EACH season there are countless reunions at footy clubs throughout the bush. Most of them honour premierships; some celebrate historical milestones. Yesterday, for instance, the Navarre Football Club in central Victoria celebrated its centenary with festivities centreing around its Maryborough Castlemaine District league match against rival Natte Bealiba.
Next Saturday, however, a reunion with a difference will take place at the recreation reserve in the tiny town of Harrow, which is located in the southern reaches of the Wimmera, 90 kilometres south-west of Horsham.
The event, which coincides with a game between Harrow-Balmoral and Noradjuha-Quantong, is being held to remember the Central Wimmera-Lowan Star league; a little-known but much-loved competition that operated for just 13 seasons between 1969 and 1981. Its clubs were scattered between Horsham and the South Australian border. Most of them have since merged, sometimes with two or three rivals (Harrow-Balmoral FC was formed when Balmoral joined with a club known as Douglas-Harrow-Miga Lake).
Three former Central Wimmera-Lowan Star league clubs - Gerang-Kiata, Netherby-Lorquon and Winiam Imperials - have disappeared. ''We had some really great times in the old league,'' says reunion organiser David Hobbs, involved with football in Harrow for most of his life. ''There were a lot more people out here back then as the farms were so much smaller. We had five cabarets in Harrow one year and averaged 200 people at each one.''
The Central Wimmera-Lowan Star league was formed when the powerful Wimmera FL decided to start a reserves competition for the 1969 season. Previously, Nhill, Dimboola, Jeparit and Warracknabeal had fielded seconds teams in the Lowan Star league, while Horsham's seconds had run around in the Central Wimmera league. Eight clubs came together to form the new merged competition. Three were situated to the north of the Little Desert National Park and five were located south of it.
When the people involved at that time gather at Harrow on Saturday, you can be certain they will discuss how it took two grand finals between Goroke and Gerang-Kiata to decide the league's first premiership team.
Undefeated before the initial game, Goroke was expected to win comfortably and take home the coveted flag. Instead, the Magpies trailed all day and were eventually beaten by 12 points.
However, Goroke refused to accept defeat. Adamant that Gerang-Kiata had not followed the rules when registering three players, Goroke's committeemen fired in a protest. Five days after the game, a four-hour meeting was held at Natimuk. It was an emotional affair.
In a shock result, the league delegates decided that Gerang-Kiata's 16-year-old defender Gratten Pohlner, who was attending boarding school in Adelaide and travelling home to play footy on weekends, had been ineligible to play.
As local reporter Geoff Edwards wrote in the Wimmera Mail Times, ''Goroke delegates Mr Alf Bye and Mr Laurie Bretag convinced the inquiry that Pohlner had been cleared to and was registered with Sturt in the SA National Football League.''
They did this by tendering a telegram from the SANFL secretary that stated Pohlner had registered with Sturt and played two games in the club's colts team.
The league delegates subsequently ordered the grand final be replayed. Because Pohlner had also played in the preliminary final win over Miga Lake, Gerang-Kiata's delegate offered for his club to be eliminated from premiership contention entirely, but this was not accepted. Instead, a rematch of the first grand final was scheduled.
On September 11, 1969, two weeks after the first decider had been played, Goroke and Gerang-Kiata went at it again. This time the result was even more emphatic. Motivated by a sense of injustice, Gerang-Kiata raced away in the second half to win by 74 points. Its half-forward Peter Taylor, 14, finished with seven goals and the best-on-ground award.
''Gerang-Kiata has made football a sour word out Goroke way,'' read the article in the Wimmera Mail Times the following Monday. The triumph was Gerang-Kiata's fifth successive premiership. However, the bitter taste of the two defeats stayed with Goroke until it finally won a senior flag in 1981.
Despite that furore, many people who were involved with the Central Wimmera-Lowan Star league developed a brotherhood that has lasted until this day. Hobbs believes the key reason is that the league had only six clubs in its final 11 seasons.
''We used to play 17 home-and-away games each year, so you'd play some clubs four times,'' he chuckles. ''If you met them again in the finals, you could end up playing each other six times for the year.''
To many people's regret, the competition, which was renamed the West Wimmera Football League for its last three seasons, wound up in late 1981. Five clubs joined the Horsham District league, while Balmoral headed south to play in what was then known as the Portland-Port Fairy league (now the South West District league). Since then, the population drain into regional centres like Horsham and Warrnambool has caused further consolidation of footy.
But as the years pass, the nostalgia gets stronger and Hobbs is expecting people to travel from afar to attend next weekend's reunion. A few surviving members of Goroke's ill-fated 1969 team might even make the trek. These days their club is part of Border Districts, which plays in the South Australia-based Kowree-Naracoorte-Tatiara league.
''We're really lucky because they've actually got a bye that day,'' says Hobbs. ''They were one of the bigger clubs, so it's great to have them involved. There'll be a few car loads coming over. A lot of their people have retired to Horsham now and a lot of them will come across as well.
''We've also got a couple of former players from other clubs who are gravely ill and we're going to try and set up a Skype hook-up with them. ''
That the reunion is being held at a match being played between Harrow-Balmoral and Noradjuha-Quantong - teams that are first and third on the Horsham District league ladder - is a salute to the clubs that dominated the old competition. Led by its three-time league best-and-fairest Anthony Watt, Balmoral made the grand final in eight of the 13 seasons, winning five. Noradjuha made six grand finals and won four.
When the game is done next Saturday, a panel of former players and administrators will gather to select a ''Best of the West'' team. Although that is sure to create plenty of debate, and maybe the odd Goroke-style protest, it will help recognise a little footy league that is long-gone but not forgotten.
By Adam McNicol
Article first appeared The Sunday Age, July 3 2011
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|