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Norm Vallance is having a time retired astatine Ouyen’s Blackburn Park successful north-west Victoria during Heritage Round – held each play to honour 1 of nan clubs successful Ouyen United’s creation story. The 101-year-old moves done nan crowd, resplendent successful blazer and tie, and poses for photographs successful beforehand of nan ground’s celebrated totem poles pinch nan steely regard of a 300-game AFL veteran.
But Vallance only ever played 1 game, for nan locality of Kiamal, which is now location to 3 people, immoderate Mallee scrub and a cluster of abandoned atom silos. “I wasn’t overmuch of a footballer, but I did a batch of mowing,” says Vallance, who still lives connected Dingo Tank Road, conscionable up from Kiamal’s aged location ground, 9 kilometres northbound of Ouyen.
In 1981, a deficiency of players forced Kiamal to merge pinch arch-rivals Tiega, to shape Ouyen Rovers. This was portion of nan gradual contraction of state shot everyplace passim nan 2nd half of nan 20th century, but obscurity was this much pronounced than successful Victoria’s Mallee region.
Australia’s rural-urban drift forced mortal sporting enemies to subordinate forces, diluting proud identities, and creating calamity for commentators. Ganmain Grong Grong Matong successful nan Riverina, Devon-Welshpool-Won Wron-Woodside successful South Gippsland and Tempy-Gorya-Patchewollock (TGP) successful nan Mallee.
TGP yet merged pinch Ouyen Rovers successful 1998 to create Ouyen United, which subsequently merged pinch Walpeup-Underbool erstwhile AFL Victoria Country dissolved nan Mallee League successful 2015. This created Ouyen United Kangas – almost surely Australia’s astir merged shot club.
Where location were erstwhile 43, only 1 remains.
From roar to bust – and dust
The Mallee region successful north-west Victoria was nan past successful nan authorities to beryllium settled, successful portion owed to New South Wales surveyor wide Maj Thomas Mitchell’s dismissal of it arsenic a “worthless wasteland wholly unsuitable for agriculture”.
By 1910, surveyors had group retired 640-acre holdings (one quadrate mile), and nan railway was completed from Melbourne to Mildura, and westbound to nan South Australian border, converging astatine Ouyen.
Mallee was derived from nan Indigenous connection mali, which nan Woi Wurrung and Wemba Wemba connection groups utilized to picture nan area’s multi-stemmed, shrubby eucalyptus. To workplace their blocks, settlers had to “grub out” nan bulbous woody guidelines (lignotuber) of these eucalypts, often by hand. This was back-breaking work, successful 1 of nan hottest parts of Australia, but bumper crops successful these early seasons prompted a unreserved connected onshore and families flooded in.
Schools opened successful countless localities; Bronzewing (1923), Wymlet (1927), Kulwin (1929) and Trinita (1930). Community halls were built and shot clubs established. In 1929, clubs astir Ouyen contested nan Central Mallee Football League, North West Mallee Football League, Ouyen District Football Association, nan Patchewollock and District Football Association, and nan Walpeup and District Football Association.
Football helped make workplace life bearable, arsenic agelong arsenic it rained. When it didn’t, nan folly of European farming methods successful Australia’s arid scenery was exposed and, connected occasion, nan Mallee particulate coated Melbourne’s skyscrapers.
The Ouyen and North West Express reported a blinding particulate large wind crossed nan Mallee connected nan greeting of nan Ouyen District’s Association 1929 expansive last betwixt Ouyen and Bronzewing. Six weeks later, Wall Street crashed, heralding nan commencement of nan Depression. The onshore became unviable, amended machinery reduced nan request for labour, and families began to drift backmost to nan cities.
Kiamal fable Walter “Spot” Munro watches his grandson Ethan trudge disconnected an unusually soggy Blackburn Park aft Ouyen’s eight-point nonaccomplishment to Robinvale Euston successful nan Sunraysia Football Netball League.
A batch has changed since Walter’s grandfather Peter Macbeth Munro began farming adjacent Kiamal successful 1915 and raised 9 children successful a one-room shack pinch an earthen floor, but not nan value of rain. Growers now show you that they workplace moisture first, and past possibly lentils, alternatively than wheat.
“Farmers are saying this is nan champion commencement to a increasing play successful 100 years,” Walter says, recalling nan three-cornered jacks and saffron thistles connected nan “natural” crushed astatine Kiamal. “There was nary diving for marks astatine pre-season training. You’d rip nan tegument disconnected your body.”
Walter won 4 Kiamal champion and fairests, and featured successful nan club’s 1971 Mallee League expansive last triumph complete Tiega. In all, 21 Munros played for Kiamal, earlier Walter’s sons Deane, Jarrod and Grant made immense contributions to nan Ouyen clubs which absorbed it. These dynastic associations betwixt families and shot clubs were replicated correct crossed nan Mallee, and almost two-thirds of Ouyen’s existent elder players tin trace their lineage backmost to nan teams of its creation story.
It’s what prompted erstwhile Ouyen United president Fel Cua to create Heritage Round successful 2024. “Those 40-odd clubs that person made america – we conscionable want to support nan group connected to those clubs a portion of what Ouyen is today,” he says, while preparing nan elder team’s one-off Kiamal jumpers for nan Heritage Round match.
Smash and drawback successful nan large smoke
Andrew Willsmore played 440 games for Walpeup-Underbool, and was an integral portion of nan negotiations erstwhile nan nine merged pinch Ouyen United successful 2015.
“Look, it was difficult … Sometimes brutal,” he says, while waiting to watch his boy Dallas play seniors. “But, aft six months, we came to nan agreement: our strip, their name, 5 [home] games successful Ouyen, 3 astatine Underbool.”
Ouyen had entered nan Mildura-based Sunraysia League erstwhile before, successful 1979. They were soundly beaten, and retreated backmost to nan Mallee, but nan 2016 escapade would beryllium very different.
“When we rocked up for nan first crippled that year, they ran retired of food, grog, everything, earlier nan seniors moreover started,” says existent Ouyen United president Mick Pole. “They were like, ‘Where are you each coming from?’”
To nan daze of nan Mildura establishment, nan past nine successful nan bluish Mallee weren’t conscionable competitive, they were flying. The Kangas defeated Mildura Demons successful nan expansive last to propulsion disconnected 1 of nan astir singular premierships successful nan history of Victorian state football.
“That success, it was conscionable extraordinary, and important successful cementing nan merger,” says Willsmore, Ouyen’s vice-president. “We’ve had immoderate thin years since, but we person this influx of younger locals coming back, building houses, getting married, having kids. The early looks bright.”
The 9 woody poles which guidelines down nan guardant pouch astatine Blackburn Park correspond nan clubs that person merged to shape Ouyen United since nan 2nd world war. They were painted by Ouyen Secondary College students, who consulted Kiamal seasoned Ron Vine connected nan nonstop colours and jumper creation of each team.
Portrait-session complete, Vallance passes nan black-and-white striped Kiamal rod arsenic he strides backmost to nan clubrooms to rejoin his Magpie brethren. “That nexus to nan past can’t fade. If it does, we’re buggered,” Pole says. “We’re very alert nurturing that is what will support america live arsenic a club.”
