Up the Mighty Murray! Episode 14 – Gunbower, its island and its footy team

 

 

 

Episode 14                                Moving away

 

At Leitchville and Gunbower in the Heathcote District League

 

To Leitchville and Gunbower, Victoria

 

The largest inland island on the continent, Gunbower Island (26 400ha), can be found in the central section of the Murray region between Torrumbarry Weir and Koondrook. It is a 50 km long island bounded by the Murray River in the north and Gunbower Creek to the south. The island is on the western edge of Yorta Yorta country. The Gunbower Island floodplain is an important conservation area featuring internationally significant wetlands within Gunbower National Park and Gunbower Island State Forest. Bounded by stately River Red Gums, Gunbower Island is a haven for waterbirds, wildlife and aquatic plants. The park is among the most popular for visitors along the entire length of the Murray River. It provides a range of recreational opportunities for camping, fishing and other water-based activities, bushwalking, and scenic drives. Sections of the island adjacent to the forest are devoted to dairying and livestock farming supported by irrigation.

 

 

Gunbower Island 

(source: Farming on Australia’s Largest Inland Island, Gunbower Island on YouTube)

 

 

This stretch of the Murray was a busy place in the 1870s when paddlesteamers worked up and down the river for seven months of the year bringing supplies and exporting produce to Echuca. At that time timber cutters started camping on the island and felling river red gums for railway sleepers, wharf posts and building materials. The logs were transported by river boats to the nearby mills at Koondrook and Echuca.

 

The towns of Gunbower and Leitchville, united in football, lie just ‘off’ the island on the Murray Valley Highway between Cohuna and Echuca. In this episode we make a brief stop at Leitchville and Gunbower, whose merged football club is the only Murray River club in the Bendigo-centered Heathcote District League.

 

Torrumbarry Weir and Lock 26, assets managed by River Murray Water, are located on the Murray River within Gunbower State Forest, 35 km north west of Echuca. The weir provides diversions into the Torrumbarry Irrigation Area (TIA) for agricultural purposes and also environmental water for the Gunbower wetlands. Torrumbarry is the point at which the Rochester Irrigation District ends and the TIA, which extends downstream to Nyah, begins. 

 

Kow Swamp, situated in the Loddon Valley between Leitchville and Gunbower, is an important archaeological site which has helped establish the diversity of Aboriginal genetic history. Indigenous ancestral remains, from excavations at Kow Swamp, have been interpreted as representing different waves of immigrants to Australia between 13000 and 6500 years BP. Today Kow Swamp is a freshwater lake and wetland used for irrigation water storage supplied by canal from Torrumbarry Weir.

 

‘Blackwater events’

 

A natural and recurrent phenomenon in the Murray-Darling Basin, referred to as a ‘blackwater event’, occurs when floods wash leaves and other organic material off riverbanks and floodplains into waterways. The 2010-11 floods along the Murray River between Echuca and Swan Hill resulted in one of the most damaging blackwater events in recorded history.

 

In small amounts, the detritus washed into rivers is an excellent food source for fish and other aquatic organisms and it is an integral part of the floodplain food web. However, when floods of a significant magnitude occur, such as the 2010-11, 2016-2017 and 2022-23 floods, the volume of organic matter swept into waterways increases markedly and becomes a major problem. It is all about the timing and the scale. If flooding occurs in the cooler months and at moderate levels the risk of a hypoxic blackwater event is significantly less. The frequency and intensity of blackwater events have increased as a consequence of river regulation, altered floodplains and changed flows. The natural cycle of riverine flooding has been altered to a pattern of longer periods between floods, resulting in an increased accumulation of organic material on floodplains.

 

When the carbon-rich organic material begins to decompose, bacteria consumes the oxygen in the water. Consequently, fish and crustaceans have less dissolved oxygen available to them. Deoxygenated water can form across the floodplain and then move into the river, or within the river itself. It is this blackwater phenomenon that has led to the dramatic scenes of large Murray Cod and Yellowbelly floating lifeless, and Murray crayfish walking from the water in an effort to survive. Once out of the water, taking sanctuary on riverbanks, trees, or logs, crayfish are extremely vulnerable to land-based predators and illegal harvesting. Hypoxic blackwater events can happen quickly and are usually short-lived, but their impact can be devastating and lasting. 

