As illustrated in the photograph above, the famous Minyip, Murtoa, and Minyip-Murtoa football guernseys take pride of place in the Australian Sports Museum at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
See the following article as published February 2020 via Facebook, with special comments by Andy Bellairs:
The famous Minyip-Murtoa Burras football jersey will be immortalised in an exhibit at the brand-new Australian Sports Museum.
Such a great symbol of unity it has become, that the jumper will be used to demonstrate the history of club mergers in country football.
“The Minyip and Murtoa former jumpers, and then the merged jumper in the middle, is the perfect way to represent the role that mergers have played and the truth of the fact that small country towns sometimes need to amalgamate to survive in a football sense” Andy Bellairs from the Australian Sports Museum says.
“Given that great royal blue Minyip jumper and the Collingwood jail bars of Murtoa have been brought together to create that equal blue and black-and-white amalgamated jumper is the perfect representation.”
The two teams amalgamated in 1995 due to difficulties attracting players and a coach.
However, last year, the Minyip-Murtoa Burras won the 2019 premiership in both the football and netball – breaking a 21-year-drought in the football. Andy says that the museum was eager to include stories of local and grassroots footy, as well as the AFL and VFL.
“You can’t tell the story of Australian football without telling the story of country footy.”
“I’d encourage all former and current and future Minyip and Murtoa and Minyip-Murtoa football-netball club members and supporters to come down and get a photo in front of it.”
“If we can encourage one person to go up and play footy for Minyip-Murtoa and help them win a premiership then my job’s done.”
The Australian Sports Museum opens on Saturday and is based at the MCG.
Two articles published by Murtoa & District Advertiser have been re-typed and listed below, which articulates a strong sense of the underlying reasons and actions that were required to take place to merge neighbouring Clubs of Minyip and Murtoa.
MURTOA, MINYIP FOOTBALL TO MERGE?
Date: 29 March 1995
A public meeting has been called for tomorrow night to discuss the possibility of a merger between Minyip and Murtoa football clubs. Both teams are members of the Wimmera Football League.
With dwindling numbers in both camps, it has been exceedingly difficult for the small towns to round up enough players for a senior and reserve team.
If the meeting reaches a merger decision, it will mean the WFL will start the season with nine clubs and a bye.
The Murtoa committee is strongly urging the community to attend Thursday’s meeting so that the problem can be worked out by a true representative group.
Apart from the problem of merging the footballers, the fate of the netball teams, a club name and guernsey, a home ground and an emblem are all decisions which will need to be made.
MURTOA-MINYIP FOOTY MERGER ACHIEVED WITHIN A WEEK
Date: 12 April 1995
And they say that a week in politics is a long time! Last issue of the Advertiser implored members and interested persons to attend a meeting of Murtoa Football Club to discuss a possible merger with near-neighbour Minyip.
Since then, a combined Minyip-Murtoa team has run out against Dimboola, with resounding victories to the new combined seniors and reserves.
To achieve this monumental moment in history has involved a great deal of work from the two executives and committees, common sense and compromise by both camps.
On Saturday, the seniors wore Murtoa’s black and white guernseys, blue shorts and socks; while the reserves played in the royal blue of Minyip.
These colours were worn as a temporary measure, as naturally a new guernsey could not be supplied at such short notice.
And short notice it was. Minyip met and decided to seek a merger with Murtoa on the Tuesday a fortnight ago, followed by the Murtoa meeting two days later, on the Thursday night.
With the agreement of these meetings, the two clubs met on the Friday night, just eight days before the first 1995 match, and the merger became a reality.
An interim committee, led by the two presidents, Mal Schier of Murtoa, and Fred Pickering of Minyip, with Murtoa’s secretary Phil Childs, thrashed out the broad details and the union was made.
At this stage, the strong possibility for the brand new guernsey is an amalgamation of the clubs’ traditional colours. It could have a solid royal blue vee at the top front, with a white panel at the back for a blue player number. The bottom half of the jumper will then be made up of black and white stripes.
The main reason for this completely new design is to prevent any future new club in the WFL adopting either local’s former traditional colours. For this reason, the early favourite, North Melbourne colours, were discounted.
BOTH GROUNDS USED
The ovals of the two clubs are to be continued to be used, with the home and home games shared, and training to be held at the ground of the ‘home’ town in the lead up to those games.
The next round, the week after Easter, sees the combine with a bye, followed by a home game at Minyip. So training has been at Minyip since the amalgamation, and will then revert to Murtoa until their home game is played. As a bonus, this has allowed the renovations of the Murtoa change rooms a little more time, as this work is still being carried on, though it has appeared to have been overshadowed by the merger.
SURPLUS OF JUNIORS
Though the two senior sides had resounding victories, the junior footballers did not fare quite as well. It is only early days yet, and there are quite a number of talented footballers in the two towns, so no doubt, the time will come soon when we will see some wins for the young players.
As the numbers in the junior ranks are so high, the U14s have been divided, and now they have U12s as well. Hopefully this will enable the young stars a chance to get a good run on the field.
NETBALLERS MERGE TOO
The two netball clubs have also combined and they are also playing under the Minyip-Murtoa banners.
This has assisted these clubs, who were also struggling to field competitive sides each week. The results on Saturday saw some impressive victories recorded. But also, they have a glut of girls in the junior grades, and they are working on giving the girls a chance to play netball on a regular basis to maintain their netball interest.
An early plan of the football and netball clubs, is to call meetings to disband their present clubs and hand their assets to the new Minyip-Murtoa club, which will be formed shortly after.
