Kangaroo Island fire: AFL legend Kevin Sheedy set to attend local racing carnival, KI Cup
Kangaroo Island’s summer sport competitions are in hiatus due to the fires. But islanders say the KI Cup, which an AFL great will attend, and resuming games are crucial to restoring “normality”.
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Parndana Cricket Club president and captain Matt Cooper has ran into plenty of opponents lately – not on the field, but while fighting fires.
As blazes have ravaged Kangaroo Island for the past month, the community’s cricket competitions have been in hiatus.
The association has abandoned the past three rounds, next weekend’s Meyer Shield country championships and games scheduled for February 1 because players and volunteers are too busy trying to save properties or coming to terms with what they have lost.
One of its five teams, Western Districts, had its sports complex and clubrooms destroyed in the inferno.
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Flames came within 100m of Cooper’s own home, near Parndana, before he and his wife, Alicia, put it out with the Country Fire Service and other units.
He estimates 80 per cent of his farm has been burnt, about 230 of his sheep have perished and his fences are down, not keeping his animals secure.
Cooper needs a spare Saturday to begin the clean-up, but he and his club are more determined to play cricket again.
On February 4, the association will meet to determine where to go from here.
“The sooner we get back into it, the sooner people can get a sense of normality back into their lives,” Cooper, who is also the association’s secretary, tells The Advertiser.
“The longer we leave it, the more abnormal it becomes and I don’t think that’s a good thing.
“As soon as we get some routine back, I think it will go a long way to rebuilding some communities.
“Sport is not just a way to bring the community together but it brings the community together away from the disaster.
“You’re not seeing people because you’re on the same truck with the CFS or at their place, helping them rebuild, it’s a more social setting away from everything else.”
When a fire flared this month in vegetation on Cooper’s property, heading towards the township, locals arrived with water tanks on the back of their utes to help his family douse it.
Among them were players he had tried to belt boundaries off and bowled bouncers to.
“I’ve spent years playing footy and cricket against them and they’re out here on my property helping me out,” Cooper says.
“No one out here has been alone.
“Even Hog Bay (in Penneshaw), which is as far removed as it can be from the disaster, I’ve been on trucks with people from that club, out west, helping fight the fires.
“(When the competition resumes) there’s certainly going to be some mixed emotions … going from that to treating each other as enemies on the sport field.
“But it will certainly bring the community closer together.”
The island’s sporting bodies are all prioritising fires, rather than fixtures.
But they recognise the role sport can play in KI’s recovery in coming weeks, months and years.
The centrepiece of the rebuild will be next month’s Kangaroo Island Cup, which is going ahead as planned on February 20 and 22.
While footy, cricket, netball, tennis and basketball are the island’s sporting staples, the annual horse race is its crown jewel.
Taking place about 7km outside Kingscote, the event draws hundreds of tourists, brings locals together and attracts the odd special guest – AFL Legend Kevin Sheedy is coming this year, in his fourth visit to KI.
Kangaroo Island Racing Club secretary Greg Miller has been spreading the message to mainland trainers, jockeys and punters that the meet will be going ahead, the community needs their support and the fires have not reached the track.
In fact, he says the course – which is 1883m in honour of the club’s formation year – is in “the best condition it has ever looked”.
“You could run a race here today,” Miller says.
The club, which is also holding a lead-up meeting next Saturday (January 25), plans to donate all its profits from the remainder of the 2019/20 racing calendar to the Kangaroo Island Mayoral Relief and Recovery Bushfire Fund.
Miller, who is hoping for a Cup crowd of 3000 people and to have 80 horses racing, says it is the least it can do.
“We’re part of the community and the community has supported us for a long time, so it’s now payback time,” he says.
“The race meeting is accepted as being the single biggest event that happens on the island each year.
“We need people to get back over here for the races and everyone I’ve spoken to on the island want the Cup to happen.
“They want some reason to celebrate when the fires are out.
“Bring your horses, bring your friends, anyone you can to get the economy on this island kickstarted.”
In recent weeks, the racetrack has been used by the army and on Friday it hosted the funeral of long-time course clerk and Shearing Hall of Famer Rodger Borgmeyer, who died of cancer a few days before the fire started.
Sharing venues has proven a catch 22 for KI’s basketball association, which plays in summer.
Its competitions are not running because evacuees and emergency workers are occupying its main courts, at Kingscote’s recreation centre and school pavilion.
“Obviously it’s a priority for emergency workers and we want them in there, but we really need these kids to start getting back into their sport so they can be with their peer groups and try to have some normality back,” association president Kristy Turner says.
“It’s a real ripple effect.”
The island’s four-team tennis competition is not set to resume until early February but two of its clubs – Western Districts and Stokes Bay – are picking up the pieces.
Tennis association president David Hall says the way the blazes are going, games will not start on time.
“We’re that flat out looking after our properties,” Hall says.
Netball on KI is scheduled to begin in April but its officials are not yet looking ahead because they are in “recovery mode”.
Western Districts also has a netball side and has lost not only its clubrooms but premiership trophies.
It needs to decide if it can or wants to play at its home base.
“We’re not looking ahead, we’re just coping with it day by day,” netball association president Alana Hinton says.
“We won’t have meetings (to determine possible fixture changes) until next month.”
Island football officials are also still in “fire mode” but are intent on pushing ahead with its 112-year-old, five-club competition on time.
Games do not begin until April and reigning premier Western Districts needs to rebuild.
League president Andrew Heinrich says “Wonks”, as the club is affectionately known, may need to move some of its home games early in the season and officials there are concerned some of their players may not feel like taking to the field this year.
But Heinrich believes playing will be a good outlet.
“When all this ash is washed away, football will be really important,” says Heinrich, who has lost close to 250 sheep and all of his 60 cattle on his own property.
“It’s a great way to get people together.”
Former SA Community Football League chairman David Shipway been shattered at what has happened on the island, which he says punches way above its weight.
The SANFL and other community football leagues are meeting early next week to determine how it will help the KI community.
“It’s a population of around 4000 people and they’ve got five footy clubs, they’re an island, there isn’t a lot of employment there,” Shipway says.
“You admire their resilience and commitment.
“I want them to know the footy community cares about them.”
Robert “Spog” Ward is a well-known character on the island.
He is assistant secretary of the KIFL, a footy life member at Kingscote, a life member of the racing club and on its committee too.
The 70-year-old has witnessed a lot since moving to KI at the age of 14 and says things are bloody tough right now.
But he has no doubts the community will pull through.
“We’re a pretty strong mob over here,” Ward says.
“We’re tough mentally because we’ve had to stick up for ourselves all the time.
“We’re tough and we’ve got a hell of a lot of rivalry over here.
“In sport, we love each other, but when the footy gets bounced, look out – it’s fair dinkum.
“This fire, we’re going to beat it – that’s the attitude.”