At the opening on Friday night, Willson, originally from Swan Hill, said his hometown was similar to Horsham in many ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically my whole upbringing revolved around football, like I\u2019m sure a lot of people around here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Willson said he vividly remembered growing up around the Lake Boga Football Club where he watched his boyhood heroes prepare for a game, smelling of liniment.<\/p>\n
\u200a\u201cIt\u2019s funny, a couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be following Scott Pendlebury around for his 433rd record-breaking match, and I was in the locker room when he was putting his jumper on, and I just caught a smell of the Deep Heat, the liniment, and it kind of teleported me back to that little seven-year-old standing in the corner of the change rooms at Lake Boga,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a little bit of a pinch me moment \u2013 whether you\u2019re about to run out in front of 95,000 people at the MCG or 500 people at Lake Boga Recreation Reserve, the one common thing is football, and that brings us all together.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a very early age, I just had that appreciation for what the game could do for the community, and bringing people together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played a lot of football at Lake Boga \u2013 my dream was to be a Collingwood Football Club player, but that didn\u2019t eventuate unfortunately \u2013 so for me the next best thing was being able to take pictures of the football.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exhibition is open until October 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n