Deadlines, headlines and the sports story that travelled internationally

It all seemed a bit surreal in the aftermath.

With the interviews done and the photos taken, we returned to The Border Mail newsroom and tried to make sense of the 1990 Ovens and Murray Football League grand final between Lavington and Wodonga, a match that would go down in history as probably the bloodiest country football had seen.

Some of the paper's headlines the next day wrote themselves.

Then Ovens and Murray secretary, the late Sonny Downs, was heard to say the match was "a bloody disgrace."

And there was our front page.

Much of the coverage was pieced together in the editor's office, with deputy editor Jeff Stephenson and sports editor Mark Mulcahy lending some much-needed experience to a bunch of young blokes including Dowling, Kohlhagen, Danny Fox and Cameron Thompson.

Beer cans and cigarette butts were prevalent as we raced against the clock to have Monday's edition ready to hit the presses.

A headline that was the subject of much debate in the early hours of the morning read "Dogs Win Flag But Little Else".

We knew it sounded harsh.

And as we pondered it for a few minutes (it was the last thing that needed the OK before we went to press) it was "Stepho" who made the call with a colourful verbal flourish ... and so the headline stayed.

And we had to live with the outrage it caused.

A few of the Wodonga players had made the trip to The Border Mail's Albury office in the early hours of Monday morning to get the first papers as they came off the press.

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When they saw the headlines they threw them on the ground in disgust.

Feelings were running high and it's probably just as well we had left.

On Monday it was tradition for The Border Mail to cover the victorious team's celebrations, by then the better part of 24 hours old and, given the nature of our coverage, probably not a place we were going to be welcome.

Dowling, along with another journalist Mark Sutton and photographer Shayne Medcalfe, decided to go along.

The trio were probably the three shortest blokes in the newsroom - put together wouldn't equal one Brett Allen or Steven Murphy.

Wodonga Football Club secretary Neil Murray, who had the good grace to greet us and not make us feel like total outcasts (thanks again Neil), came over for a chat on our arrival.

We saw a trophy which may or may not have been the premiership cup being kicked around in a couple of pieces, and many of the players had lumps, cuts and other wounds more common to a title fight than a football match.

After the game came the tribunals - one based solely on reports made on the day, the other based on Prime TV's grand final coverage.

At both tribunals The Border Mail sent three reporters.

One would be covering the case in session, another would be filing a story from the case just heard, and the other would be waiting to go in so that we wouldn't miss a thing.

Stories were filed from a telephone box outside the Corowa Bowling Club (the venue for the hearings).

No mobile phones in those days.

Just 20c pieces as we dictated from our notepads.

On one particular evening the tribunal went into the early morning.

It was time to phone The Border Mail when it was discovered none of us had any 20c pieces.

The bar was closed by that stage of the evening.

"Plough" Kohlhagen was the youngest of the crew, he had to eat some humble pie and ask the Wodonga and Lavington crews if they had any loose change.

Thankfully, former Walla junior Darren Holmes was happy to oblige.

Meanwhile, when there was the odd lull in proceedings during the hearings we used to amuse ourselves by getting photos taken with various bits of silverware from the Corowa Bowling Club trophy cabinets.

Some still say "Plough's" Division One Women's Singles title is one of the greatest sports stories never told.

One yarn we heard a few weeks after the grand final (we don't know if it's true, but like to think it is) is about the local footy official who flew to Europe to try and clear his head of the grand final drama.

Apparently, he saw the footage on TV in Sweden.

While the 1990 Ovens and Murray grand final stands above all other stories in our eyes, there has been no shortage of "biggies".

Like in 1992 when England played Zimbabwe in a World Cup Cricket match at Lavington.

Local sporting identity Graeme Hicks was the mastermind.

Mulcahy was able to pull some strings through his friendship with Hicks and set up an interview with Ian Botham in the lead-up to the match.

Excitement soon turned to fear for Kohlhagen and Sutton when they met the English star in the bowels of the Lavington grandstand.

With Kohlhagen awkwardly hiding behind his colleague, Sutton started the ball rolling.

"Ian, what do you think of the facilities here at Lavington?" our chief cricket writer asked.

Botham promptly replied: "They are all right, I guess. I'm not going to get an erection (or words to that effect) over them though."

Talk about an interview killer.

While we tried to regain our composure, the truth is we never really did and quickly scampered back to work to try and salvage something from the train wreck.

Ironically, Botham and his teammates were derailed days later when chicken farmer Eddo Brandes and his Zimbabwean teammates caused an upset of epic proportions.

They're just two of the biggest stories The Border Mail sports desk has covered in our time.

Funnily enough, these days, in the digital age, mobile phones are everywhere and the 20c pieces aren't so common.

How times change, eh?

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