Revelling in the Riverina – Episode 4: Daniher Country

REVELLING in the Riverina

 

The vintage years

Episode 4

Daniher Country

 

 

Ungarie, NSW (The Magpies, Northern Riverina Football Netball League)

 

 

Stage 4: West Wyalong to Ungarie

 

Leaving the streets of West Wyalong behind we follow Ungarie Road to … Ungarie, 30 minutes away. Turn the car radio up and listen to a blast from the past, Elle McFeast (aka Libby Gore), singing a tribute to the mother of the Daniher boys, Thank God for Edna Daniher:

 

 

What Elle alludes to in her song is that South Melbourne/Sydney Swans, in their pursuit of Essendon’s Neville Fields in 1978, ‘lost’ not only Terry but inadvertently the younger Daniher boys as well.

 

In this episode we celebrate the Daniher family’s achievement of having six of its members (Jim Jnr., Edna, Terry, Neale, Anthony, Chris) named as inaugural inductees in the NSW Australian Football Hall of Fame. Terry was recently awarded ‘legend’ status.

 

(photo courtesy of fellow inductee, Rod Gillett, NSW Australian Football History Society)

 

As the series progresses we will also pay tribute to the other ‘Riverina’ inductees and legends when passing through the towns and leagues where they made their mark. The number of inductees from our broader ‘Riverina’ region tallies 46 out of the 100 original NSW Hall of Fame members (24 from Riverina, 7 from Northern Riverina, 8 from Hume, 7 from Murray).

 

The ‘Barassi Line’ 

map extracted from: https://theconversation.com/the-barassi-line-a-globally-unique-divider-splitting-australias-footy-fans-185132

 

The northern Riverina has been a battleground for supremacy between the two rival football codes for well over a century. Observe the ‘Barassi Line’ on the map above and you will notice a sharp spike heading northwards beyond Griffith. This incursion of Australian Football into the heart of NSW corresponds with the territory of the Northern Riverina League. Author of ‘The Conversation’ article, Hunter Fujak (2022), concluded that “Australian rules is successfully creeping the Barassi Line northward, with the border-straddling region of Murray in NSW aligned with Australian rules. Significantly, this mapping work suggests Australian Rules is also advancing in the adjacent Riverina region”. The mapping is based on the number of Australian Rules football clubs compared with the number of Rugby League clubs in all locations.

 

It is believed that West Wyalong-bound gold miners first introduced the code to the region. The spike seen on the map has its genesis in the settlement of the northern Riverina, from the 1890’s, under the NSW Closer Settlement Scheme, by land-selecting farmers from Victoria and South Australia who brought their footballs as well as their ploughs. The expansion of the rail line from Temora to Lake Cargelligo also facilitated the spread of the Sherrin. Unsurprisingly, the strength of the southern code’s foothold in the northern Riverina has wavered at times, after all this is frontier territory.   

 

One of the pioneers was Jim Daniher Snr. who moved from Euroa in Victoria to Ungarie just before World War I. Jim played several games for West Wyalong and later Hiawatha, before working with Archie and Bob Lampard to set up Ungarie’s football club. Jim was the foundation president and captained Ungarie when it joined the Northern Riverina Football Association (NRFA) in 1924.

 

In this episode we are informed by Adam McNichol (2009), author of The Danihers, among several other sources. 

 

Cruising into quiet Ungarie, described by McNicol as “a dying town” we can sense the tell-tale signs of rural decline and demographic change: abandoned shops, closed commercial premises, a lack of modernity and a streetscape with a ghostly, empty atmosphere. Battling to buck the trend, a famous Riverina football club endures…but only just, with its first win since 2021 registered early in the 2024 season.

 

Ungarie has been one of the most successful clubs in the Northern Riverina League. Formed in 1916 and known as the ‘Angels’, and later the ‘Magpies’, Ungarie have won 16 premierships in the NRFL. It could have been a whole lot more, as they have been 20-times runners-up. The club has achieved the three-peat of flags twice – 1959,1960,1961 and 1999, 2000, 2001. Apart from the Danihers, Ungarie is also the home town of former Sydney Swans and Brisbane player Ben Fixter. The club’s colours are, like Collingwood, black and white, but the guernsey nowadays is Geelong hoops-style.

 

Jim Daniher Jnr., father of the four Essendon Danihers, was a key figure in Ungarie’s success in the 1950s and early 1960s. In that period he led the Magpies to five NRFL premierships and won the league’s best and fairest award (the G.P. Evans Cup) on three occasions. He was so skilled as an athlete that he could turn his feet to both football codes. Jim represented the Riverina in a Rugby League match at the Wagga Showground in 1954 against a touring team from Great Britain, scoring two tries as a winger. For Jim Jnr. Saturdays were for ‘Rules’, with his brothers Leo and Jack, and Sundays were for League. But the native game was Jim’s passion and he ensured his sons followed the tradition. He made sure Aussie Rules was played in the local schools and in the late 1960s initiated a Northern Riverina junior league. Jim coached the Ungarie boys teams, one of which included his eldest son Terry. 

 

Ungarie’s vintage years have been well spread over the last century, but we will focus on the most recent trilogy of flags when the Magpies defeated the Barellan United ‘Two-blues’ in three grand finals in a row on the cusp of the new millennium. The 1999 NRFL Grand Final was a walkover win for Ungarie when they scored 25.13 (163) to Barellan United’s 9.7 (61). For the Magpies, Peter King booted nine goals, while coach Jamie Grintell kicked five. In 2000 Chris Daniher returned to his boyhood club as the Magpies enjoyed a comfortable 37 point win over the Two Blues. For the third year in a row the two clubs met in the premiership decider with Ungarie streaking away in the final quarter to record an impressive 86 point win. That sequence registered Ungarie 3 – Barellan United 0.  

 

Ungarie in 2024

Ungarie defeated West Wyalong in round 3 to record their first win in almost three years.

 

Round 5: Hillston v Ungarie at Stan Peters Oval, Hillston on Saturday 11th May

Hillston 24.19 (163) defeated Ungarie 2.3 (15)

 

 

Riverina Spotto

the last post	Irish pub	a slice of pizza
faithful canine	sheep and dog	the family club
22 yards	two felines	31.12.74
truckie’s stop	submarine	a shearing team
all among the wool	one pub town	Sherrin
three  bees	square	footy hub

 

Irish Pub emptied out and 15 to go

 

Next episode: Stage 5 – to Hillston … with a very special stop along the way.

 

 

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