THERE was a time when Cardross operated out of a couple of huts and the back of a few utes.
Following the devastating 2011 floods, the football, netball and cricket facilities were inundated with water, forcing the club to play their home games for the next two seasons at Fire Brigade in Red Cliffs and at Irymple’s Henshilwood Oval.
Week-in, week-out for that two-year period, volunteers would literally transport the club from Cardross to wherever it was scheduled to play on a Saturday.
“There was portable lights, cool rooms, barbecues, jumpers, food and drinks, you name it. Someone had to take it home and remember to bring it back the next week,” club president Gary Simpson recalled this week.
“It was a pretty amazing effort by everybody because we would turn up with everything and have to pack it up and take it home.”
Thanks to a number of community grants, the club has literally rebuilt itself with brand new facilities now gracing the ground where there was once water about four-feet deep.
“During the flood, the community was very supportive and we had some of our biggest home crowds ever during that time,” Simpson said.
“I think a lot of that came down to people wondering if we would be there for the next game, but we toughed it out and we are better for it.”
When asked if there was ever a chance the club would fold due to the floods, Simpson joked “we are too pig-headed and stubborn out this way”.
“We just put our heads down and ploughed through it,” he said.
“There are too many people like that around Cardross.”
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