IT WAS TO BE HIS FIRST AND ONLY senior football
premiership, but unfortunately Ron Trimble doesn’t remember a
lot of it. The young utility fell victim to a cheap shot behind play
in the second quarter, the catalyst for a melee in the 1978 Loddon
Valley Football League grand final between Trimble’s Newbridge and
Mitiamo. A good whiff of smelling salts did the trick, as it was often
called upon to do in those days, and Trimble was back up and running.
Thanks to the concussion, the now 64-year-old is sketchy on the
finer details, but he does remember this: victory was sweet and the
beer at the Newbridge Hotel after the game was even sweeter.
The only pub left standing in the small central Victorian town,
about 40 kilometres west of Bendigo, the Newbridge Hotel has a
long and proud history with the Newbridge Football/Netball Club
(NFNC). And post-match drinks are just the beginning. The pub
was a long-standing sponsor of the ‘Maroons’ until the tables turned
in 2015 and the NFNC took on the hotel lease.
“Because it’s run on a volunteer basis, apart from a couple of
paid employees, [customers] could be served by the senior coach or
the president or the guy that kicked 10 [goals] or the guy that had
10 kicked on him,” explains club president Kristian Shelvin. “The
community engagement has been massive.”
Although Newbridge benefits from a unique scenario, community
engagement is a hallmark of the great Australian pub. Whether a
grand colonial centrepiece or a sticky-carpeted boozer, a rickety shed
off the beaten track or a spectacularly renovated classic, the pub is a
meeting place where chins wag, glasses clink and sorrows drown.
And they are a fundamental part of Australia’s story – a story that
has, no doubt, been told, exaggerated and reinvented over a beer or 1120 AUSTRALIANTRAVELLER.COM
GETAWAYS | Pub culture
PHOTOGRAPHY:MICHAELWOODS(THEESPLANADE)