Netball
30 April, 2024
Douglas Miga Lake Rovers celebrate 70th anniversary
On the 27th of April, a group of women celebrated a remarkable 70-year reunion. All six of the surviving players of the Douglas Miga Lake Rovers 1954 Basketball (Netball) premiership in the Central Glenelg Association and the son of the one player who had passed on attended.
The players who played in the grand final were aged 16 to 27, and the six who attended the reunion were aged 86 to 91 years of age.
The 1954 Grand Final was played at Harrow was played on a dirt court, almost in the same spot as the new netball/tennis courts, and the players celebrated at a dance in the Harrow Hall that night, and then at a ball at Douglas the following week.
The reunion happened by a little bit of luck. A search for information on the Rovers 1954 football premiership showed that the Basketballers had also won the premiership and that of the players mentioned the player named as best on court, Anne Anson, and the two goalies Roma Smith the captain and Marie Hobbs were all alive and well.
They said Marion Mitchell played and finally a photo revealed that the other three players were Gwen Hobbs, Merle Anderson and Barbara Hobbs. Gwen Hobbs had passed away, but the knowledge that six of the seven were alive and some subtle enquiries to their families revealed they were very well and keen to come together for a reunion.
Stephen Hobbs, the son of Gwen Hobbs, represented his mother, and there was some discussion as to whether he might have been a small part of the team as he was born exactly nine months after the Grand Final.
The Douglas Miga Lake Rovers played at Wombelano, about 17km north of Harrow, and about 70 km southwest of Horsham. Their ground was in the corner of a paddock owned by the Page family, which eventually became the Wombelano Recreation Reserve.
In the early days the players used to change in the Hall about 150 metres towards the Harrow road, and a wash in Anson’s dam on the way past was how they cleaned up for the evening's social events which alternated between a dance with a local orchestra or cards and table tennis.
The Basketballers played on a dirt court with the line marking done by chipping away the grass with a spade.
One of the players, Marion Mitchell, now Marion Addinsall of Warracknabeal had a son John who would be well known to many in the Warracknabeal and Wimmera area, because his parents had played for Douglas Miga Lake Rovers was a passionate supporter of the Rovers and their subsequent reincarnations in Douglas Harrow Miga Lake and Harrow Balmoral.
John had a unique ability to slip into premiership photos, wear five of the player's warm-up jackets and sit on two footballs while the players were looking everywhere for them, and generally endear himself to everyone at the footy.
In 1978 the DHML club presented John with a trophy for best supporter, and the next year when DHML won the flag, when the proofs came back from the photographer, there was John Hobbs in the front row.
When John, or Johnny as he was called, passed away in May 2018, that trophy sat on top of his coffin as it was carried to his grave, his mother brought it to the reunion and said it was his most treasured possession.
Roma Anson was the captain of the Rovers team, she was the one who phoned up Marion Mitchell and asked her to play with the Basketball team when Marion had returned home from boarding school, and Roma wore her special momento to the reunion.
Roma was engaged to Peter Anson in 1954, he played in the centre for the Douglas Miga Lake Rovers as they won the premiership by 14 points over Balmoral in 1954 and in the previous year Peter had won the league best and fairest for the Central Glenelg Football League, the Scholfield Medal in 1953.
Peter was one of the best players in a team that included other local greats in Jim Dawson, Bill Penny, Charlie Smith and Tom Penny.
Peter Anson was the last surviving member of the 1954 Rovers footballers when he died aged 90 in 2021, Roma wore his Scholfield Medal to his funeral, and she wore it again to Saturday's reunion.
There was much discussion about whether having six of seven players in the 70th year after their premiership had happened anywhere else, it may well have happened, but all the players who attended, their families, and all the people who rolled through the social room of the magnificent new netball/tennis facility at Harrow to catch up with them thought it was just a wonderful day.