Goulburn Valley Football Netball League Round 13 – Echuca v Kyabram: Ballooning

 

 

It’s a fine Saturday in July and opportunity knocks. Yesterday, as sometimes happens, I’d felt the call of the Murray River. For reassurance, I’d dialled up the Goulburn Valley Football Netball League fixture, to learn that Echuca (1^st) was drawn to host Kyabram (2^nd) on the Saturday.

As I scratch my head in Brunswick East at 9:30 am, Victoria Park, Echuca remains stubbornly around three hours away (via 2012 Toyota RAV4 named Ronnie). I can’t help the feeling that when a hot-air balloonist sees perfect conditions, they go for it.

By 9:43 am I’m eating a bowl of weetbix and yoghurt at the St Georges Road lights, on a trip almost exactly due north – compass bearing 354.22°. At Kilmore, I spot the turnoff to Assumption College. The annual Assumption College Field Day was a big occasion for a footy-minded Melbourne High student. I played one game on the Assumption Oval in the early `90s – Ray Carroll was the legendary Assumption coach – known then as a “Footy Factory” (Neale Daniher, Simon O’Donnell, Billy Brownless among the former students). Melbourne High lost that game in 1992. Anyone watching (or playing) probably felt that Hawthorn had made a decent call in drafting Assumption student Shane Crawford.

The Kilmore bakery is pretty full when I stop for a coffee. People mill about uncertainly. It’s not clear how this place works. We’re all pleased when the bakery matriarch appears from backstage and helpfully bellows: “RIGHT! WHO’S NEXT? LET’S GET A LINE GOING!”

The Northern Highway soon humbly drops back to being a single lane road. We ease among and over rolling hills of black faced sheep and many puddles. Farm dams are full. We’re among a 72-pack-of-Derwents shades of green.

Cresting the rise into Pyalong, woodsmoke rises from chimneys scattered across the valley in a very Hobbiton kind of way. We cross the Campaspe at Elmore where the country flattens out. The land and people of the Campaspe floodplain suffered badly through the major floods of spring 2022. I imagine life may still be difficult. Emerald green dazzles as we move respectfully through Rochester – hit very hard last year. Water brings death. Water brings life. And as I wonder about flood, drought and the circle of life, cascading curtains of thin wispy white material continue to drift across the road. It’s like fairy floss detritus. More and more of these strands, ghostly threads, rise and fall on the wind. Later in the day, rudimentary research suggests after periods of widespread flooding, it is common to see such drifts – these are cobwebs. The phenomenon is called “ballooning” as hundreds and thousands of little spiderlings disperse on the autumn winds to find new homes. Again, opportunity knocks.

Echuca, at the confluence of the Campaspe and the Murray, was engulfed last spring. Swamped. I park Ronnie near the Murray – which today runs at the highest level I have seen. We have no rain this day. But the Shire of Campaspe remains jumpy. Lake Eppalock is full. Irrigation channels around Rochester are full. The Murray at Echuca is full. Any further significant rainfall won’t have many options.

I’m through the gates for the game. This is 1v2, both sides 11-1 after 12. Echuca today in their white and green. Kyabram in black with a red sash. A big day for Bombers fans, as both clubs identify as the Bombers.

The reserves game is nearing its end. Netballers play. Young ones run about with sausages and bread. Both teams seem to wear a special jumper – an indigenous design – an outstanding initiative.

 

 

Certainly, a True Occasion breaks out as all reserves and senior footballers – as well as reserve and senior netballers – gather and stand in formation on the oval ahead of the main game. In the Goulburn Valley this is Archie Walker Indigenous Round. We are treated to a speech from Echuca co-coach Andrew Walker: “it’s a big day. We Yorta Yorta people were footballers, runners, boxers… the lot. Sport is a great thing. But there can only be one winner. I hope you have a great day.”

A smoking ceremony greets each player, as the MC says: “we’re all here to enjoy an afternoon of football and community. Let the game begin.”

