For five years, Ross Stevenson’s Love Letter To Footy event has been raising money for the Australian Prostate Centre.

Each season, five well-known Melburnians pen a love letter to Australian rules footy and read it to a crowd, with all ticket sales and live auction proceeds going to the APC.

But with the event postponed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Ross and the APC are taking it online for the time being.

Why? Two key reasons:

1) To raise awareness about prostate cancer, and hopefully get some crucial donations along the way; and,

b) To articulate and share are collective longing for the game that normally brightens our wintry days.

So Ross is asking YOU to get involved, to write your own Love Letter to Football (350 words and under), and be in the running for some great prizes along the way.

To be in the running for prizes, write your Love Letter to Football and submit it online at www.lovelettertofootball.org.au.

To spread the word, jump onto social media and use the hashtag #missyoufooty or tag @loveletterfooty (Instagram and Twitter) and share what you miss or love about footy (it could be a photo, a short video, an extract from your own letter, anything footy related).

There are two prize categories: Adults 18 years+ and kids 18 years and under, and each Friday Ross Stevenson will read an excerpt from the weekly winner from each category and put the full letter online.

This week’s junior winner gets a $100 Officeworks voucher, and the adult winner gets a $100 Coles voucher!

But it’s not just about prizes. Here’s what two previous Love Letter writers have to say about the process.