Just like my mates, Australian rules football was the main love for me throughout my schooling years and if we weren’t kicking the footy at lunchtime or down the school corridors, we were dissecting, arguing, bragging and joking about our local clubs and the players we idolised just about every day.
Those were halcyon days where all of our energy and focus during the winter months was spent on our local football and netball club.
Mine was Nirranda, and for a brief period Terang-Mortlake.
Nirranda, the good ol’ Navy Blues, were for many years the laughing stock of the competition but, no matter what, I backed them in until the cows came home — quite literally for most of my mates, who lived on dairy farms.
For myself, my parents who owned the local pub, every Saturday was occupied by travelling to support our club, no matter how far or how cold. That’s just what we did.
I’m not religious but it’s the closest I will ever get to devoting to one particular thing.
In the pub, which was five minutes down the road from the home of the Blues, just about every conversation was based around the intricacies and doings at our church.
So when news broke earlier this week that Corowa-Rutherglen, a club in the powerhouse Ovens and Murray Football Netball League, was on the brink of heading into recess for the 2023 season, my heart sank.
I instantly thought of everyone involved at the Roos.
From the players, the volunteers, supporters and the past players — every single one of them will be impacted in one way or another.
Those youngsters who are starting their football and netball journey, the promising teenagers who missed out on delivering the club an elusive thirds premiership last season and the old faithful who packs out the ground with blue-and-white to support their next club heroes.
Cruelly, no more than six months on from that grand final day the Roos are in a fight to save something more than just a football and netball club.
They are fighting to save a community.
By the time this article hits shelves or you read it online, a decision on Corowa-Rutherglen’s future will be made at an extraordinary meeting, on Thursday night.
The Roos are not the first club — with local club Ardmona in recess — and they unfortunately won’t be the last, as regional clubs grapple with a shortage of players and volunteers and plenty more debilitating factors.
Last year’s devastating floods, which have forced Corowa-Rutherglen’s hand through the flood damage, caused destruction to the headquarters or property of Shepparton Swans, Mooroopna, Seymour and Rochester.
The latter’s clubrooms may have escaped unscathed but the township felt the full force of Mother Nature’s wrath.
A community that lost not only a beloved member but hundreds of houses during those floods only have one thing left — their football and netball club.
The Tigers have organised initiatives to help raise funds for the club with one of them being an appearance by comedian Tom Siegert aka ‘The Suburban Footballer’ to present his show.
In a sign of solidarity and in an aim to help, Mooroopna is banding together to go and give Rochester support.
The Cats are to be commended for their hands-on-deck approach to helping out their rival GVL club.
They are putting differences aside and working together.
They may be separated by kilometres of bitumen and in a different postcode, but at the end of the day the two are a part of the same footballing community.
More collaborative work needs to be done by those in metropolitan offices and those at the coalface if we are to ensure the survival of regional clubs.
It’s time we put aside grievances, care less about how to fill pockets and start to care more and focus on our beautiful community.
The time to act and work together is now.
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