The Binalong Brahmans and Eugowra Golden Eagles will be playing two charity matches on Saturday October 28th and the following Saturday on November 4th to raise much-needed funds for Eugowra residents following last year’s floods.

The Brahmans and Golden Eagles will play the first weekend of the charity matches in Binalong, with the following weekend to take place in Eugowra. Both the club’s first grade and league tag teams will be competing in the charity matches to help raise money so the town and residents of Eugowra can rebuild after last year’s natural disaster.

Eugowra, nestled in the Lachlan Valley 300 kilometres west of Sydney, was almost wiped off the map by what has been described as a ‘tsunami’ and a ‘wall of water’. Eugowra is built on the banks of Mandagery Creek, which feeds into the larger Lachlan River that winds its way through NSW’s central west.

The steep, windy and narrow creek weaves through hilly terrain to the town’s centre, essentially splitting it in half. The severity of the catastrophic flash flood on November 14 came with little warning to those who fled for their lives.

The official peak was in the vicinity of 11.2 metres — half a metre higher than the town’s estimate for a one-in-5,000-year flood event. Two people died in the 2022 disaster and a third of the township’s population, about 150 people, were airlifted off their roofs. Eighty per cent of homes and businesses
were damaged, meaning most people had to start again from scratch.

All proceeds from the gate takings, merchandise, canteen, and other revenue spinners across the two weekends will go to GIVIT for the Eugowra community to help rebuild. Binalong Brahmans Vice-President Ben Boyton spoke to The Times about the important upcoming fundraiser.

“The fundraiser is for relief from the floods last year in Eugowra. There were some Binalong boys who went up to Eugowra last year to help clean up, including our President Ben Spencer, so we wanted to follow up from that,” Boyton said.

“Binalong Brahmans were unable to get a team together this year. Binalong is quite a small town and it’s hard to sometimes fill the team. We’re very confident in getting a team together next year with some fresh coaches and fresh players.

“Hopefully this is a bit of a building session for that, but also just to reach out to Eugowra. They have obviously struggled for the past 12 months with what happened to them.

“They managed to get a footy side together this year and played in this season,
which was great.

“The Brahmans committee caught up this year and just really wanted to have some type of footy. We spoke about some round robin things and this and that, and then the idea of these fundraiser matches came up.

“We reached out to Eugowra and they were keen and very supportive of the idea. All money raised is going towards their flood relief funds.

“I’m still unsure what is happening after the game in Eugowra, but after our Binalong game, we’re going to have a big do at Hotel Binalong along with some auction items just to raise some additional money.”
Boyton said there will multiple avenues on the day to raise funds, while the crowd gets to enjoy four men’s and women’s matches across two consecutive weekends.

“The money will be raised from a bit of everything. The gate keepings on the day, over the bar facilities, the raffles at the football, and then there will likely be a jersey auction alongside other auction items
on the night,” he said.

“Any proceeds made on the day that a normal footy day would make, plus raffle items throughout the day, plus auction items in the evening will all be donated to the Eugowra charity.”

Tim Warren