Thirty years of the real Ashes

 

Hec Moore and Brett Venables with the Ashes

Hec Moore and Brett Venables with the Ashes

The 30th annual Ashes Test match between the bushfire towns of Aireys Inlet and Macedon will be played this Sunday 17 February at the Anglesea cricket ground.

The 30 over-a-side social match will be played a day after the 30th anniversary of the Ash Wednesday bushfires, which killed 75 people across Victoria and South Australia.

The teams first played for an urn that contains ashes from the two towns in 1984, following a chance meeting at a wedding of cricket loving  bushfire survivors from Aireys Inlet (between Angelsea and Lorne on the Great Ocean Road) and Macedon (an hour north of Melbourne.)

Macedon have won most of the games, partly because the town – unlike Aireys Inlet – has a cricket club, but Aireys reclaimed the Ashes last year and will be keen to retain the urn.

Over 30 years there has always been at least one original player (or a descendant) in each team. This year will be no different, with the possibility of a young grandson of one of the game’s founders putting on the whites for Aireys Inlet.

Play starts at 11.30.  The ground is on Ellimatta Road, Anglesea. Pop along if you’re down the coast.

About Vin Maskell

Founder and editor of Stereo Stories, a partner site of The Footy Almanac. Likes a gentle kick of the footy on a Sunday morning, when his back's not playing up. Been known to take a more than keen interest in scoreboards - the older the better.

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