Australian Football

Myrtleford

Football supporters with scant knowledge of or interest in the game in country competitions can nevertheless tell you that, when the great Gary Ablett senior spent a sabbatical year away from the VFL in 1983, he played for Myrtleford in the Ovens and Murray Football League. Ablett, a country boy from Drouin, had played for Hawthorn in 1982, but found himself unable to adjust to city life. He joined Myrtleford quite by chance because, after calling on a relative who lived in the town, he felt relaxed and at home. The relative in question was Len Ablett, who had played 70 VFL games for Richmond back in the 1930s and ‘40s, and had gone on to serve the Myrtleford Football Club as player, coach and president. Ablett now steered the soon to be nineteen year old Gary in the direction of the local team, which was in the midst of an ambitious recruiting drive. The leasing of Gary Ablett for a season must have seemed like the icing on the cake to coach Greg Nicholls, whose own VFL experience amounted to 1 game with Geelong in 1979.

Ablett’s impact on Myrtleford was considerable, but not quite enough to transform the side into premiership material. Winning premierships had never been easy for the Saints, who lacked the catchment area and resources of the OMFL’s bigger clubs like Albury, Wodonga and Wangaratta Rovers.[1] In 1983 they finished third, but had they been able to retain the services of a rapidly improving Ablett, who knows what they might have achieved? The 1984 season saw Ablett back in the VFL, however, this time with Geelong. The Cats had been tipped off about Ablett by none other than Greg Nicholls, their former player, and then had prevailed in a clearance dispute with Hawthorn, which was keen to give the youngster another chance.

For Myrtleford, the remainder of the 1980s proved a disappointment, as did the 1990s. Since the turn of the century, however, the club has been on a roller coaster ride which has featured a run of 21 matches without a win, but including 1 draw, in 2003-4, sandwiched between losing grand final appearances in 2001 and 2005-6. The first and last of these losses, against Lavington and Yarrawonga respectively, were by fairly sizeable margins, but in 2005 against Lavington the Saints succumbed in the most soul destroying fashion imaginable. In front for virtually all of the game, they lost out by the narrowest of margins thanks to a goal right on the final siren from Panthers skipper Darryn McKimmie.

Football is known to have been played in Myrtleford as early as the 1880s, with matches frequently being contested against teams from nearby communities such as Bright and Beechworth. After world war one, Myrtleford boasted two football teams, one bearing the name of the town, and the other known as Myrtleford Wanderers. Myrtleford Football Club was regarded as the senior of the two, and in 1927 was admitted to the Ovens and King Football League, while Wanderers competed in the somewhat more relaxed Myrtleford Bright competition. Wanderers, who attracted the memorable and quite possibly unique nickname of the Cow Dungers, played their home matches in a paddock situated on land which today forms part of the Gold Club Estate.

Myrtleford won the premiership of the OKFL in 1936 after overcoming Beechworth by 27 points in the second semi final, and Whorouly in the grand final by 13 points. The side also went top in the first post-war season of 1945 when it beat Milawa in the grand final by 4 goals after losing heavily to the same opponent in the second semi final. Myrtleford also played off unsuccessfully for the premiership in 1929, 1933, and 1934 against Moyhu, 1935 against Waratahs, 1937 against Beechworth and 1946 against Greta. In 1947, Myrtleford and Myrtleford Wanderers took the ambitious step of amalgamating, with the new club’s seniors competing in the OKFL, and the seconds in the Myrtleford Bright Football League. The club, which retained the Myrtleford name, quickly developed into a force, with the seniors contesting consecutive grand finals against Wangaratta Rovers in 1948-9, losing the first match by 20 points, but winning the latter comfortably, 16.9 (105) to 9.14 (68), in what was the culmination of an unbeaten season.

It was also a highly fitting climax to the club’s involvement in the OKFL. The 1950 season saw it seeking to spread its wings by entering the much stronger Ovens and Murray Football League, where it has maintained an unbroken association ever since.

Myrtleford found the elevation in standard difficult to come to terms with, and it was not until 1970 that the side contested its first OMFL grand final. In what was without doubt one of the most memorable days in the history of the town, the Saints trailed Wangaratta Rovers at every change by 14, 7 and 17 points before surging home with 7 last quarter goals to 1 to win pulling away by 17 points. Far from being the dawn of an era of concerted success, however, the 1970 premiership win heralded an almost unremittingly bleak decade for Myrtleford, with the low point coming with a club record 21 consecutive losses in 1974 and 1975. As intimated above, it is only really in recent seasons that the Saints have re-emerged as a force, albeit without yet managing to take that final, crucial step to flag success. However, despite having a modest record in terms of premierships won, there can be no doubt that the Saints have played a major part in the history of football in their region, particularly since joining the OMFL in 1950. For example, Myrtleford players have collectively won no fewer than eleven Morris Medals, which represents a league record.

Noteworthy names associated with the Myrtleford Football Club have included: Jim Deane, a star with South Adelaide and Richmond who was a dual Morris Medallist during his time with the Saints; the aforementioned Len Ablett, who almost literally did it all during his time with the club, besides experiencing VFL premiership success with Richmond in 1943; OMFL Hall of Fame member Neville Hogan, who coached the Saints from 1979 to 1982; flamboyant North Melbourne (and briefly Collingwood) player ‘Slamming Sam’ Kekovich, arguably Myrtleford’s best known playing product.

Bringing things up to date, after struggling for several seasons the Saints enjoyed a somewhat better time in 2016, qualifying for the finals in fourth place and ultimately coming fifth. Unfortunately this did not prove to be a prelude to a legitimate bid for premiership honours as the 2017 season saw them drop down the ten team premiership ladder to seventh place while a year later they fared even worse in finishing eighth.