The Keilor Sports Club: ‘The Country Club in the City’ (Part 2)

 

 

 

In part one of my journey exploring the history, culture, and narratives of the Keilor Sports Club, I was introduced to and enlightened by the idea of the ‘country club in the city’. In particular I examined how Joe Brown Oval (the Keilor Recreation Reserve) had positioned itself as a hub for Keilor community sporting activities and social connection. The reserve’s geographic positioning on the country-city divide encapsulates the unique status of Keilor and its community. This sentiment was perhaps best articulated in a brief article from The Age newspaper in 1932 that noted, ‘For the reason that it is within a short and pleasant motor run from Melbourne the demand for Keilor recreation reserve as a sports and picnicking ground is growing’.[i] The reserve wasn’t just for football or cricket or athletics it was a relaxing escape for Melbourne travellers absconding the rush of the city in pursuit of casual picnicking and respite. Even at this relatively early stage in the club’s and the reserve’s history, the Keilor Recreation Reserve maintained a special place in the imagination of city folk and its preservation of country ambiance.

 

Upon my first visit to the Keilor Sports Club, I was greeted by Hayden Kelly, Barry Milburn, and Russell Pollock, all long serving volunteers and former players of one or multiple Keilor clubs. While likely too humble to admit it, I found these men to be contemporary exemplars of the passion and commitment that allows such clubs to exist and prosper. They introduced me to elements of the club’s established history and some of the key figureheads that have supported the club’s growth and prosperity through the years. It is the narratives of some of these key figureheads and the impact such people have on a community club like Keilor that I am keen to highlight through this article.

 

If the physical environment and setting of the reserve was the foundation of the Keilor Sports Club’s country aesthetic, then the complementary pillars that have ultimately been responsible for generating connection, belonging, and value to the club are its people. In my travels around various local sporting grounds I am naturally drawn to the history emanating from the club rooms of community clubs. Often underappreciated, honour boards and premiership team photos are common ephemera that tell innumerable stories and outline the narratives of family legacy and connections to the community.

 

Entering the Keilor Recreation Reserve, and the club rooms of the Keilor Sports Club, I was mesmerised by the volume of historical memorabilia maintained by the respective clubs. Football, cricket, and athletics history proudly covered every inch of every wall in the space – such was the volume of this preserved history that some of it had even spread into the corridors that lead into the changerooms of the pavilion. Keilor’s commitment to protecting and sharing its history in this manner, and ensuring it is easily accessible and present for both member and visitors is a great credit to the club.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too often community sporting clubs are limited by the here and the now as they prepare for the future, that they too easily lose touch with their past and where their club has come from. At Keilor, I was pleased to see the balance between managing the past, present, and future of the respective clubs is well in hand. Demonstrating a clear awareness of the club’s heritage, the memorabilia, particularly the honour boards and photos provide recognition of those that have gone before and helped position the club where it is today. The club is fortunate to have the likes of Hayden, Russell, and Barry and others like them, passionate members that have invested much of their own time collating and preserving the physical history of the respective clubs in addition to their capacity to relay stories of the past from their own experiences and memory.

 

My interest in the honour boards revealed another aspect of the club that is often demonstrated by strong and culturally supportive community sporting clubs – that of extensive family legacies and connection.[ii] Community sport is for many, especially in rural spaces, a family affair, and for Keilor, ‘the country club in the city’, the honour boards highlighted a number of recurring family names that are significantly entwined with one or all of the clubs that call the Keilor Recreation Reserve home.

 

Arguably, the most prominent family name in the Keilor sports clubs’ history, indeed the history of Keilor community as a whole is Milburn.

 

Take for example the Keilor Cricket Club, you need only take a brief glimpse of the Keilor Cricket Club Honour Board to identify the conspicuous nature of the surname Milburn. (While surnames are by no means proof of relation) a complementary review of the cricket club’s history book and conversations with those in the know, confirmed my suspicions, and revealed a family connection to the club that has been prominent for much of the club’s existence.

