It is 40 years since the Tower Hill Football Club folded after more than a century. Anthony Brady looks at the memories it has left behind.
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One of the great things about country football netball clubs has to be their identity.
Each of the thousands of clubs that battle it out each week have something unique to them.
Like many, I was lucky enough to grow up with the Tower Hill Football Club as a big part of my life.
While the club wore the red and blue colours of Melbourne, they were never the Demons.
They were simply The 'Hill.
For all of those who ventured to the Killarney oval in the depths of winter, a primal call from the tough old spud farmers in front of the old clubrooms will forever be in our memory.
"Carn' the 'Hill" went the call.
It was always loud, passionate, hopeful and from the heart.
Like at the centre of all great sporting events, a day at the footy at Tower Hill was tribal, it was a coming together of a community.
It was what it was, quintessential country sport of the mid to late 1970's and early 1980s.
There was the canteen - with hot dogs, pies and lollies that would both melt in your mouth or break your teeth.
The oval was windswept, usually a bitterly cold gale straight off the Killarney ocean.
Trees had been planted often to provide cover but caught fire and perished just as they threatened to have an impact.
There was an old scoreboard on the far side of the oval, an oval the old blokes at the club said was the same size as the MCG.
It wasn't the only time the MCG and Tower Hill were mentioned in the same sentence, with the club's home ground, before moving to Killarney in 1965, a paddock up near the highway.
That paddock was called Mahony's Cow Ground, the MCG.
It was during the MCG era, which went back to the club's founding in the 1870s, that much of the club's history unfolded, including its last two premierships, 1959 and 1961.
Both premierships were won under the captaining-coaching of former South Melbourne ruckman Don Grossman.
The former league star had an incredible career at VFL and Hampden league level, but it was Tower Hill where he was held up as a footballing god.
Grossman knew his men, he worked out they were hard-working, salt-of-the-earth who loved a beer or two (or three).
But it was respect for Grossman and for the club they lived and breathed that gave the 'Hill players the will to go above and beyond.
Premierships may not have come after Grossman, but the 'Hill remained a proud and competitive club.
Heading into the 1970s, football was changing, club's were offering big money for local players and the cost of running a club was rising.
Like many aspects of life, copying the highest level had filtered to country football.
Night football was now being played in VFL football during the week, and the clubs all had lights at their grounds.
So the hard-working committee at Tower Hill set about lighting up the Killarney oval.
They did just that, proudly unveiling a light pole near the changerooms that lit up the wing on the beach side of the ground.
It was a huge moment for the club, not necessary so much for the training side, but proof it could move forward into the future.
This was the mid to late 1970s, a time when the club attracted high profile coaches including Maskell medalist Kevin Leske and star forward Frank King.
Add to this some of the league's best players of the time in Brendan Moloney, Bill Dywer, Daryl Lenehan and Mick Quigley running around for the 'Hill at the time and these were good times.
Off the ground and the memories kept coming.
While the Killarney pub down the road was a social hub for the club, but there were also celebrations at the ground.
When the club had a function, there was a partition wall in the middle of the changerooms, separating the home and away teams.
Once the players had their showers, the partition was removed, the barrels rolled out and the room turned into a "function space".
While Tower Hill remained a popular club to play at, the competition for players became more intense.
Yambuk entered the Warrnambool and District League and Koroit and Port Fairy attracted many of the young, ambitious players who wanted to play Hampden league.
Tower Hill was at a disadvantage that it didn't have a township, and player numbers were a battle.
The Tower Hill motto for season 1984 was "The 'Hill will roar in 84".
The club won five games that year and remained competitive.
But the prospect of losing a large number of players for season 1985 had the club make the tough decision that it would call it a day.
Interesting to note of the 12 teams who played in the Warrnambool and District Football League in 1984, only five remain in the same form in 2024.
Along with Tower Hill, other teams gone are Yambuk, East Warrnambool, Warrnambool Institute, Bushfield, Grassmere and West End-Allansford.
Grassmere and Bushfield joined to make Northern Districts and now North Warrnambool Eagles, while West End-Allansford have changed to just Allansford.
Russells Creek, South Rovers, Merrivale, Dennington and Old Collegians have stood the test of time.