 

Environmental water for the Gunbower Forest lower floodplain is aimed to nourish the ecosystem giving River Red Gums and aquatic plants a much needed drink. The water for the environment is managed to reduce the risk of hypoxic blackwater events by delivering most of the water in the cooler months of winter and spring.

 

Leitchville and Gunbower

 

Leitchville is in the heart of Torrumbarry irrigation dairy country. Milk production for cheese making became a mainstay of Leitchville’s economy, but the loss of the cheese factory in 2010 was a major blow to employment in the town. Local milk was then delivered to a milk powder factory at Rochester, Victoria, only for that enterprise to close in 2018.

 

The township of Gunbower was originally known as Wee Wee Rup. It is situated on a branch of the Murray, Gunbower Creek, 10 km south east of Leitchville. The tiny township of Torrumbarry is located mid-way between the two. A team from Lock 26  played football in the Gunbower District Association in the early 1920s at the time when the Torrumbarry Weir was under construction.

 

A day at the footy in the Heathcote District League

 

Leitchville-Gunbower v Mount Pleasant

Saturday 15th July 2023

At Gunbower Recreation Reserve

                 

Bombers          v          Blues

 

The Heathcote football competition, which became a league in 1955, is based in the Heathcote  and Bendigo area with most clubs coming from rural centres. Previous names for the competitions in the area were the Heathcote District Football Association (1905), McIvor District Football Association (1906) and again the Heathcote District Football Association (1907-1954). In recent years the Heathcote District Football League has become one of, if not the strongest of the minor leagues in Victoria enjoying regular success in interleague football competition. Mount Pleasant (known as ‘Mounts’), based at the small town of Tolleen east of Bendigo, has been the most successful club in the league with 19 premierships.

 

Northern and Echuca Football League clubs Leitchville and Gunbower merged in 1995 forming the ‘Bombers’ and had immediate success winning the premiership in their first year. When the NEFL disbanded at the conclusion of the 1996 season, the Bombers joined the North Central League where they competed for five seasons before moving to the Central Murray League. In 2010 Leitchville-Gunbower transferred to the Heathcote District League and slowly worked their way up through the ranks before reaching the top claiming back-to-back premierships in 2017 and 2018.

 

The Leitchville ‘Maroons’ played at first in the Cohuna Gunbower FA (1919) before joining the Murray Valley Football League in 1924 and subsequently the Cohuna and District FA where they won three premierships in a row between 1931 and 1933. The club’s next affiliation was in the Northern District League where they had a long wait before winning premierships in 1969, 1974, 1975 and 1989. A move to the Northern and Echuca FL was followed by two more flags, in 1991 and 1994, which was their final season before merging with the club from up the Murray Valley Highway, Gunbower.

 

The Gunbower Football Club was first recorded as playing in the Cohuna District Association in 1893. Gunbower, known as the ‘Demons’, played in much the same leagues as their merger partner Leitchville. They won 17 premierships between 1901 and 1980, enjoying their greatest success in the period between 1920 and 1950 when they took out ten titles. Lean years followed the 1980 success before the club experienced a season in recess in 1994, immediately prior to their merger with Leitchville.

 

Why did Leitchville-Gunbower move away from the Murray River football fraternity? 

Clubs concerned about their futures are drawn towards the bigger regional cities such as Bendigo where the deeper pools of senior players are and their junior competitions offer greater promise. Population shift from the Leitchville and Gunbower area towards Echuca, Bendigo and Melbourne was having a detrimental effect on the club’s ability to retain local players in the Swan Hill-based Central Murray League. The location of the Heathcote District League in the Bendigo area made the move the best long-term option for the club.