 

The Milburn surname dominates the Keilor Cricket Club’s Honour Board across multiple decades. Indeed, the honour board itself is named in honour of one of the club’s favourite sons, Tom Milburn – captain/coach of the cricket club from the late 1930s through until 1968. As captain/coach Tom led the 1st XI during the club’s most successful period accumulating 10 premierships between 1947 and 1963. While Tom was taking care of business on the field, another Milburn, Norm Snr, maintained the off-field affairs of the club as president from 1946 – 1968.

 

 

 

 

Upon retirement from playing the game, Tom took on the club presidency, following his prodigious on field leadership with ongoing leadership from the other side of the fence. Tom’s son Robert “Patchy” Milburn joined the club executive at the same time, taking on the responsibility of secretary and treasurer. From 1968 to 2009 Patchy had five separate stints as treasurer, his most recent tenure lasting from 1997 to 2009. Patchy’s dedicated contribution to the club was appropriately recognised in 2017, when the newly installed electronic scoreboard was named in his honour. The Cricket Clubman of the Year award is also named in his honour.

 

 

 

 

Tony Wollington, who edited the history of the Keilor Cricket Club wrote, ‘it has been said that at times over the past 150 years there have been more Milburns in Keilor than rabbits.’[iii] Milburns, generally, were prominent and prolific throughout the Keilor community from as early as the mid 19^th century. Indeed, I have likely undersold the Milburn legacy somewhat in this article. Wollington, noted that the Milburn name has been a part of the cricket club’s fabric since at least 1877 if not well before then. David, the grandfather of the aforementioned Tom and great grandfather therefore of Patchy was president of the cricket club in 1877.

 

David Milburn arrived in Australia, from Yorkshire, England in 1853. A gardener by trade and a pioneer of irrigation systems in Victoria, he was nicknamed ‘Davey the Basket-Man’, renowned for creating quality produce for travelling diggers on their way north to the gold fields.[iv] David settled in Keilor, held a role as a local Councillor for 35 years, and became an archetype for the family’s committed attitude towards community service.

 

Another early descendant of the Milburn name, Frank Milburn was born in 1877. Like David Milburn before him, Frank served as a Keilor Shire Councillor for twenty years. He acted as the inaugural president of the Keilor Sports Club from its inception in 1932 until his passing in 1951, playing an instrumental role in the establishment of the Keilor Gift athletic carnival. Frank’s obituary in 1951 noted that he left behind ‘a widow and a fine family of fifteen children (10 sons and five daughters).[v] Given the large families and strong connection to the area it is pleasing to see that Milburn descendants and relatives fill the honour boards in the Keilor Sports Club clubrooms. A family legacy of community service that has seemingly engrained an attitude of communality and kinship that is paralleled by all strong sporting clubs, be they elite, suburban, rural, or remote.

 

 

 

 

The Milburn name was not restricted to the cricket honour board. The football club equivalent was equally well populated. Patchy Milburn was again prominent, demonstrating his proclivity to community sport administration filling the role of either secretary or treasurer of the football club at various times between 1972 and 1983. Post-World War II, another David Milburn was secretary/treasurer from 1946-1956. Norm Milburn Snr as he did at the cricket club held the reigns as president of the football across two notable stints between 1953-1956 and 1967-1970.

 

I was fortunate that during my visit to Keilor I had the opportunity to meet one descendant of the Milburn clan that was continuing the legacy of the name in numerous capacities across multiple Keilor clubs, Barry Milburn.

 

The Keilor Football Club has an honour board in the rooms listing players that have reached the significant 300 game milestone while playing for the club. Atop the list as the first recorded 300 gamer sits Barry, who reached the mark in 1975. Playing on after reaching this milestone he took on the presidency of the football club from 1976-1978 and again in 1982. Barry’s durability as an athlete is highlighted also by his extremely extensive career for the Keilor Cricket Club. Having followed club legend Tom Milburn (Barry’s uncle) to cricket matches in the 1940s as a child, Barry started his own cricket career in 1956, picking up the ball for the first time as a fifteen year old. A testament to Milburn commitment, Barry is yet to officially bowl his last ball for the club, still playing for the club more than 60 years on from his debut and keeping the Milburn legacy alive and well.

