Border Mail – Elimination Finals – Preview

The reason – he’s had a foot in both camps.

While Wornes has been a player or trainer with the Brookers for almost 60 years, his only senior premiership came at Culcairn in 1968.

“I’ve been on both sides,” Wornes said.

“I went over to work for Jack Smith at Pitman and Company when I was younger and had three years at Culcairn.

“I was a believer in playing in the town where you work.”

It seems not everyone shared his view.

Wornes vividly remembers the first time he came up against his home club early in the 1968 home and away series.

“They didn’t muck around,” he laughed.

“My brother Frankie was pretty happy to give it to me and my brother-in-law Johnny Semmler got into me as well.

“’Macca’ (John) McKenzie’s a good mate and he was there too.

“It’s pretty funny looking back at it.”

To make sure Wornes never forgot about his time at Culcairn, a prankster later gave him a football jumper made up of Culcairn and Holbrook colours.

Culcairn and Holbrook’s rivalry has continued through the Albury and District, Farrer, Tallangatta and District and Hume leagues with another chapter to be written when they clash in the first elimination final at Walbundrie on Saturday.

Culcairn stalwart Jimmy Lee, who remains good mates with Wornes through their passion of lawn bowls, said a clash between Lion Paul Schultz and Holbrook’s George Hill in 1968 was etched in his memory.

“It typified the rivalry,” he said.

“The ball was between Paul Schultz and George Hill and they both went for it.

“That was the typical of the see-ball, get-ball mentality in Culcairn and Holbrook games.

“If the pig skin was there, you had to go for it.

“It was pure aggression at the ball.

“It’s been going on since the 1950s.”

The sickening head-on collision resulted in play being halted for 10 minutes with Schultz and Hill suffering head wounds.

Schultz had to be taken to hospital in a doctor’s car.

Lee recalls being at the centre of controversy in one match against Holbrook.

“I went right off the air one day,” he said.

“They were all big games and I was bitten on the back in one of them.

“Nobody knew why I was going berserk.

“We had a laugh about it after the game.

“Holbrook used to travel to Culcairn to do woodwork and tech drawing at the public school back then and I think that is where a lot of the rivalry started.”

While some say the establishment of Billabong High School in the late 1970s has softened the rivalry, neither club still likes to give an inch.

Like Wornes, Culcairn stalwart Frank Ravenna’s only senior flag came in 1968 in his first year of senior football.

They defeated Lockhart in the grand final at Yerong Creek.

Ravenna said the Culcairn-Holbrook rivalry had always been a talking point.

“It’s been there for years,” he said.

“I remember it going back to the under-16s in the Farrer league.

“There’s a rivalry but I’ve got mates over at Holbrook and we play bowls against each other and have a bit of fun.”

Ravenna recalls things getting out of hand during a Tallangatta and District league match at Holbrook in 1986.

“Spot fights were going on all day, then a brawl erupted near the interchange bench and it was on,” he said.

“Trainers and runners were involved, then a few spectators jumped the fence.

“After the game a few had to go to the hospital and get stitched up.

“Everyone just got on with it though and we would always have a beer.”

Good mates Neville Hensel and Ross Hillary, who coached Culcairn and Holbrook, were also known to defuse several tricky situations during their time at the helm.