Weekly Times | MURCHISON Football Club members have voted in favour of changing the club’s name to Murchison-Toolamba.
The Kyabram District Football League club was briefly known as the Murchison-Toolamba when the two clubs merged in the 1950s, but Toolamba was dropped from the name after a few seasons.
There were only eight votes against the proposal of about 60 overall at the special general meeting last night, meaning the vote easily achieved the 75 per cent majority required to pass.
“Murchison people really see Toolamba as a place going forward as a place that can bring people and players and volunteers to the club,” Murchison club president Craig Thompson said.
“It seemed to be logical to not continue to ignore Toolamba.
The proposal to change the name was raised by Murchison club life member Warwick Gregory at the annual general meeting at the end of last year.
Toolamba is located about 20km south of Shepparton, and about 21km northeast of Murchison.
“When I came to Toolamba — I’ve been teaching here for 10 years — I remember asking where does everyone play footy and I got a very mixed response: some go to this club and some go to that club,” Thompson said.
“There was no identity anywhere, people went their own ways to different clubs so we’re hoping now we can give them an answer.”
The jumper will remain unchanged and Toolamba has an oval but not the necessary facilities to host matches so games will stay in Murchison.
Thompson hoped that enlarging the catchment area of the club would help an application for funds to upgrade the clubrooms at Murchison, which Thompson said were “in drastic need of a lift”.
“I’m sure in grant applications if we can say we’re catering for a wider community and more users I’d like to think look on more favourably going forward for major grants because that’s something we desperately need.”
Neither Thompson nor league operations manager Grant Wilson could confirm when the change would become official, either from a legal sense or within the competition, but Wilson did not expect there to be any concerns from the league.
Murchison won its first two games of the season and faces Ardmona tomorrow.