WHEN you drive into Riverside Park at Newbridge, it appears the picturesque reserve has been taken over by a miners' camp.

''Even though we played all our games away last year, we still had to have facilities there to train,'' Newbridge president Ron Trimble explains. ''So we brought in three portable classrooms that were donated to us by Bendigo Relocatable Buildings. We converted two of them into a canteen and eating area, and the other one became a change room.

''But this year, so we can host home games, we've had to bring in another 10 or 12 buildings from Coates Hire to have change rooms and showers for the opposition and umpires. So things aren't quite how they should be. It's all a bit disjointed. But we're making the most of what we've got.''

Trimble's story is a reminder that while clubs such as Nathalia and Tungamah are struggling after the March floods, others are yet to recover from the destruction caused by the torrent of water that struck central Victoria in January last year. Next Saturday, Newbridge will play its first game at its home ground since August 2010. For Trimble and his tireless army of volunteers, it will be a special occasion. But for everyone who attends the game, the extent of the work still to be done will be obvious.

Construction is under way on the $1.8 million facility that the Newbridge football, netball, cricket and tennis clubs will eventually call home. But only the earthworks have been completed so far.

''We worked and worked and worked for a long time without really seeing any reward, so it's probably only been the last three weeks that it's all started to come together,'' Trimble said.

The floodwaters that hit Newbridge 16 months ago rose as high as the roof of the club rooms. The surging Loddon River had partly demolished the buildings beside the oval, and they were soon condemned. It had also ruined the goalposts and boundary fence and washed the scoreboard 100 metres downstream.

Once the initial clean-up was done, the lights were repaired and the first lot of portable buildings trucked in, the ground was fit for training. ''The amount of tradesmen who came along and donated their time to get the club back up and going was fantastic,'' Trimble said.

However, Newbridge had to play all its matches last season 40 kilometres away at Backhaus Oval in Bendigo. The situation made it hard for the local publican to make ends meet, and it did nothing to help the Maroons compete on the field, the senior team winning only four games. It was a similarly tough battle for Trimble and his army of helpers as they tried to come up with a plan for replacing the buildings ruined by the flood.

''The process has been fairly lengthy, but I guess it's a process that you have to go through,'' Trimble said. ''The reserve is owned by the DSE [Department of Sustainability and Environment], so the process was one of consultation through the local council and state government.

''The insurance deal was also quite lengthy to get settled. It was nearly 10 months before we got settlement on that.''

At the same time, a fund-raising drive was spearheaded by Trimble, who became something of a celebrity as the Newbridge story captured the public's attention. He appeared on Channel Nine's Footy Show, was invited to the Brownlow Medal count by the AFL and later won the VCFL's volunteer of the year award.

''I'm still copping it about that,'' he jokes. ''I saw a bloke the other day and he said, 'I haven't seen you around for a while, except on telly!' It goes on and on. But the Brownlow was an amazing event and experience to be part of.''

Trimble's expertise remains in demand and he has been mentoring committee members from the Tungamah Football Netball Club, which was badly damaged in the March flood. The publicity his appearances generated last year certainly paid off, as Newbridge collected more than $1 million for its rebuilding project. ''There were a lot of people who tipped into that,'' he said. ''It wasn't just one grant. The money includes fund-raising, sponsorship, contributions from the user groups and the recreation reserve committee, insurance and funds from state and local governments.''

The new club rooms will be a vast improvement on the old, which lacked proper social facilities. A large function area and bar are highlights, while the many campers at Riverside Park have been catered for with new public toilets and showers.

Although the new building won't be ready for some months, the people who head to Newbridge next weekend will see that plenty of other work has already been done.

Loddon Shire installed a new watering system on the oval during the summer, while improved training lights, a new scoreboard and goalposts have been erected. The netballers also have two new courts.

''The whole reserve is starting to look a treat,'' Trimble said. ''Out of the whole reserve, one coach's box is the only thing that hasn't been renewed.''

