Up the Mighty Murray!: Introducing Peter Clark’s new series for 2023

 

Over the last few seasons, Peter Clark has been a weekly footy season columnist, taking on a number of historical themes including St Kilda’s 1966 season, Geelong’s unbeaten run, and 1975 in the Wimmera and Farrer Leagues.  This year he’s heading along the Murray River, from Goolwa upstream to Corryong. Here he introduces his idea…

 

Prologue

 

The Murray River at Tooleybuc, NSW

 

 

Australians revere the mighty Murray River. Poets and musicians compose verse and lyrics celebrating it, storytellers write and talk about it, while photographers and artists capture and reflect its moods. The river is the subject of spiritual stories, the source of cultural resources and the place of ceremonial custom held closely by indigenous Australians. It has been a conduit for European explorers, an inland highway of transport and trade and a vital resource to exploit, shape and manage. In everyday life the Murray continues to be a place to live, to farm and work beside, to visit and to enjoy.  Viewed from a less romantic perspective, the river’s environmental health and management is a topic of deep and growing concern.

 

As the third longest navigable river in the world, it offers plenty to the explorer in us. People are drawn to the idea of travelling along the Murray’s course, to race and to endure, to camp beside it and simply to experience its calming natural beauty. 

 

The first ventures on the Murray by European explorers, Captain Charles Sturt and others, were to chart the river and likewise its major tributaries, the Murrumbidgee and the Darling. It was Sturt who named the river, after Sir George Murray the Secretary of State for the Colonies in the British Government, in 1830. But it could easily have been the ‘Hume River’, the name given by Hume and Hovell on their inland exploration in 1824.

 

For a short time, in the second half of the 19th Century, the rivers became the highways of the wool trade facilitated by paddle steamers. Then suddenly the ‘golden age of the river’ was over. Rail overtook the power of the rivers to carry cargo and many of the vessels were left silently abandoned on the riverbanks.

 

The Murray River became the demarcation of the boundaries of the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria, an honour which carried a myriad of political challenges and squabbles still experienced today. And for South Australians, despite the recent high flows, the supply and the quality of water from the Murray-Darling system continues to be a source of frustration.

 

 

Looking towards the Mouth of the Murray, SA

 

 

Eventually the catchment of the Murray, like other regional strongholds in Victoria and the Riverina, became the playground of the Australian Football code. It is here that this Footy Almanac series is set. The river plots our course with its fascinating geography and history, while today’s football is the concurrent theme of the story. We go above the Murray’s banks, out onto the floodplains and beyond to witness a season of football from the sea to the mountains.

 

Others have written about and filmed ventures down the Murray, the traditional way, from the mountains to the sea. Swan Hill’s Steve Strevens wrote eloquently about his beloved Murray River in Slow River. Two recognisable men set out in a small boat to entertain and inform us in Two Men in a Tinnie. One man, an ‘Ambassador of the Murray’, loves the river and its produce so dearly that he dreamt up the tasty idea of A Gondola on the Murray, celebrating the food, wine and frolic of the Sunraysia region. 

 

We will take the opposite route, head-on into the might of the River Murray (as it is known in South Australia) from its mouth all the way upstream to near its source. Our literary and pictorial ‘journey’ follows the course charted by the paddle steamer captains who plied the river from Goolwa to Swan Hill and beyond to Echuca and Albury. Upstream from the Hume Dam our river adventure continues to the Murray’s headwaters beyond Corryong.

 

Along the way we will encounter sixteen current football leagues situated on the Murray’s banks or close by on one of its tributaries. We will ‘stop over’ at many of the familiar river towns where the footy and netball is played. Look forward to games at Renmark, Mildura, Robinvale, Echuca, Yarrawonga, Albury and Corryong. But also get ready to visit Swan Reach, Waikerie, Mannum, Wentworth, Cullulleraine, Tooleybuc, Murrabit, Moama, Mathoura, Tocumwal, Howlong, Tallangatta and Walwa. As we venture into the edges of the Mallee (in South Australia and Victoria) and the Riverina in NSW, some settlements you might not immediately expect to hear about in a ‘Murray River story’ will also get a guernsey. Come with us to Karoonda, Murrayville, Manangatang, Moulamein and Deniliquin.

 

What is the connection of the Mighty Murray to our revered wintertime game? For starters, most of the leagues along its course take on the name of the river or one of its tributaries in their titles. Add to that a further geographical link: many of the grounds we will visit are situated just a good punt kick or two away from the Murray. 

 

On a personal level, the Murray River city of Albury is my birthplace and the town where I grew up. Later, in my twenties, I returned to live and work beside the Murray for a short time further downstream at Tooleybuc. And for my maternal great great grandfather and his sons, it is the river where they sought adventure, found a home and a livelihood all the way downriver from the valleys of north east Victoria to the Darling River and beyond in South Australia.

 

Each week readers we will go to ‘watch’ a game of local footy in one of the leagues along the Murray. There we will meet the regulars you might expect – the Eagles, the Magpies, the Demons, the Roos, Tigers, Cats, Bulldogs, Swans and Hawks. But we will also encounter some unique and novel mascots – the ‘Bluds’, the ‘Red Eyes’, the ‘Mountain Men’, the ‘Timbercutters’, ‘River Raiders’, ‘Rumba’ and the ‘The Road’. And we will get to see some colourful and artistic designs on the footy jumpers of clubs at Murray Bridge, Mannum, Blanchetown-Swan Reach, Loxton North, Rumbalara, Nathalia, Congupna and Katunga. As you might expect, in the four South Australian leagues situated along the River Murray, the iconic black and white ‘prison bar jumper’ pops up wherever you go.

 

The future of country football will be a subtext of the story; a battle of pragmatism versus emotion for the stakeholders. We will celebrate the strength of local footy and meet some current and former AFL footballers who hail from the river towns. In equal measure we will recognise the struggle for survival of country football, both before and after the pandemic, witnessing hiatus, amalgamation and realignment. Tales of the inevitable demise of some country footy clubs along the Murray must also be told.

 

On our journey we will view the landmarks and experience the life of the river as it meanders past. And now that the 2022-23 floodwaters have mostly receded, we will reflect on what the river means to the environments and communities found along its 2520km length.

 

 

Paddle steamer transport on the Murray River at Echuca, Vic.

 

 

In March 2023 I made a reconnaissance trip up the Murray from Goolwa to Corryong by road. Now I invite you to accompany me on a river journey. Starting on April 19, get onboard Up the Mighty Murray! every Wednesday throughout the footy season on the Footy Almanac. We commence our journey at Goolwa in the Great Southern Football League (SA) as that league celebrates 100 years of football. 

 

Oh, by the way – don’t forget to pack your golf clubs!

 

 

Check out Peter Clark’s previous series Here.

 

 

To return to the www.footyalmanac.com.au  home page click HERE

 

Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

Do you enjoy the Almanac concept?
And want to ensure it continues in its current form, and better? To help keep things ticking over please consider making your own contribution.

 

Become an Almanac (annual) member – CLICK HERE