 

When clubs seek permission to transfer their affiliations, it can create a domino effect as old foes seek to be reunited with one another in the new territories. Footy Almanacker ‘Riverina Rocket’ advised (in his comment on Episode 10) that word was spreading about Cohuna’s (currently in the CMFNL) wish to move to the Heathcote District League in 2024 where their neighbours and old rivals Leitchville-Gunbower now reside. It is now official, Cohuna has applied to join the HDFNL after members voted in favour of the move. And as another Footy Almanacker ’Regional Richard’ noted (in his comment on Episode 10) Loddon Valley League clubs Marong and Maiden Gully are attracted to the greater opportunities of the Heathcote District League for junior development. Both clubs recently filed applications to make the move in 2024.The shuffling of clubs between leagues usually leads to more time spent travelling for players and supporters, but for some communities there is a worse outcome we see repeatedly, the demise of their local club with all the resultant economic and social losses.

 

Former VFL/AFL players from Leitchville (L) and Gunbower (G) include Marty Hore (L-G, Melbourne), Craig Cleve (L, Geelong), Neville Bruns (L, Geelong), Jeff Fehring (L, Geelong, St Kilda), Bruce Calverly (L, Fitzroy),  Des Calverly (L, Fitzroy, Richmond) and George Angus (G, Collingwood).

 

In 2023 Leitchville-Gunbower have accumulated four wins from 11 games and currently stand in sixth position on the ladder. Mount Pleasant are running second with eight wins. The last times they have met: round 4 2023 – Mount Pleasant 23.14 (152) defeated Leitchville-Gunbower 8.8 (56) at Tolleen; round 13 in 2022 – Mount Pleasant 17.14 (116) defeated Leitchville-Gunbower 7.4 (46) at Gunbower. 

 

The match 

Celebrating NAIDOC Week in rounds 12 and 13, the Bombers wore their Indigenous jumpers (and bibs for the netballers). The “Leitchy Gunny Dreaming’ sports apparel was designed by Aunty Neva Takele and tells the story of the two clubs coming together on Yorta Yorta country. The design has the Yorta Yorta totem of the Long-necked Tortoise representing the two towns coming together as one. Kow Swamp is shown as a significant meeting place for Yorta Yorta and the neighbouring Barapa Barapa and Dja Dja Wurrung. Here life is rich and plentiful where the Long-necked Tortoise, pelicans, emu and Swamp Wallaby roam.

 

All eyes on the ball at Gunbower

(source: Mount Pleasant Football Netball Club on Facebook)

 

The spectators at Gunbower got full value for their admission with a close contest all afternoon. In the end it was a win for the Bombers against the fast finishing ‘Mounts’.

Scores

Leitchville-Gunbower 4.4 6.6 10.8 12.9 (81)

Mount Pleasant 3.2 6.6 7.8 11.13 (79)

 

Goal kickers – Leitchville-Gunbower: Horman 3, Sverns 2, T. Brereton 2, Candy 2, Brereton 2, Warde

Mount Pleasant: Weightman 6, Wakefield 2, Butler 2, Smith

Best – Leitchville-Gunbower: Mitchell Candy, Jye Keath, Zachary Hislop, Hoby Bussey, Nathan McLellan, Jobee Warde

Mount Pleasant: Ben Weightman, Adam Baird, Chris Down, Nick Butler, Zach Charles, Zebb Murrell

 

Around the grounds of the Heathcote District League

 

Lockington-Bamawm 10.9 (73) defeated Colbinabbin 9.6 (60) at Colbinabbin

 

White Hills 20.16 (136) defeated  Elmore 10.8 (68) at White Hills

 

North Bendigo 22.10 (144) defeated Huntly 5.10 (40) at Huntly

 

Heathcote – bye

 

Meanwhile … a little further up the Murray

 

In the Murray League the winners were Mulwala by 98 points, Finley by 25 points, Numurkah by 4 points, Nathalia by 175 points, Moama by 37 points and Cobram by 91 points.

 

In the Goulburn Valley League the winners were Euroa by 96 points, Mooroopna by 46 points, Seymour by 56 points, Mansfield by 33 points, Rochester by 1 point, Echuca by 37 points.

 

In the Picola and District League the winners were Jerilderie by 60 points, Strathmerton by 10 points, Katunga by 20 points, Tungamah by 48 points, Berrigan by 8 points and Mathoura by 43 points.

 

Next episode: to Moama and Shepparton (Rumbalara) in the Murray League.

 

 

 

Read all episodes of ‘Up The Mighty Murray’ and Peter Clark’s previous series Here.

 

 

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