Newbridge's players and supporters are confident their senior footy team, which has not made the finals since 2007, will improve greatly this season. Local lad Brad Comer, who has returned from Elmore, was among a host of recruits who lined up when the club began its campaign at Calivil yesterday.

But whether the Maroons win, lose or draw when they host Marong in six days is not the main issue for Trimble. He's just happy his club members are finally able to spend every second Saturday at home.

''Everybody in the Newbridge community is waiting for next Saturday. A lot of people have hopped in and been part of working bees and the rebuilding. It's been good for the community in that way.''

By Adam McNicol

Article first appeared The Sunday Age April 22, 2012

BY THE middle of last season, Heywood Football Netball Club president Michael Bell feared his beloved Lions were on the brink.

The facts were stark: Heywood's senior team appeared certain to record its third winless campaign in four years, and the club had so few players that it was unable to field a reserves side.

''There were a couple of Tuesdays there when we thought we weren't going to be able to scrape together a senior team to have a game on the weekend,'' Bell recalled while watching training on Thursday night. ''A few times we were thinking, 'Are we still going to be around next week?' That's how much of a short-term proposition it was.''

Bell and his committee were convinced that only one thing could save the Lions: a move to the lower-standard South West District Football Netball League, which was made up of small clubs located between Portland and Hamilton. Heywood's passionate members, who had rejected an approach from the SWDFNL in 2007, were polled on the matter last July. This time they overwhelmingly voted in favour.

Heywood's initial application to move was blocked by the Western Border league because it wanted to maintain a 10-team competition. The matter was then referred to the Victorian Country Football League, and bush footy's governing body approved Heywood's entry into the South West District league in early October.

Six months on from the VCFL's decision, the change from a major to a minor league has triggered the response that Bell hoped for. Heywood now has almost 50 registered players, including star signings James Imbi, John Bell and Jason Saunders who have come across from nearby Portland. More importantly, the negativity that shrouded the club has been replaced by optimism. ''I'm looking across the ground right now and there's 45 to 50 blokes out there training,'' Bell said. ''That might not sound like many, but to me it's unbelievable. This time last year we probably had 10 on the track.''

When the Lions make their South West District league debut today, in a local derby against Tyrendarra (the two clubs are only 18 kilometres apart) at home, the Heywood supporters will be hoping the dark days are over at last.

''There's a lot of certainty about the club now,'' Bell said. ''We're looking to the future. We're trying to ensure our football club has got a long-term future so that Heywood people can play footy for Heywood.

''And it's just a great start to the year to play a club like Tyrendarra. Both clubs have had a close connection for a long time, both wear green and gold, and they were very supportive of us coming into the league.''

Heywood's change of competitions brought to an end the club's almost 50-year battle to be competitive in the Western Border league. The Lions were a founding member of the league in 1964, and their senior team lost the grand final to East Gambier in 1965. But to say the club was spectacularly unsuccessful during the rest of its time in the WBFL would actually be downplaying things.

Despite the promise shown in '65, Heywood's senior side made the finals only three more times: 1972, 1996 and '97. In fact, the last Western Border league grand final the Lions made, in any grade of football, was the reserves decider in 1970. The netballers did little better, winning just one A-Grade premiership.

Heywood's last push up the WBFL ladder came in 2010 when it recruited a number of Melbourne-based ex-AFL players, including three-time Brisbane Lions premiership player Mal Michael and former Essendon forward Courtney Johns. The Lions went as far as paying for their high-priced stars to fly to the south-west for matches.

Michael and his men helped Heywood draw some huge crowds, and the Lions even posted their first victory over local rival Portland since 1997. The win over the Tigers had Heywood sitting pretty in the top five, but the revival fell apart when relations between the club, its big-name recruits and its coach, Brad Sinclair, broke down towards the end of the 2010 season. The Lions missed the finals, then suffered a mass exodus of players.

Jason Akermanis tried to help out by playing a one-off game for the club last May. The 2001 Brownlow medallist drew a crowd of around 2000 and kicked three goals. He even helped the Lions post a score of 11.8 (74), which proved to be their highest of the year. But they still lost to lowly Millicent by 26 points.

