Forty years on, the club will have a 40-year premiership reunion this Saturday, June 29 over a big luncheon in the Katamatite Football Pavilion; the Tigers host Strathmerton.
Katy captain that memorable day in 1979, Bernie (Stump) Lonergan, fondly remembers the day. “On a beautiful spring day of about 20degrees, the ground at down town Dookie and surrounds looked magnificent, and with the excitement, tension and atmosphere, it was game on,” he told the Yarrawonga Chronicle.
The Tigers had a non-playing coach in Bill (Silver) Jones, so Stump and Katandra’s Lloyd Bergman tossed the coin.
“Katy got off to a blistering start with Steve Ronaldson winning nearly every centre tap - this gave Trevor (Stanley) Mills, Bill (The Prince) O’Kane and Gary Edis an armchair ride,” Stump recalled. “Goals to Cornehls, Barnes, Lonergan and Dingle set up the agenda for the day.
“With Edis not content with winning so much of the ball, he continually sledged the opposition. Not long after that, a gentleman’s disagreement occurred with players from both sides involved in an all-in brawl.”
Katamatite established a good lead at the first break but Katandra outscored the eventual premiers in the second quarter, 2.3 to a solitary goal, forcing coach Jones to jig a few things, to get the scoreboard ticking over.
It worked, with the Tigers booting 5.3. But the Cats were not to be denied as they piled on 6.5 to again outscore Katamatite.
Brooks, Radford, Ross Flanigan and Phil (Crowbar) Barnes were getting their share of the footy but the job was far from done as the Tigers led by just 11 points at the last break, 13.9 to 11.10.
“Coach Jones had a couple of other tricks up his sleeve,” Stump explained. “One was to bring 16-year-old Darren Flanigan into the ruck to release Steve Donaldson – who had rucked superbly all day but was running out of petrol tickets - me out to centre-half-forward, Dingle to full-forward and Shane (The Cleaner) a free reign in the forward line.
“The final quarter got underway with Katandra pressing forward but the Tigers’ back six were magnificent. Wren was crumbing everything, Des (Bulldozer) O’Meara was like a caterpillar D6 crashing packs and had players bouncing off everywhere, Stewy (Howard) Hughes took four intercept marks, Andy (Tatts) Alderton was taking screamers and saying hello to anyone in sight, Brooks was well on top of his opponent, the Flanigan brothers were teaming up like the Jakovich brothers; goals to Coughlan, Trevor (Stanley) Mills and Lonergan in the space of 10 minutes and we were starting to smell victory.”
But two goals to Katandra at the 22-minute mark gave the Cats hope. The Tigers replied with another six-pointer from Edis at the 28-minute mark and held on win by 14 points.
“Coach Bill Jones was handed the grand-final cup and the Tigers’ celebrations started,” Stump said. Forty years on, they’re set to resume this Saturday.
Katamatite has four premiership flags, the other three being in 1950, 1996 and 2001 in the Picola and District Football League.
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