About a 30 minute
misty morning drive out of Albury, past
Lake Hume and through the town of Kiewa, surrounded by farmland
practically in the middle of nowhere, sits an oval
that for the majority of the year lies dormant
unused, cared for by a select few.
This historic oval serves one purpose
and one purpose only,
a venue for finals football.
Its official title is Sandy Creek Reserve,
but it's known as something else to the locals.
This is the story
of the long-awaited return to the
MCG of the Bush.
It was a ground used
back, even in the late 1800s
when a lot of the probably the mining
establishments formed teams and they'd play
the adjoining mining camps and adjoining, numbers of people.
We won the premiership there and that's that's me.
That's you there?!
My father and grandfather both played here
and I think the grandfather played in a premiership
in about 1905 I think somewhere about then
and they would have played obviously late 1800s, so
yeah the family's been associated with the oval here for a long time.
It's unbelievable,
I mean none of us are in it for any thanks
but when you walk around the ground, during the finals and people are
talking about how good the ground is and it gives you a real good sense of pride
and you know country footy is so important to country areas
and we're blessed to have this out here in our backyard and
yeah, the pride it's indescribable really.
to improve the facilities.
So Doug took over as league president and I thought well,
best thing we could do is to invite people
here,
for the finals. Of course when you invite people,
you've got to be able to give them a cup of tea and a scone or a sandwich or something.
So, I undertook took that
and it's just grown and grown and grown and,
from using a card table
for the first year, we advanced to
a tent, and then we went to a caravan
and we gradually got people supporting it.
Often I'd come home at night and if someone hadn't
given me a mouthful about something or took a swing at me,
I'd think, well I can't be doing enough.
playing finals here and whatever else, come down to watch
and then coming to the working bees and you know as kids
we used to mow the ground with ride-on mowers and then Dad
got me to mow it with push mower once, but I only did that once.
And then there was a few of us, myself and the Muir boys and Wrighty,
we used to get off the school bus
and come over here and clean the ground after the games, during the finals,
and it just sort of evolved from there.
As a young kid, came out here with the old man and watch Tallangatta Leage footy,
and it's sort of been a yearly ritual,
I suppose, and there's a lot of people in the same boat.
I don't think people realise what an impact it had, socially.
Mum and Dad don't get out a lot,
but go to the pub on a Friday night to catch up with people.
But when you miss that social aspect when you're isolated on the farm and
especially when you're isolated with COVID and you know, some of your family
weren't coming out and you couldn't go out and you're barely you know, go to the
you had to go to the shops or something
and grab your groceries and run home, well you never got to mix with anybody,
but there's been, you know, to come to a, you know, an event like a footy game
it's so important just for people's social aspect and mental aspect and,
and find out what's going on in the community.
And, you know, apart from the financial impact
on footy clubs, I mean probably socially it probably affected more
people than anything.
Sport's so important to you know lower level community
and to be able to have this outlet
and especially you know
the history of this ground and that how well respected it is it's really great,
not just to have sport here, but obviously for us to play here and be able to
to get the job done.
It's it's just great and I feel like that COVID has sort of
the fear of COVID is really starting to pass, which is great.
It means a lot for the local community it really keeps them together.
Yes it's good to see everyone out here.
You don't realise how much it means until it's gone, in that 2020 year
when it was gone you just didn't realize what you were missing out on.
It's massive. It's money.
It's, it's camaraderie, it's everything.
Yeah, just, just everything...