The ladder at the end of last year's Western Border league season showed that Heywood had scored only 709 points (an average of 39 per game), while it had conceded 2975 (an average of 165 points, or 27 goals, per game). Those numbers alone made the club's application to join the South West District league a formality.

Heywood is now hoping to repeat the success of Coleraine, which has won six senior premierships since transferring from the WBFL to the South West District league for the 1995 season.

''They'll just slot in like one of the crew because they're bang in the middle of our league,'' says SWDFNL administration manager Chrissy Hawker. ''I think they will field both their teams without a problem. It's pretty exciting actually, considering how much they struggled last year.''

Heywood's move might be the first of many, as the VCFL recently began a review into the state of football in the region.

A break-up of the Western Border league, with the South Australian and Victorian clubs going their separate ways, appears one likely outcome; the establishment of a central administration hub in Warrnambool is another.

But for now the region's football and netball followers are getting on with the season in front of them. And today's first derby between Heywood and Tyrendarra, which is tipped to draw a crowd of up to 2000, has certainly created the type of buzz that grassroots sport thrives on.

''A couple of our better players were originally from Heywood, so we do expect a bit of banter on the day,'' Tyrendarra president Graham O'Connell said on Wednesday.

''There's a lot of interest around, and that's why the league made it a Sunday game. It's not just us, all the clubs in our league have been uplifted by the chance to have a new rivalry. But none of us want to be pushed around by an ex-Western Border side.''

By Adam McNicol

Article first appeared The Sunday Age, April 15, 2012

The former AFL star makes his debut for Yarrawonga today. Expect a big crowd and fireworks.  There have been plenty of high-profile recruiting coups in the Ovens and Murray Football League in the past. Before this year, perhaps none had been bigger than when champion onballer Bob Rose left Collingwood, before the 1956 season, to coach Wangaratta Rovers.

Rose was only 27 when he walked out on the Magpies after the Rovers offered him more money than he was earning in the VFL. He was still considered to be among Collingwood's top three players.

Rose's move to the Rovers was a huge story at the time. Big crowds flocked to see him run around in the north-east, and he didn't disappoint. He led the Rovers to their first Ovens and Murray league premiership in 1958, then another flag in 1960. On top of that, he twice won the competition's best-and-fairest, the Morris Medal.

But the pandemonium that surrounded Rose's defection more than 50 years ago might be put in the shade by Brendan Fevola's debut match for Yarrawonga this afternoon. More than 6000 people are expected to flock to Lonsdale Reserve in Mulwala (Yarrawonga's home ground is used for a tennis tournament each Easter) to see the former Carlton and Brisbane Lions sharp-shooter run around for the Pigeons against Lavington.

''I'm really looking forward to having a kick,'' Fevola said while driving to Yarrawonga on Thursday with his wife, Alex, and three children. ''Hopefully, a few people come along and it's a cracking day. The two sides played in the prelim last year, so it's obviously going to be a pretty good game of footy.''

The fact that Fevola, who won the Coleman Medal and was named at full-forward in the All-Australian team only 2½ years ago, is eligible to line up today remains a source of mirth throughout the Ovens and Murray league.

He was set to miss the match due to a suspension he incurred while playing in the VFL last year with the Casey Scorpions. The O&M's administrators initially tried to help. They approved a request from Yarrawonga to bring one of its games forward to the weekend before Easter, but a backlash from many of the Pigeons' rivals resulted in the decision being reversed.

In the end, it was some creative - and legal - accounting, involving the Glenrowan and Yarrawonga football clubs, that freed Fevola up to be part of today's game. Rather than being cleared straight to the Pigeons, the 31-year-old was instead transferred to Ovens and King league club Glenrowan because the Tigers' season started last weekend. Glenrowan's involvement was brokered by the Tigers' coach, John Gannon, who was once at star at Yarrawonga.

