Words and (most) photos by Joshua Pinn

I recently paid a visit to my old stompin’ ground, Gumly Oval, to watch a third generation of my family play of footy for East Wagga-Kooringal. While there, I snapped a few shots with the idea of writing a bit about the ground for this wonderful site. What I ended up with was a 2000 word photo-essay chronicling the history of the club. If you’re interested in reading that you can find it on the equally wonderful Footy Almanac site.

If it’s pictures of footy grounds you’re interested, with minimal rambling from yours truly, read on.

The scoreboard and interchange benches at Gumly have been refurbished in the last ten years or so. You’ll notice that the home team’s bench includes a coaches’ box above it, which is absent on the away team’s bench – any advantage that can be gained is worth it.

As is common on game day at the junior footy, the scoreboard was being used as a playground by some kids this day. They had put a few numbers on the board, but were careful not to break the rules clearly written on the walls.

The scoreboard itself is the traditional elevated tin shed-type, with an enclosed bottom floor, handy for storage. It also has the timekeepers clock, replacing old clock on the other side of the ground. These days the old timekeeper’s box serves little more purpose than another set of stairs for kids to play on, and a spot to serve snags off the barbie after Thursday night training.

Gumly Gumly (its full name) is a suburb on the eastern outskirts of Wagga, basically a very small rural township. The term “Gumly” is Wiradjuri for “frog”, so Gumly Gumly means “many frogs” or “place of many frogs.”

Joshua Pinn is Scoreboard Pressure’s Riverina reporter, correspondent, tea lady, fleet manager and chief-of-staff. Hre’s also a blogger and podcaster at footygospel.com