Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
TODAY was a date that had been circled on the calendar since central Victorian football-netball leagues began releasing their 2020 fixtures in December last year.
April 4 was the start date for the Heathcote District and Loddon Valley league seasons.
Well, the HDFNL would have played its first game the previous week with the stand-alone season-opener between White Hills and Mount Pleasant under lights.
But today would have been the league's first full round of matches on the same day the Loddon Valley kicked off its 2020 season.
Today was to signal the return of country football-netball for the region - with Bendigo (Good Friday) and North Central (April 18) to follow soon after - but instead, the grounds of the Heathcote District and Loddon Valley league clubs lay dormant on Saturday.
Just as they have since March 17 when clubs went into hiatus and seasons were delayed until at least May 31 due to the coronavirus crisis shutdown that has dramatically impacted sport across the world.
Now a 2020 season that was set to crank up on Saturday and continue to build in the coming weeks is instead shrouded in uncertainty given there's no definitive start date - if any - that can yet be set.
Will our seasons start in June, July, how much time is required before a season becomes too compromised, or will we even get a season under way in a reduced a capacity at all and what will be the ramifications if we don't?
How will clubs bounce back if there's no 2020 season and, much like is being discussed in the AFL, just what will the financial toll look like with the added potential hit to club sponsors through this tough economic period and impacts on club expenditure (such as player payments).
And will the game lose those players who might relish waking up on a Sunday morning ache free - or will this absence from football make the heart grow fonder?
There's a saying that you never truly appreciate what you've got until it's gone and perhaps this a chance to sit back and reflect on our great winter pastime of going to a local ground and watching footy-netball - and all other local sport - in its purest form at a grassroots level.
While country football has certainly faced its challenging times in recent years with many clubs all over the state battling just to keep their heads above water, dwindling numbers and volunteer bases, all while the role of administrators is getting tougher trying to manage salary caps, player points and the like, who could have ever envisaged the game coming to a complete standstill at all levels like it is now?
Unless you have lived long enough to recall the absence of country football for several years in the 1940s during World War 2, its's easy to have taken it for granted because - while clubs have come and gone - the game itself has always been there.
Rain, hail or shine, year after year, our footy grounds from April through to September have been filled with the sounds (umpires whistle, crashing of bodies, car horns, the cry of BALL from spectators), smells (freshly cut grass, liniment, hot food wafting from the canteen) and sights (the star forward pulling down a screamer, hard-nut rover crashing through a pack, speedster taking three bounces down a wing) of country footy on a Saturday afternoon, with the action on the field and netball court the vehicle for bringing together community camaraderie that's integral to our social fabric.
We would have seen, smelled and heard all that country football-netball atmosphere at Pyramid Hill, Mitiamo, Serpentine, Maiden Gully, Elmore, Colbinabbin, Leitchville and Huntly on Saturday, but instead all we can do is - much like the Bendigo District and Emu Valley cricket grand finals a fortnight ago - ponder what might have been.
There would have been the HDFNL grand final re-match between Colbinabbin and North Bendigo that would have dominated the lead-up hype to footy's return.
There's always a great fascination with how a reigning premier comes back the next year and for North Bendigo it certainly would have been a different version, particularly in the front half given the loss of the Bulldogs' five top goalkickers of last season - Brady Herdman, Zach Alford, Darcy Richards, Ben Knight and Jarrod Findlay.
And what about the Huntly vs Lockington-Bamawm United game.
Across the AFLCV region's leagues LBU is the shortest of 2020 premiership favourites given its major recruiting splash over the off-season headed by new co-coach Brodie Collins, Ben McPhee, Jesse Collins, Trent Bacon, Lachlan Atherton and co.
What tone would the Cats - already stung by their finals failure last season - have set in round one against a Huntly side that was wooden-spooners last year, but had looked set to be the big improvers after also a fruitful recruiting campaign.
And how good would it have been to see Huntly's three-time Cheatley medallist Ryan Semmel back running around on a HDFNL ground again on Saturday.
Hopefully, we still will at some stage this year - as well as every other player in whatever their sport is who for the meantime has had the game they cherish taken away from them.
Have you signed up to the Bendigo Advertiser's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in central Victoria.