 

 

 

 

The sky of pale blue is streaked with cirrus as the umpire raises the pill. It is a big ground. In the first quarter, both teams use all of it. There is mark-and-lead-and-pin-point-pass footy. There is wide-open-space footy. There is end-to-end-but-touched-on-the-line footy. There is tap-ruckwork-to-running-midfielder footy. There is roves-the-pack-at-pace-and-snaps-truly footy. Echuca snare the first three, Kyabram the next three.

QT

Echuca 3.1.19
Kyabram 3.4.22

I’m around to the outer side for the second quarter – sat on a bench beside some 17-18-19–year-olds wearing Echuca colours and moving between a seat on the fence and car seats of a couple of cars parked just behind.

“Where did Mozza go?”
“Hey I got these vodka things.”
“What are they like? Are they any good?”
“Gimme some.”

A Kyabram forward misses the set shot from point-blank range.

“Oh, it’s like creamy soda.”
“How’d you get here? Did you drive?”
“Yeah. I’ll just leave me car here.”

It’s a high standard game of footy. Lots of run, lots of running to position. And it looks very even around the ground. Everyone hears the Kyabram forward, who snaps from general play into an open goal square.

“GET IN!”  – as it bounces through for a goal –  “YESSSSS!”

 

 

HT
Echuca 6.4.40
Kyabram 6.9.45

Into the grandstand for the third quarter, sat behind some thoughtful Echuca types. Within a minute, Echuca mark and goal to hit the front. Echuca then scramble a point.

“We just doubled our lead,” says a man in the next row.

Indeed, the game changes complexion. Echuca’s goals come from clean possession – from linking chains of handball, or from marks. While Kyabram’s scrape through.

“Jacko’s limping a bit.”
“Is he?”
“I reckon.”

The smell of woodsmoke rises from a barrel on the concourse.

3QT
Echuca 10.8.68
Kyabram 8.9.57

Echuca kick to the northern end in the last, so I head down there. They dominate the opening few minutes and kick a goal as I arrive. A short time later, Echuca’s #25 takes a set shot. As soon as the ball leaves his boot he roars “COME ON!!!”

The game is won. Much like the nearby Campaspe, the footy in the last quarter runs to the north.

FT
Echuca 15.10.100
Kyabram 9.9.63

It’s a happy hometown crowd. In fact, even the away supporters seem happy enough. And looking around, as bright winter sun drops low in the sky and the lights flick on for a junior game, I can see why. Well done to all concerned.

—

But the river calls me now and I’m off on foot. I follow a track beside the caravan park until the dirt road ends underneath the new bridge to Moama. There she is. “She’s runnin’ a-banker,” I say as a kookaburra watches from a branch.

Under the huge, raised bridge, I follow an isolated dirt walking track that skirts the river up here on the meander bend floodplain. There is no one about. Old, old trees hold silent memory and show evidence of last year’s floods – each trunk marked with the same dirty stain of peak flood height. Cool evening air fills with the pungent smell of rich mud.

A jogger surprisingly runs towards me out of the vacant bush – a couple of dogs run alongside.

“Howyagoinmate?”
“Goodmategood” is all we manage.

And then, hello, another jogger. But the gait of this guy looks strangely familiar. The mannerisms, hold of his shoulders, tilt of his head. “Oh – that looks like… no… it couldn’t be…”

But it is.

Out here – on a deserted western meander bend of the Murray River just outside Echuca – on dusk – running towards me is my great mate Simon. He lives in Footscray.

In the moment I am struck dumb with the enormity of coincidence, with the no-such-thing-as-coincidence view, with ideas of the universe-unfolding-as-it-should, with imaginings of free-will. Simon simply runs up, stops and withdraws an ear-pod. He hugs me.

“Hey man! Wow. So… ahh… let’s grab a drink in town? I’ll text you where we’re staying, yeah?”

And he turns and runs off.
All I can do is stand and blink and look to the purple and orange of the western sky. I hear the floof-floof-floof of an approaching paddle-steamer.

High above, cockatoos careen across the river.

I set my hot-air balloon. Anything could happen.

 

 

 

 

Read more from E.regnans HERE

 

This year Peter Clark is completing a weekly series about footy and netball along the Murray River. Read his ‘Up the Mighty Murray’ columns HERE.

 

 

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