Rural
29 July, 2025
Community and balance the key for footballer farmer
Balancing football and farming is not always the easiest to manage, but the communities that connect the two go a long way in helping Laharum local Robbie Miller.
Miller is a crop and sheep farmer who is also a co-coach and player for Laharum’s senior football side.
Add in the fact that Miller has a family with two young children, and the Laharum farmer admits it can be a challenge to juggle his responsibilities.
“It can be a challenge sometimes, particularly with how the season progresses,” Miller said.
“Year by year, it's always different.”
Assisting Miller thrive in both is the integrated support of football and farming within the Laharum Football Netball Club.
Such support is demonstrated by the formation of Laharum Football Netball Club Cattleman’s Association, established by Gerard Matthews and Joel Pymer, which aims to both strengthen the sporting club while building social connections amongst farmers.
“The beauty about our club (Laharum) is that it is a community within the farming community,” Miller said.
“You're catching up with neighbours, you're catching up with people that you may not see because they might live a little far away, so it's a good way to bring the community together.
“With the Cattleman’s Association, we have catch-ups and we recently had a guest speaker who talked about the wellbeing of farmers and how to look out for each other, as well as how you can continue to improve the management of your farm.”
Miller believes the greater union of the community with the club has been synonymous with the club’s improvement in recent years.
“The struggles Laharum had in previous years before we started to get back on track, we maybe did lose the community a bit,” Miller said.
“It shows how important that is to local sporting clubs, especially smaller clubs outside of Horsham."
Asked about the element of family in conjunction with his farming and playing a leadership role in the sports club, Miller says it provides a positive perspective, particularly on down days.
"You can have a tough day on the farm or even a tough day with some footy, whether you've lost the game or something like that, you always come home, and you walk through that door and your children greet you and want to play with you," Miller said.
"You can have days where you think you're walking around in circles, or maybe not getting anything done or just having a tough day in general, but you come home to your family, and that's just another way of putting a smile on your face and just the love.
"You've got to find that balance between them - you can't neglect one or the other, that's not the way to go about it.
"There are times where you probably don't see as much of your family as you'd like, and then there are times where you've got to take the opportunity, and a lot of that is working as a team within the family as well."
Read More: Horsham