Despite him going for Essendon and she for the Swans, O'Connor couple June and Joe Trembearth are about to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary - on Tuesday.
It's fitting they are back in the paper for the celebration - the handsome couple's wedding also made The Canberra Times 70 years ago.
They were married at St John's Church in Reid on April 12, 1952, and appeared on page four of The Canberra Times on April 14, 1952, June described as an "Easter bride".
Joe, "92 and a bit" and June, 93, sit in the kitchen of the house they built in Jarrah Street, reminiscing about their courtship and marriage which also reflected the early days of Canberra.
"I've just been thinking, 'Where have the years gone'?," Joe said.
Originally from country Victoria, Joe is a bit of a jokester.
"She was lucky when she got me. She won the lottery," he said, looking across the kitchen table at his wife.
Joe moved with his family to Canberra at Christmas, 1944.
His stepfather Peter McCaskill managed the Emu Bank farm, close to the now Belconnen town centre.
Joe's first job was as a messenger for the Department of Commerce and Agriculture in East Block, riding a bike to ferry messages to Parliament House and West Block and "wherever they wanted".
"I had a bit of a fallout with the boss bloke. I was riding the bike in the corridor and I shouldn't have been. He went crook on me and I told him what to do with his job sort of thing, because I was young and stupid," he said.
He was also a postie around the inner-south and then helped work on the farm. Later, he worked as a house painter and in parks and gardens. Eventually, the farmland of his younger years was reclaimed by the government to develop the Belconnen town centre.
June, born and raised in Canberra, was the daughter of Harry Gaylard, the president of the Ainslie Football Club.
One day when Joe was playing for Ainslie at Northbourne Oval, June was there and Mr Gaylard invited the young player home for lunch.
It was the beginning of a great love.
June was working in the public service and also at the Civic Theatre as an usherette. Joe would ride his bike in - and sometimes even his horse - to see June.
"I saw every picture that was going," he said. "I used to ride the horse in, park it at Coggan's bakery and then ride it home again after."
They married and eventually built their own home in O'Connor in the 1960s.
"We lived in the garage for three years," June said. "And I had a six-month-old baby."
They have four children, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. After raising her own family and starting them at school, June was then the tea lady at IBM for 20 years.
So what is the secret to a long marriage? "That's hard to say. Compatibility, I suppose," June said.
Joe reckons it's all about not thinking too much about it and just forging ahead.
"And keeping your mouth shut," he said.
They've loved building a life together in Canberra.
"Just seeing it grow," Joe said. "When we came here, Haig Park, all the pine trees, there was nothing this side of that. It was all farmland and sheep and cattle and rabbits."
Joe wanted to play Aussie rules for the Manuka club because it had the black and red colours of Essendon. His stepfather convinced him it was too far to ride on his bike and he'd be better off playing for Ainslie. "We went undefeated in 1950," he said, proudly.
And for all his jokes, Joe, as he passes a photograph of a beautiful young June stops and says: "You can see why I fell for her."
