NOT long ago, the Wandella Football Club had a reputation for being good but not quite good enough. Between 1994 and 2007, the Bombers' senior side was a regular finalist in the Golden Rivers League, yet it kept falling over at the business end of the season.
''The attitude out at Wandella was always, 'Give it your best shot and you'll be fine','' says Terry Turvey, now in his third year as club president.
However, that all changed when former Bendigo League midfielder Ash Wilson took over as senior coach for the 2008 campaign. Wilson brought with him a will to win and an ability to inspire confidence. It was a combination that proved a welcome tonic for the Bombers.
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While Wilson is now back in Bendigo, where he has taken on the enormous job of turning Heathcote League side Huntly around, he left such a legacy that Wandella is aiming to win its fourth consecutive premiership this year.
''I say to the [five] guys who've played in all three grand finals, 'You won't realise how good this is until when your footy's finished and we hold a Back To Wandella,'' Turvey says. ''That's when it will really dawn on everyone just how much we've achieved.''
One of the few footy clubs in Victoria that is not located within a town, Wandella is based in a forest of gum trees eight kilometres from Kerang. The setting is rustic to say the least. In fact, there are no sealed roads to the Bombers' home ground.
''It's still the same old corrugated gravel road we've always had,'' long-serving committeeman Gary Pay says.
Wandella has never had any luck getting the local council to bitumen the road in question, but it has enjoyed a long history of good times on the field. The Bombers' first era of success came in the 1950s when they won four premierships in five seasons. Back then, the team was made up primarily of local farmers.
''We're on the edge of the Mallee, so we've always had a mix of irrigation and dryland farmers,'' Pay says. In the 1960s, one of the finest farmer-footballers was Hendrik Bos, a hulking immigrant from the Netherlands. Bos didn't take up footy until his early 30s, but he ended up playing more than 200 senior games - most in the ruck - before retiring at the age of 48. His son Mark later became Wandella's finest footballing export, twice winning Geelong's best-and-fairest during a stellar VFL career.
It wasn't until 1977 that Wandella won its next premiership, although it backed up with another flag in 1979 and two more in the 1980s. In those days, the club often raised extra money by cutting hay from the grass that grew on its home ground in summer. ''Haven't done that for a while,'' Pay says, ''but I think we got 27 round bales off it one year.''
By the mid-2000s, when Wandella lost two grand finals to Murrabit, the number of farmers in its teams had dwindled. However, the demise of other nearby district league teams such as Rovers, Appin and Lakes gave the Bombers the opportunity to establish themselves as Kerang's second club (the powerful Kerang Blues play in the Central Murray League). Nowadays, many players and administrators live and work in Kerang.
''There are a lot of town people that travel out there because they enjoy the fact it's out in the trees,'' says Turvey. ''We're a family orientated club. A lot of youngsters come out and play in our thirds and then end up playing senior footy. They tend to stay with the club until they leave the district for work or university.''
The arrival of Wilson in 2008 elevated Wandella from a friendly club to one that made winning the key objective. ''Even though we had a young side, he told the players they had to take the next step,'' Turvey says.
The Bombers broke their 15-year drought when they beat Moulamein in the '08 grand final. A year later, with Wilson at the helm again, they claimed another flag by fighting back from a 16-point three-quarter-time deficit to defeat Murrabit.
Wilson then handed the reins to star player Will Callow, who in the previous two seasons had won club and league best-and-fairest awards along with being voted best-on-ground in the '09 decider.
Unfortunately, Callow broke his leg and missed the latter part of last season, yet his teammates rose to the challenge, winning their third consecutive grand final by surging clear of Nullawil in the second half.
This year has been a rollercoaster affair for the Bombers. In January, as floods affected huge swathes of Victoria, the Wandella Creek threatened to inundate the club. A sandbagging operation prevented major damage. ''We had water damage on the netball court, which has buckled,'' Turvey says. ''We've received a grant to fix that, but there was not damage to the oval, although the pump we use to water the ground was submerged.''
Only a couple of months later, Wandella's new coach, Peter Taylor from Cohuna, seriously injured his knee in the club's second practice match and was ruled out for the rest of the season.
Then, during the early rounds of home-and-away matches, the Bombers were accused of fielding an unregistered player. The VCFL promptly stripped the club of its first two wins over Macorna and Quambatook. Wandella appealed and during the hearing it emerged the footballer in question was in the VCFL's computer system under two different names (Joel Osbrough and Joel Osbrough-Mathers). The penalty was subsequently rescinded.
Having only lost to top side Murrabit in the first six rounds, Wandella had its biggest disappointment of the season to date when it threw away a 21-point three-quarter-time advantage against Nullawill two weeks ago. ''Nullawil's unbelievable,'' Turvey says. ''They never give in, the buggers. After that game, people around our club were saying, 'Don't tell us we've gone back to our old ways, accepting defeat and just doing all right'. But I don't think that will happen.''
Nevertheless, given its injuries and current form, Wandella will be hard-pressed to overhaul Murrabit and claim a fourth straight flag. ''They've picked up some really good big blokes and you can't really match them up,'' Turvey says. ''But Wandella's always been known as a skilful running side. If we can get that sort of game going in September, we might be able to run them off their legs. We weren't expected to win two in a row, or three, so you never know.''
By Adam McNicol
Article first appeared The Sunday Age, June 5 2011
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