Perc Allison Oval will host its final senior match this week when Beaconsfield takes on Doveton.
By DAVID NAGEL
MEMORIES – like football clubs – trigger all sorts of emotions.
When you combine the two and take a trip down football’s memory lane it’s amazing the story they can tell.
A smile can instantaneously be replaced with a heavy heart as tears well in your eyes, or a time when you felt like a great of the game can quickly be replaced with regret.
The canvas for these memories is a patch of grass called a football ground and every one is distinctive. Shape, size, slant, smell and surroundings all bring a ground its own unique and special flavour.
The Beaconsfield Football Clubs’ home ground for the past 64 years, Perc Allison Oval, is a classic country football ground and will this Saturday host its last game of senior football when the Eagles take on Doveton.
It’s seen the start of many great friendships.
One of those is the friendship formed between Alec Robson, 88, and John Bailey, 74 – both life members of the club who have become great mates through football.
“Yeah we became friends and then great mates,” Robson said fondly.
“I moved to Beaconsfield when I was four and started boundary umpiring when I was eight, up at the old ground where the supermarket is now,” he said.
“My only memory of that ground is getting belted by a lady with an umbrella if I didn’t throw the ball in the direction of her husband.”
The club moved to its current site in 1948, after the war, and Robson was a foundation member and committeeman.
He remembers great players and great games like they were around only yesterday.
“The atmosphere is just terrific at Perc Allison,” he said.
“Players like Haydn Robins and Troy Cashman were my favourite players and the rivalry with Berwick was enormous.”
Bailey supports his great mate.
“The rivalry with Berwick was based on pure hatred. They were the snobs on the hill and it became open-warfare,” he said.
“If there weren’t stretchers going on and off the ground all day there was something wrong.”
Bailey and another mate, the late Erik Ruse, did maintenance on Perc Allison Oval and improved the ground over time.
“At the start the ground was rough and just stunk,” Bailey said.
“Everyone would come off the ground with no skin on their knees until we fixed it in the ‘70s.
“The drainage was terrible – balls were seriously floating in puddles of water and the mud would come in over your high-cut boots, so fixed that up as well.”
Bailey refers to the old change rooms on the hill as the wooden chook shed and remembers players taking a dip in the Cardinia Creek rather than braving the ice-cold showers and dirt floors.
He is sad about Saturday’s game but knows it’s a move that can’t be avoided.
“A lot of people have invested so much into Perc Allison but we’re just too big for it now. We’ll just have to start again and create our new memories.”
