Michelangelo Rucci | The Advertiser | November 18 MURRAYVILLE, Victoria. Population 250.
One school. One pub. One cafe. One supermarket. One newsagent.
And still one football club — the Bulldogs, playing in the SANFL-endorsed, SA-based Mallee Football League. It is the home of former AFL players Kieran and Trent Sporn.
The latter has his Carlton jumper standing out in a large frame inside the clubhouse at the recreation ground the locals call the “MCG”.
Monday night marked the third “crisis” meeting in a month for the Murrayville Football Club, in a scene that is happening again and again across regional South Australia as country centres lose their population bases and lifeblood to their sporting groups.
Murrayville’s population has almost halved in the past decade. The bank closed last month. The petrol station is shut. And if the Bulldogs are lost, the local community will lose its spirit — and possibly more.
The Bulldogs ran four teams this season — A and B grade and two colts teams, seniors and juniors. They needed 17 “imports” — 16 from Adelaide — to hold up the numbers.
And the era of luring players from the city on big money is gone.
Not only has the SANFL’s salary cap system on country football ($3500 in match payments a week) brought an end to the era of foolishly filling wallets of city runners, the locals also have become tired of watching their hard-earned money rush out of their communities as fast as the speed limit allows on Highway 1.
You can read the rest of this article written by Michelangelo Rucci here
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