Things have been up and down for the Calingiri Cougars in recent times. They won the Mortlock Football League premiership in 2015, the wooden spoon in 2016 and were back in the finals in 2018.

What impressed me on my visit just prior to the start of the 2018 season was the surface of the oval. I don’t reckon you’d have fussy AFL or BBL types turning up their noses at it.

The Calingiri Football Club has been around since 1920 and was part of the Bolgart District Football Association and the Victoria Plains Football League before joining Mortlock in 1959. The Cougars have won 13 MFL premierships.

Writing in the Toodyay Herald in 1924 correspondent ‘Blue Gum’ noticed some interesting crowd behaviour during a game at Calingiri when the locals took on Calcarra.

The keen feeling of rivalry was energetically reflected by the lady barrackers of the district whose hilarity seemed only to be dimmed or intensified by the particular capabilities of the respective players of their patronage and must have acted as a sort of pick-me-up in unusual tight corners of the favoured chosen.

To hear a delightful charmer offer a peanut or a cream puff as a solace for reward or misfortune to a player presents a sequence in football by-play which might appeal to a person requiring a liver pill.

Calingiri won by 34 points on a day when the weather was “always of a threatening nature”.