His suspension now erased, Fevola will remain on Glenrowan's books for 28 days - as per VCFL rules - and during that time he will be granted permits to play for Yarrawonga. ''It was a heck of a relief to get it sorted out,'' says Yarrawonga president Glenn Brear. ''There was a lot of tension, a lot of arguments and bickering. We were very lucky.''

Although satisfied the Pigeons played by the rules, the VCFL is now looking at closing the loophole. Regardless, Yarrawonga will be gripped by a Fevolution today. TV news crews are sure to be competing for spots on the fence with the thousands of fans, many of whom will be holidaymakers that flock to the river every Easter.

''You wouldn't believe how many people have shown an interest in coming to watch this game and buy membership tickets for the year,'' Brear said. ''Our version of the footy record up here is called the Critic, and I think the amount of Critics that we've ordered for the day is the equivalent to what the league orders for the grand final.

''The build-up to the game has been incredible. Our membership is through the roof compared to last year. It will give us a hell of an injection of finance to square up some debts that have occurred and set us up for the season.''

Yarrawonga's two senior coaches, Chris Kennedy (non-playing) and Drew Barnes (playing), are excited about having a bloke on their side who's played 204 AFL games and kicked 623 goals. But both are prepared to deal with the fallout if things don't go Fevola's way. ''The coaches know they'll have their hands full,'' Brear admits. ''You can't coach him; he'll do what he wants to do, and we know that. But we hope he kicks a power of goals and makes a lot of people happy when they come to watch him.''

Lavington, meanwhile, is trying not to focus on its star opponent. ''We've just got to stop the ball getting to him,'' said Panthers' first-year coach James Saker. ''There are probably two or three of our guys who know they might be in for the gig [playing at full-back on Fevola]. If our first choice doesn't work out then we've got a more than capable back-up plan.''

Fevola's arrival in Yarrawonga on Thursday enabled him to take part in the Pigeons' training session on Good Friday morning. Looking to the future, he is planning to line up in all of the club's home games, and is expected also to play an away match against Myrtleford. Such is Fevola's reputation for drawing a crowd, the Saints have offered to pay Fevola to play against them.

Yarrawonga has also succeeded in having its Sunday matches in rounds five and six, against Corowa-Rutherglen and Albury, transferred to Saturdays so they won't clash with his participation in Channel Seven's Dancing With The Stars.

''We believe it's all worthwhile because country football's been sick for a long time, and we think [it] can breathe some new life into it,'' says Brear, whose club has lost the past three senior grand finals, all of them to Albury. ''Often we're playing games and there's no one coming to watch. That's a pretty sad reflection on what country football's going through at the present time. We think the crowd will come [today], and then we've got another eight games at home that we think the crowd will come to as well.''

By Adam McNicol

Article first appeared The Sunday Age April 8, 2012

NATHALIA Football Club president Laurie Hicks will never forget the scene that greeted him when he went to check the state of the Purples' home ground a couple of days after it was engulfed by floodwater in early March. Hicks found the oval under almost a metre of water. He could see only the top of the fence surrounding the ground.

''I probably used a word you wouldn't print,'' Hicks says of his initial reaction. ''I'm a dairy farmer south of Nathalia, and the flood hit us about two days before it hit the town. I'd already experienced the height of it and the seriousness of it, so seeing the oval didn't come as a shock. But I had a lot of sadness, knowing the workload ahead of us to get the oval back up and running.''

The Nathalia Showgrounds, in which the footy oval is situated, are located on the inside of a horseshoe-shaped bend in Broken Creek. The creek had lived up to its name by flooding the showgrounds a few times in the past, but never to such an extent.

''Our last major flood was in 1993, and that was the record flood at the time, until this old girl came along,'' Hicks said.

Nathalia's changerooms emerged unscathed. That was thanks to a sandbagging effort backed by soldiers, and the fact the rooms were rebuilt on higher ground after the '93 flood. But the footy ground has been rendered unusable for at least the first half of the season.

