Plays of the Past

Burnett polled 31 votes last year — 13 votes ahead of his nearest rival — but was ineligible due to suspension. In the reserve grade Wade Medal count Tony “Rusty” McDonnell won a second straight award.

Stanhope’s Emma Hill won the A-grade Warren Medal, the 27-year-old beating Lancaster’s Sandy Carver and Bree Clydesdale from Avenel.

• Lancaster was planning to celebrate its centenary in 2010, forming a committee that included Rita Warren, Elden Wade, Eric and Graeme Lancaster, and Robert Carver.

The team was sitting third on the ladder with one round of games remaining, with Stanhope sitting fourth.

Merrigum was eighth and lost to the Wombats by 19 points when Troy Mitchell kicked four and Paul Parsons was best on ground for Lancaster.

1999

Thirty five-year-old Rusty McDonnell became the Goulburn Valley League games record holder when he played his 334 th senior game for Kyabram, passing the record formerly held by Tongala’s Mick Souter.

The milestone was not the only thing on his mind as wife Jane was due to five birth to their third child. McDonnell played his first senior game in 1982, the same year as he missed 10 games with a broken arm, and captained Kyabram to the 1996 premiership.

• Ron Cunningham was made a life member of the Kyabram District Cricket Association, becoming the KDCA’s ninth person honoured with life membership. He had just stepped down after 21 consecutive years of coaching the KDCA representative sides and was also an inaugural member of the KDCA’s junior sub-committee.

Cunningham was also a decorated player with both the Lancaster and Girgarre clubs, along with being a four-time premiership coach of Lancaster’s under-16 team.

• Stanhope police was called to a game between Girgarre and Yea when an under-age coach struck a Girgarre player.

Just before half-time there was a melee between players and officials when the umpire decided to call the game off due to the incident.

• Girgarre Fotball Club’s longest-serving member, Alf “Digger” Wickham, was recognised by the club when a stand was named in his honour.

It was unveiled during the game against neighbour, and rival, Stanhope.

Digger joined the club in 1943 as a player and was named a life member in 1954 by which time he had already served as secretary and treasurer.

• Seventeen players from the 1979 Kyabram reserves team that won the premiership under coach Barry Williams attended a reunion and recalled the fact the team lost just one game — the second semi-final — for the season.

A week later they beat Shepparton United in extra time in a preliminary final and then went into the grand final at full strength to dominate Mooroopna by 10 goals. Best players were the late Robbie Harrison, Lindsay McKenzie, Russ Morgan, Greg Bowers, David Shaw, Russ Barrett, Terry Gregory and Don Morris.

1989

Decorated sportsman Michael Mott proved he was no “one-trick pony” when he appeared in front of hundreds of people at the Kyabram Assembly Hall in the high school’s musical production of Grease.

Mott was playing the role of Thunderbird member, Roger, in the production that was directed by Lance Twentyman.

• Girgarre was second on the ladder, Lancaster fifth and Merrigum sixth after 16 rounds of the Kyabram District League.

Murchison’s Robbie Walters was on top of the goalkicking table with 92 goals, with Avenel’s Bill Hannam and Girgarre’s Phil Tucker both on 65 goals for the season.

Tucker kicked six in a 51-point win against Yea, with Gary Farrow kicking five and Wayne Delidio three. Brian Casey, Michael Goodson and Wally Charles were the best for the Kangaroos.

For Merrigum, it was a 68-point loss to third-ranked Murchison, with Jason McCormick and Jamie Corish the Bulldogs’ best.

1979

Netball star Leonie McKenzie was named in the Australian under-16 team after the national championships.

Fourteen-year-old McKenzie was one of three Victorians in the team, playing at goal defence as the Victorians finished runner-up to New South Wales in the carnival.

She was the latest in a string of state and national representatives in the sport, along with Norma Sefton-Rowston and Jan Thompson.

Her immediate plan was to help Lancaster win the A-grade Kyabram senior netball competition premiership.

• Ken Farley won his first Hill Top Golf Club championship, beating Barry Volk in the final after going into the event as a favourite.

The junior championship was won by Neil Farley, who beat Jim McIntosh to claim the title.

• Tongala was second on the ladder and Kyabram third, but it was the Bombers who won a game in wet conditions on the eve of the finals series.

Len Cooper kicked three goals for Kyabram, while Des Campell kicked three for Tongala.

For Kyabram, it was Gavin Ludeman, Trevor Castles, Steve Sharp and Mick Fry who were the best players, while the Bombers defensive unit kept Tongala big guns Mick Souter and Kevin Currie out of the game.

At the tribunal Euroa’s Vin Edwards was given eight weeks suspension for striking field umpire Peter Howe with his chest. In a marathon three-hour hearing he was also given a further two weeks suspension for refusing to give his number to the umpire.

A third charge against Edwards, of misconduct for standing on umpire Howe’s feet on four separate occasions, was dismissed.

• Brian and Mark Dillon won the 54-mile Kyabram Homing Pigeons’ race from Finley, their black chequer hen clocking a flying time of two hours, two minutes and nine seconds.

There were 460 birds released from Finley at 8.45am, with David and Graham Watt’s blue bar cock bird second and Jim Herbison’s bird third. Fourth was Alex and Joyce Gemmell’s bird.

The Dillons were leading the Kyabram Credit Union Aggregate alongside John and Simon Hutchings.