Drought breaking: Twenty-two years after Alf Harrison and his 1961 team won the Goulburn Valley League premiership it was Daryl Reid and Des Campbell who guided Tongala to a 1983 grand final win.
Goulburn Valley football legend Des Campbell isn’t at all surprised when people want to talk about the Tongala premiership teams of 1983 and 1983. They were that good.
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It’s been 40 years since the “Panther’’, as Campbell is more widely known, assembled the likes of Phil Harrison, the Jones brothers, Ray Smith, John Cortese, Kevin Currie and a host of Tongala products, to form the team that beat Shepparton United and Lemnos on grand final day.
Campbell, who coached the club to back-to-back premierships in the Goulburn Valley League after a 22-year drought, was master of ceremonies for the reunion of the team that has regularly been called the best ever, not just at Tongala but in country Victoria.
He and captain of that Tongala team, Daryl Reid, recreated a photo taken in the rooms at Deakin Reserve after the 1983 victory.
The reunion also tipped its hat to the present, Campbell interviewing rising Tongala talent Harley Reid. Then players assembled on the balcony of the cricket club building to watch the 2022 Blues have a huge upset win against second-ranked Numurkah.
Re-enactment: Reid and Campbell with the 1983 premiership cup at the weekend’s reunion to celebrate the Blues’ four GVL flags - 1949, 1961, 1983 and 1984.
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