The under-construction scoreboard at Bannockburn’s junior oval had already suffered at the hands of either vandalism or rather careless glazing when my son and I dropped by on a weekday in March 2010. The view from inside the work-in-progress was akin to looking through a glass onion, though one doubts John Lennon had country scoreboards in mind when he sang ‘Fixing a hole in the ocean/Trying to make a dove-tail joint – yeah/Looking through a glass onion’.

I’d been pottering about this scoreboard for ten minutes or so until my son said, ‘Dad, the main ground and the main scoreboard is over there, behind us.’

At the adjoining senior oval, we found that the older scoreboard had dispensed with glass in its window altogether.

Bannockburn Football Club was formed in 1878 and is one of the oldest continuously operating clubs in Victoria. It won the first of its six premierships in 1925. The Tigers’  most recent premiership in the Geelong and District Football League was 2003.

The club’s website also notes: ‘Our junior program has resulted in a number of boys having the opportunity to play for the Geelong Falcons in the TAC Cup and some have been recruited to AFL clubs, including Leigh Harding (the Kangaroos), Shaun Baxter (Western Bulldogs) and Peter Riccardi (Geelong).’

Not bad for a town of 2700.