 

 

 

 

Family connections are the heartbeat of community sporting clubs, and the heartbeat of Keilor has been strong for many years. The Milburn family’s connection to Keilor and the respective clubs is reflected prominently on honour boards and score boards a like through the reserve.  Another family name that has born witness and aided in sustaining much of the successful sporting and community action across Keilor’s history is that of the Brown family. Indeed like the Milburns, the Browns’ have connections to the cricket club from its earliest known records.

 

One of the most revered Browns, Joe, was born in 1927. Joe was a talented footballer having won best clubman awards in 1959 and 1960. His recognition and reputation, however, was established through his selfless contribution to the Keilor sporting community through administration and advocacy roles. Joe served as president of the Keilor Football Club in 1957 and 1958 before taking on the role of secretary for the next 12 years, between 1959 and 1971. During this tenure, he played a critical role in advocating to council for the construction of the changerooms and renovation of the playing field and surrounds. He would later provide a crucial voice in the successful protest against Council’s proposed relocation of the Keilor Sports Club clubrooms in 1985. For these efforts and more he was posthumously honoured by the Keilor community in 2013 with the Keilor Recreation Reserve being renamed the Joe Brown Oval. That this tribute was realised 23 years after his passing, highlights that his impact on the community was not and now will never be forgotten, as the collective memory of his contribution is now preserved by the reserve on which he made such a significant mark.

 

 

 

 

I had the pleasure of speaking with Joe’s son Denis who I found had replicated his dad’s attitude of commitment and loyalty to the Keilor Football Club through his unmatched on field record for the club. At the age of 6, Denis was team mascot for the Keilor Football Club when they secured their first senior Essendon District Football League premiership in 1968, a victory that elevated the club to the Premier division of the competition the following year. Notably the club has remained in the premier division ever since this elevation over 50 years ago.

 

Denis would go on to have an illustrious football career of his own at the club. His name is dotted around walls of the Keilor Sports Club on various pieces of football memorabilia. On the 300 game club honour board having reached the milestone in 1994. Indeed, he holds the record for most games played for the club, an extraordinary 435 (293 of which were senior games, another club record). He also features on four senior football premiership team honour boards (1985, 1988, 1995, and 1996) having played down back as a stalwart defender in each of the wins.[vi] To round out an astonishing local football resume he went on to play in a three-peat of reserve premierships (1999, 2000, and 2001). A humble operator, Denis’ contribution is a continuation of generations of the Brown family’s connection and dedication to the Keilor sporting community.

 

While the Milburn and Brown names are by no means the only family names that permeated the Keilor sporting clubs’ history, they are exemplary examples that help illustrate the communal environment that the Joe Brown Oval and its inhabiting clubs have cultivated and nurtured since the 19^th century. A tale as old as local sporting club time, this ‘country club in the city’ has been a hub of social, and cultural connection for generation upon generation of a families and continues to be so in the present day.

 

 

 

 

To conclude this series on the Keilor Sports Club – in the third and final piece coming soon – I will look to the recent history of the club to share how it has evolved through the late 20^th and into the early 21^st century. I will explore how the club’s established community and family oriented identity continues to attract and offer a sense of belonging for everyone that calls this place home, as well as those who have been drawn to the club from further afield. A result of the club’s unique perspective and appreciation of the challenges and advantages of both urban and rural Australian settings, combining elements of both environs to promote an inclusive and encouraging environment for all.

 

NOTE: A big thank you to Russell Pollock for the use of many of the pictures.

 

 

Read Nick’s first piece about the Keilor Sports Club HERE.

 

 

Notes:

 

[i] https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/203740254/19045785

 

[ii] The honour boards of both Keilor Cricket Club est. 1858 and Keilor Football Club est. 1877, date back only as far as 1946 – post World War II – as records prior to this time were not available when the boards were commissioned.

 

[iii] Tony Wollington, Keilor Cricket Club: History and Recollections, p. 25.

 

[iv] Tony Wollington, Keilor Cricket Club: History and Recollections, p. 9.

 

[v] https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/74982993/7200055

 

[vi] List of all Keilor Football Club Premieship teams is available here: https://websites.mygameday.app/club_info.cgi?c=1-3922-48421-0-0&sID=207120&news_task=DETAIL&articleID=15041997

 

 

 

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