The Broken Hill Mentor Ensuring a Brighter Future for Kids

The youth mentor — who is now the Club Manager of the Broken Hill PCYC — says the experience has shaped his passion for helping those who need it most within his community.

“The father was incarcerated, he left four kids behind that didn’t have an adult, [as] their mother passed away when they were very young,” Linden tells the ClubLIFE Podcast in a new episode released today.

“The dad was the main person that looked after the family, so when he was incarcerated, I started working with his family a bit more. The more I worked with this family, the more alarming it was — there was no electricity in the house, there’s no running water, no refrigerator, no food, holes in the walls.

“We live in a luxury where we have blankets — they were just huddled up with each other, so it was one of those experiences I’ll never forget walking into this house and was like okay, where do I start?”

Linden says he made it his life mission to improve the standard of living for the young kids, including many hours of his own time after work and on weekends.

“Ultimately the end result of that is we ended up getting bedding, the house fixed up, renovations done, running water, showers, food regularly, and working with the schools to be able to support them getting to school and have lunch every day,” Linden tells the ClubLIFE Podcast.

“It was a very confronting story but… I couldn’t see myself not doing that. I’ve got a young family myself; I wanted to make sure no stone was unturned.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Linden also discusses what it’s like living in one of Australia’s most famous and isolated outback towns and the gruelling period of his life chasing his dream of playing professional football.

This episode follows the recent announcement at the 2025 Clubs & Community Awards Night that ClubsNSW has committed to a three-year partnership with PCYC NSW to ensure that the strong relationship between clubs and their PCYCs becomes even stronger.

Click on the link below to hear the full interview with Linden Cox in the fourteenth episode of the ClubLIFE Podcast, which is also available via ClubLIFE.com.au, Apple, Spotify and wherever else you get your podcasts.

If you have a suggestion on who might make an interesting guest for a future ClubLIFE Podcast episode, get in touch with the team by emailing [email protected].