McLean was born and raised on a farm which shared a fence with the Moora reserve and lived there for 17 years before going to Melbourne for university studies.
He was telling me about the reserve, 8km west of Rushworth, which has been home to cricket, tennis, football briefly, picnic gallops racing, golf and clay-bird shooting across a history of more than 160 years.
The land is currently used by Kyabram Pony Club.
With the last cricket played there circa 1960, Alan can just recall watching his father play in the final season, before the Moora club disbanded, several players joining Rushworth which then won six Kyabram District Cricket Association premierships in a row.
During Alan’s Easter visit, he found the partly-exposed remnant of the concrete base of the cricket pitch, formerly covered in malthoid, now long ago destroyed by marauding corellas.
“The reserve has a great and colourful history,” he said.
“In the final cricket season, Moora’s Ron Laurie ran from his fielding position to grab a stump and rush back to near the boundary to despatch a large brown snake on the oval.
“The final match had a delayed start as several Moora players fought a grass fire on a farm a couple of miles away.”
Alan is now a local historian.
Way back in December 1871, the local newspaper reported on a race meeting where a John Matheson had been awarded permission to run the publican’s booth.
The Rushworth policeman attended the races and found that the permit had not been collected and closed the booth.
Matheson then called on racegoers to adjourn to his Moora Hotel about 400m away and the next race was delayed until lunch had been completed.
In the 1990s, Rushworth Lions Club was behind the brief rebirth of picnic racing at an annual spring event known as the Moora Muster.
“I could write a book about events and the heritage of this piece of Crown Land, still administered by local trustees,’’ Alan said.
‘’My father was the secretary of the Recreation Reserve Committee for about 25 years late last century. He would have been delighted to see the old ground so active in 2025.’’
