The Murchison-Toolamba Football Netball Club was a hive of activity on Saturday as the Hoppers hosted a non-stop smorgasbord of footy and netball.
A total of 15 games were played throughout the day – eight football and seven netball matches – with Auskickers, juniors and seniors alike all in action.
“It was a huge day of country footy and netball,” Murchison-Toolamba president Craig Thompson said.
“It is the largest amount of games I have ever heard of and I have been living in the Goulburn Murray for most of my life.
“To have eight games of footy and seven games of netball was huge to actually pull off.
“We are estimating that upwards of 900 people were there on that particular day, it was huge. The canteen tripled their normal order and went through all the food, it was a busy day.”
With the junior and senior fixtures not always lining up, Saturday provided Murchison-Toolamba a rare chance to have all its teams playing at the same venue.
“It was our only opportunity for the year to have all our teams together in the one place at the one time,” Thompson said.
“It was great to not have families going in different directions, it was good to have everyone together on one particular day for a home game.
“We had drone footage at about 9am and the ground was already filled with cars.
“For me personally, it was a coming together of many years of work. To see it all come together in that regard and see our side winning a few games and being competitive and the number of kids walking around in the green and gold during the senior match was great.”
Top Hopper: Murchison-Toolamba Football Netball Club Craig Thompson looks out over the ground.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
Murchison-Toolamba has been long crying out for an upgrade to its existing facilities, and Thompson said Saturday highlighted that need.
The club’s facilities were ranked in the bottom three per cent of all clubs across Victoria earlier this year, according to the AFL.
Of the 3000 facilities audited by AFL Victoria, Murchison-Toolamba was ranked in the bottom 300.
“We had AFL Goulburn Murray staff and Shaun Connell come out that morning and our KDL representative Tom Favarro and see how busy it is,” Thompson said.
“It was the first time that Shaun has been out to see it and he was shocked by our absence of netball facilities and our lack of toileting facilities in the whole area.
“The day highlights that we are certainly worth investing in long-term. If we had the facilities to suit, we could be branching off into women’s footy as well. But we are not willing to tackle that in the current building.
“We want a direction for how we can get new facilities. We want to have something clear on how we can keep these almost 1000 people engaged in our club so we can continue to provide and do the community work.”