Sport
21 October, 2024
Mareeba rivals ready to rumble
IT’S A bit like family infighting. The relatives might have a go at each other, but woe betide anyone outside of the circle who tries it on.
Such is the basis for the decades of rivalry between football’s Mareeba and Dimbulah clubs.
Talk to anyone at Mareeba United Football Club and they’ll happily tell you of the history of the teams, how many times the Mareeba Bulls have bested Dimbulah, and how the junior teams are still encouraged in this “sibling rivalry”.
And yet, when discussing the upcoming Fantin Cup – a football clash between the two towns to honour their football and community heritage - players can recite as much about the other team’s successes, as their own. We have learned how players from each team, decades ago, would hitch a ride on the back of a truck to get to Cairns for their matches after they finished their shifts at the tobacco farms. We have heard from former players who have played in both clubs and are loyal to both.
Mareeba United Football Club, unlike its Dimbulah neighbours, continues to thrive in the men’s FNQ league. It even landed in the Grand Final of this year’s season. (Dimbulah’s shrinking population after the tobacco industry ceased, has left the town focusing on its junior league.)
Mareeba’s history is legendary. The Bulls were a consistently strong side and had, and still have, a mighty support base. Go to any away game and it’s a hard choice to pick which is more entertaining, the game or the fans’ chanting and joking.
Former player Ivor Schofield recalls a semi-final match against Townsville.
“Three thousand people came to watch Mareeba beat Townsville 3-1 in a knockout, even extra police attended.”
The success of the Bulls gave Mareeba the title of “‘Football Capital of North Queensland” – not bad for a small country town, built up by an Italian, and increasingly multicultural, community.
By 2009, the team entered the Queensland State League as the FNQ Bulls, drawing from the whole region, which continued until 2012. They reached the top five in the last three years, and second in their final year.
Back at home, in the local league, stories of rivalry continued to bring a smile.
Steven Gould, now 90, played for Mareeba and won the first-ever Crad Evans in 1963 – the Crad Evans Shield is a symbol of football supremacy in North Queensland.
Local Mareeba former footballer Raymond Cater said Steve had moved to Mareeba from England, and first worked at GH O’Donnell’s printers, and the spotters were fast.
“The first day he arrived Clarrie Bethel and Peter Geraghty, his work colleagues, went from the Graham Hotel to inform Eddie Venturato and Danny Bianchin that a good soccer player from England via Brisbane had arrived in town,” Mr Cater said.
“They quickly raced back to O’Donnell’s to sign Steve up before Dimbulah found out about his arrival in town. This was the sporting rivalry between the clubs back in the day.”
The club’s history also produced some famous football names, such as Frank Farina, who played for Australia, and for the Belgium, France, Italy and England leagues.
Wayne Srhoj was another who played for Melbourne Heart, and is back now playing for the Bulls. He and the Madrid family, another football favourite, continue to put back into the club, bringing up the next generations of players in this community-driven sport.
You can watch the Fantin Cup matches on Saturday 2 November at Bruno’s Park, Dimbulah. Matches begin from 5pm.
