By Callum Ludwig
A new marquee fixture in the AFL Outer East calendar has been pencilled in for the first time, with both clubs involved hopeful to make it a regular occurrence.
The Seville and Belgrave Football Netball Clubs will clash on Anzac Day next Thursday in what is being coined the inaugural George Ingram Cup.
Seville Football Netball Club Secretary Grant Tucker said it’ll be great for the club and the community.
“We’ve only had the Seville War Memorial up for three years, but we want to get the message out there we’re just trying to re-educate the new generation about the war and what it’s all about,” he said.
“With George Ingram being a member of the town, we get to pay our respects to him as well as the other soldiers who were from the town.”
The best player on the ground for each of Senior Men’s and Senior Women’s football matches will be presented with the Ingram Medallion, in honour of Seville’s Victoria Cross recipient George Ingram while the best on ground for senior netball will be presented with the Robertson Medallion in honour of Seville sisters Constance, Jessie and Ruby Robertson who all served in World War Two.
George Ingram VC fought on the Western Front and received the Victoria Cross for his feat of bravery in reclaiming the village of Montbrehain in France, with himself and other Australian soldiers overcoming multiple enemy posts in their attack and Ingram believed to have killed at least 40 enemy soldiers in this encounter, while accounting for many more as others surrendered or were captured, including a house containing 30 soldiers which he captured himself.
Sergeant Constance Roberston spent four years with the Women’s Auxiliary of the Royal Australian Air Force at various airfields and bases in Victoria and New South Wales,
Lieutenant Jessie Robertson served for six years with the Australian Army Medical
Women’s Service throughout Australia and overseas in New Guinea before then offering to volunteer as a Welfare Officer for Australian occupation troops serving in Japan when she was discharged and Corporal Ruby Robertson served for two years with the Australian Women’s Army Service at military bases around Melbourne.
Mr Tucker said a donation from the game’s proceeds will go to the Lilydale RSL and they they hope the support from the town for the recent services at the war memorial will translate over to support of the club on Anzac Day
“After we did a lot of fundraising to get to where the memorial was, it was pretty disappointing so the idea of this is to get the story out there of what we’re trying to do and get the community back behind it to get more support and funding for the war memorial as well as funding for the new rooms and making Seville a premier sporting reserve in the Yarra Valley.”
“Belgrave don’t have any marquee games but they were supportive of the cause and pretty excited to get behind the game, so there’s an element of excitement for both clubs.”
Funds raised from the day will go towards the repair of the Seville War Memorial and to the Lilydale RSL’s welfare funds as well as the upcoming rebuilding of the Seville Football Netball Club’s clubrooms.
Seville FNC played their first games on the newly resurfaced oval in Round One against Warburton-Millgrove and with the seniors being beaten, they will be keen to pick up their first win on the new home turf when they welcome Belgrave, who kicked off their season with a comprehensive win over Yarra Glen.
Belgrave Senior Footballer Daniel Ryan said it will be really good for both clubs to have something in the books that happens every year that everyone can get around and support.
“All the boys are really hoping that the game against Seville will go well, Patty Schill has done a lot of off-season work to get all these new boys in and we thought the team was looking strong last year before injuries got the best of us and now with injured players back and new players in, we think we’ve got a really strong chance against Seville,” he said.
“We’ve really just got to look at how Seville plays and how they have beaten us and other teams over the last few years us and figure out what we can do ourselves to negate their game while doing what we do best,”
“We are a good team out of the middle and our backs are strong and will play up tight, while we’ve been working on our leading patterns and forward 50 entries, so as we saw against Yarra Glen, we hope to get some big scores on the board.”