The Purples, who spent the past three seasons near the bottom of the ladder after winning four consecutive Murray Football League flags from 2005 to 2008, had enjoyed a great pre-season before the flood hit. Over summer the club had been boosted by the return of many premiership players, including Nathan Ryan, Matt Davies and five-time club best and fairest Nathan Gemmill, who was best-on-ground for Shepparton United in last year's Goulburn Valley league grand final. Nathalia also signed star Kyabram onballer Chris Atkins. ''We'd had probably the best pre-season the club had ever had, in terms of the spirit around the place and the numbers,'' Hicks said. ''There was a huge buzz around the club. I think we've got 56 or 58 players on our list, which is far above what we've ever experienced before.''

The Purples were expecting to start the Murray league season with a home game against Tongala on Good Friday. The match will still go ahead, but will now be hosted by Tongala.

As for Nathalia's other home games, a meeting will be held tomorrow night to work out a strategy. Hosting matches at another club's ground shapes as the likely outcome.

Members of the Purples' committee are reluctant to reverse all their early home games for two reasons: even if they bank the home games, their ground might still be unplayable come July and August; and they rely on the money generated by home games to keep the club afloat.

''The bills keep coming for all of our medical supplies and those sorts of things,'' says Hicks. ''And we've got to pay a user fee to hire our ground whether we use it or not.''

Hicks and a turf expert from the AFL inspected the playing surface on Tuesday. ''The bloke from the AFL said there's a chance we might get on it by June, but we just don't know,'' Hicks said. ''A lot of people are coming down for a look and just seeing this big oval of brown silt. It sort of leaves them in a bit of despair. Once we get even a green tinge happening, people will be much happier.''

Meanwhile, Nathalia's footballers are planning to train on a cricket oval within the showgrounds, which was relatively unscathed by the flood. The ground doesn't have lights, but the AFL has pledged to cover the cost of hiring portable lighting.

''The netball courts are fine, so the biggest thing that we want to do is try and keep everyone in the club together,'' Hicks says. ''We want to keep the footballers and netballers training in the same area. That way we can keep having our family teas on Thursday nights. That will keep everyone's morale up.''

Grants will also be made to a number of other clubs whose seasons were thrown into chaos by the flood. Picola league side Tungamah came off worst. Its ground is OK, but its club rooms suffered major water damage and may have to be condemned. Nathalia's nearby rival Numurkah is back in action despite its ground spending five days under water. ''We played a practice match on it a couple of weeks ago,'' says Numurkah president Ross Gledhill. ''It's as green as. It's never looked better. The flood actually gave our ground a nice watering.''

The hardy folk at Nathalia, meanwhile, are confident that their lot will turn around in the months to come.

''It's a terrific community to be in,'' says Hicks. ''There's a lot of spirit here, and a lot of fight. I think that will be reflected in our on-ground performance.

''A lot of the footballers have done a lot of the sandbagging work. Some were at a player's mother's place and they built this huge levy bank around, then they had to keep adding to it. Some of those guys put two days and nights together without sleep. It was like being in the trenches in the wars. And I think that is going to be a huge thing for them to carry through the year. I really think the camaraderie and spirit will be reflected in our games.''

By Adam McNicol

Article first appeared The Sunday Age April 1, 2012

WHENEVER he drove past the Great Western footy oval and netball courts last year, Rod Matheson wondered if the pretty little recreation reserve near the foothills of the Grampians would ever come to life again.

He wondered if the local people cared enough to resurrect their football-netball club after a lack of players and administrators had forced it into recess.

''Going through the footy season without having our own team was pretty hard,'' Matheson explains. ''I often thought, 'How the hell are we going to do this?' Our players had gone to at least five different clubs and I suppose we were going to rely on them coming back.''

But Matheson never gave up, and in three weeks his optimism will be rewarded when the Lions return to the field and the court, in a new league, with new uniforms and a reinvigorated level of support.

Both a player and long-serving committeeman in the past, Matheson is spearheading Great Western's revival. He has taken on the role as president and is delighted that the club will again play a key role in life.

