IT'S just minutes until the first bounce in Border Walwa's intra-club practice match at the club's picturesque home ground, surrounded by mountains, five hours' drive from Melbourne.
But you won't find this club's players in the sheds running through their pre-game warm-ups.
Instead, many of them are out in the middle of the ground, running a hand mower over the surface to get it ready for play.
It's a sight far from uncommon at country football clubs, where dedicated volunteers are as hard to come by as champion centre half-forwards.
Border Walwa is arguably the worst team in country footy, winless for two years.
It's a title that moves around these days as many clubs buy up big in pursuit of premiership glory, then fall on hard times when the money runs out.
Not that long ago, the once mighty Magpies were the envy of the Upper Murray Football League with premierships seemingly as abundant as fresh air, open space and river gums.
But the club that boasts 23 flags and more than 115 years of history has fallen on tough times.
The Magpies are on a 29-match losing streak that stretches back to 2012.
All of a sudden a club that won six flags in the 1990s including three straight from 1996-98 finds itself starved of success.
Like most country footy clubs, Border Walwa provides the social fabric of its tiny rural community.
But with player stocks low, a lack of young locals and a reliance on people driving more than an hour away to help fill the team, Walwa locals are worried about the future of their beloved club.
With an ageing population in the picturesque region near the banks of the Murray River in north east Victoria these days, club president Robert "Crundle'' Newnham said times were tough.
"We advertise meetings saying 'please come and have your say' and the same 10 people turn up, the same 10 people put their hands up to be president, secretary, treasurer,'' he said.
"And I can't see it turning around. It might sound negative but there are just not the families and the kids around.''
AFL Victoria data suggests 78 per cent of men aged 19-39 play football in the Towong Shire to which Border-Walwa belongs.
But many of the 90-odd people living within the town's limits are retired. Just two senior players call Walwa home and the club relies heavily on recruits from Albury more than 120km away.
Only six teams compete in the Upper Murray league and Newnham fears that if Border-Walwa goes under, they all will.
"Some people say we're being negative by saying this stuff but you can't deny it,'' he said.
"It's just the way it's going.''
Past president Graeme Clyde said it had long been a battle to attract players and keep them in the bush but with shrinking populations and employment prospects and kids leaving for the city after high school it was tougher now than ever.
"Little country towns are dying, they are getting smaller, less people are moving here and there is nothing to really keep them here apart from retirement,'' he said.
"Years ago they had the butter factory, the tin mine going and a lot of the farmers employing people and more businesses in town but they've all folded.''
Newnham, whose two sons play for the club, is on any given match day the time keeper, umpire escort, goal umpire, supporter and president.
He estimates 187 man hours are put into match day by volunteers who turn up every week to run the boundary, man the canteen and keep the club kicking.
As the players mowed the centre square before last week's practice match, Newnham was mowing the oval minutes on a tractor and a bunch of kids were marking out the 50m arc with a length of rope.
It is not unusual for the few kids on the club's books to play under 10s, 12, and 16s in one day.
It's 45 years since Simon Greenhill was born in the bush hospital 200 metres from Border-Walwa's home ground.
He gave up footy for 20 years before pulling the boots back on aged 39 to help out the team.
"It's like an extended family,'' he said.
Coach Tony "T-bone'' Brennan, the Holbrook butcher hired to turn the team's flagging fortunes around, reckons the tide is about to turn.
"We're just going to keep it positive and we're aiming for the sky,'' he said.
"We'll win a few games.
"We're on the way up for sure.''
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Article first appeared The Sunday Herald Sun, April 20, 2014