’t stop the game, Buddy Franklin style, but he might get a meat hamper from the local butcher.

“Ducky” hopes to return after an injury spell for the team’s next game, on Saturday against Burracoppin at Kulin Town Oval, as the undisputed veteran of the undefeated and top-of-the-ladder Blues.

The second oldest player is the captain, Tully Biglin, at 30.

“They started playing the boom box in the changerooms last year, the young blokes , and that didn’t blow my skirt up too much,” Duckworth said.

“I can’t say I knew too many of the songs. They haven’t persisted with that though, thankfully.”

Glen Orrin, the 9000-acre Dudinin wheat and sheep farm he runs with wife Laney and kids Zari, 16, Neisha, 14, and Jordy, 9, has been in the family for 102 years. His uncles VFL and WAFL legends John and Billy, grew up on the farm. His dad Rodney still lives there.

When there is work to be done - as his opening quote suggested - he gets to work. Farming doesn’t stop for football injuries.

“Post game it takes a few days to recover. Not that I train Tuesdays too much anymore, but by then I’m coming good. Makes it hard doing all the work on the farm,” he said.

The recent rain was a godsend. They are currently growing canola, barley and oats and are in the middle of seeding.

Just lately, Duckworth has looked at his dad “hobbling around” and wondered if he should have given the game away by now. He actually played senior footy with his dad, who gave him his first senior goal with a “sweeping handball”.

“He played til he was 43. I don’t want to get like that, but I might have missed the boat there,” he said.

“That has only been a recent thought, but I am kind of committed to the team. It will all catch up with me at some stage I suppose.”

Duckworth made his Eastern Districts league debut for Kulin (before the merger with Kondinin) at age 16 - travelling three hours to play against Southern Cross - and won a bottle of port for goal of the day which “didn’t taste that great”.

The bus trip “with the old blokes” on the way home was an education in itself.

He has been playing the game for more than four decades, starting with the Kulin Roos at age six and counts himself lucky he has avoided serious injury, apart from shoulder surgery, although post-game he does need ice packs on a few more sore spots these days.

”I’m a bit of a mobile ice bath, I suppose some days,” he said.

“I don’t want to jinx myself but I have probably been pretty fortunate so far with the body. Sore knees and stiff ankles, but I don’t know if that is from playing so much footy, or just old age? Maybe it’s both.

“I just enjoy being part of a club. The banter in the changerooms. The competitive aspect of it. I still get a buzz out of kicking a goal. And winning.”

Duckworth played 134 league games with West Perth and 14 at Claremont, under the AFL host club agreement after he was drafted to West Coast as a rookie in 1999, along with two WAFL State games, and won a flag with the Falcons in 2003 during a four-year stint where he would commute from the Wheatbelt.

“Got to play with some outstanding footballers. Fantastic times. I had to go to Claremont under a host club agreement in 1999 and West Perth won it that year. Missed out on that which sucked. But then we managed to win one in 2003,” he said.

He spent two years on the rookie list at the Eagles, but could not crack an AFL game, apart from a pre-season encounter against Essendon in Darwin, when he played on Dean Solomon, who will debut as the Bombers’ caretaker coach tonight fittingly against West Coast at Optus Stadium.

“I had two kicks and one went out of bounds on the full, so not a great memory of that game. I was probably pretty nervous that day to be honest,” he said.

He played his last game for West Perth in 2006 and spent three years at Wickepin in the Upper Great Southern League, for two flags and a runner-up, before returning to Kulin-Kondinin.

A teammate at Wickepin and Kulin-Kondinin and current Blues president Brendan Whyte said Duckworth’s greatest trait was his “passion”.

“He brings that in spades,” Whyte said.

“And don’t worry, he still gets the best or second-best defender each week.”

Josh Cripps, younger brother of dual Brownlow medallist Patrick, was a teammate before injuring a knee.

“Did his knee in the last five minutes of a scratch match last year and did his knee in the first 15 minutes of the first game this year. So he’s done two knees in 12 months and not played any footy. Ripping fella. Feel for him. You can’t do much about it? It is what it is,” he said.

Jevan Tholstrup, the older brother of Melbourne midfielder Koltyn, is another teammate.

Duckworth says country footballers play longer because the team needs them.

“Footy clubs are pretty important to country towns. They provide a place for people to go and have a beer and get some s..t off their chest,” he said.

“The mental health aspect is probably really undervalued. They are really important to a country town from a mental health and social point of view.

“You show me a country town without a footy club and there’s probably not a lot going on.

“The city compared to the bush. Broadly speaking because there are a few exceptions, but there are not too many people still playing footy into their 30s.

“In the bush you need to keep playing into your 30s and 40s to keep a vibrant footy club going.

“It’s bloody important. The more people that don’t play, the more you need to recruit from Perth and the more money that leaving your community and you don’t have the glue that holds your community together.”