''I had a son that played under-17s with Moyston-Willaura last year, so I took him to the football,'' Matheson says. ''But we'd usually just come home after that. It wasn't like a normal Saturday following Great Western, when you'd be gone at the crack of dawn and home after dark.''

Although it last won a senior premiership in 1983, Great Western was once a powerhouse club in the old Ararat and District Football Association. Then known as the Demons, the club became the Lions when it joined the Horsham District League after the ADFA folded in 1999.

Great Western struggled to make a mark in the HDFL. With its annual fixture including long trips out west to places like Edenhope (a distance of 171 kilometres) and Balmoral (153 kilometres), the Lions found it harder and harder to recruit. Things came to a head when some of their players moved south to Ballarat and Geelong. Moving the club into the Mininera and District League, a competition to the south of the town, was seen as the answer. But when Great Western applied for admission into the MDFL for the 2011 season, it was rejected.

''There's always an issue with travel, especially for our most southern clubs,'' explains Mininera league secretary David Wade. ''We had just taken in the Ararat Eagles, and I suppose our clubs didn't want to take on another new side up north.''

Despite a plea from the Lions that they would fold if they were not granted the move, the VCFL refused to overrule the Mininera league clubs. In December 2010, a week before Christmas, Great Western was placed in recess. Those present when the decision was made agreed they would try to reform the Lions for the 2013 season.

Last Easter, however, Matheson and a few others came together to run the club's annual fund-raiser - a rodeo - on the local oval.

''We were having a meeting a couple of weeks after the rodeo, just clearing things up, and somebody suggested it was time we got back into the football,'' he recalls. ''So we fired up again and got another submission ready.''

Great Western was finally accepted into the Mininera league last September. ''We're looking to work the fixture to cut down on the travelling, although it's pretty hard to do,'' Wade says. ''I think it's turned into a pretty good situation. I don't think our clubs realised what a hassle the bye was going to be, so having another team has sorted that out.''

Once the Lions were granted entry into the MDFL, a former senior coach, Darren Weavel, came back from Rupanyup. Signing players was much tougher. ''It's been a long haul,'' Matheson says, ''a long 12 months, I can tell you. We've driven a lot of miles. Over half the players we had before have come back. A few have said that because we were going to be in recess for two years they have signed two-year deals with their new clubs. That's fine. Most of them are saying they'll come back after this year. We could field our seniors and reserves tomorrow if we had to, but if we got another 10 players we'd be over the moon.''

Still, Wade says a question mark remains over the club's ability to field an under-16 team. ''They did assure us before we voted to accept them into the league that they would field all grades of football. We just hope they can honour that now, although we realise they can't force people to come back.''

Another condition of entry into the MDFL was that Great Western had to come up with a new jumper to avoid a clash with the maroon and navy blue strip worn by Glenthompson-Dunkeld. The Lions eventually settled on a version of the royal blue and red jumper that Fitzroy wore in its final season in 1996. ''We ended up with probably 15 different jumpers, with all different colours and designs, which was good. We had a fair bit of interest in it,'' Matheson recalls. ''It came down to two - the one we picked and one that was very like the Brisbane Lions' clash jumper. It was mostly white. All the mothers started kicking up a fuss saying, 'How are we going to keep them clean?' In the end 40 people voted on it and 38 went for the Fitzroy colours, so that was that.''

There has been a frenzy of activity at the club in recent weeks, and a number of new players from across central Victoria, and even Ireland, have signed up. The Lions' star recruit is Ben O'Neil, who played in the Central Highlands League with Beaufort last year. O'Neil's claim to fame is a 17th-place finish in the Hawaiian ironman competition. ''He's pretty fit,'' Matheson says with a chuckle. ''But he's got the goods, too. He's a good footballer and a good bloke.''

Thanks to a draw that has them playing only one of last year's top five sides twice, Matheson is hoping Great Western's senior side can push for a berth in the finals. The campaign begins when the Lions take on Glenthompson-Dunkeld, at Dunkeld, on April 14, and the club's many supporters can't wait.

By Adam McNicol

Article first appeared The Sunday Age March 25, 2012