Tiktoker Andy Munro bringing extinct AFL clubs back to life on journeys through Victoria, South Australia

The 28-year-old loads his Toyota Fortuner and sets off in search of local footy history.

His travels have taken him to far-flung country towns across Victoria including Yaapeet, Bessiebelle and Korweinguboora.

Munro doesn’t navigate up to four hours in search of the best local footy matches to watch.

He travels to uncover the history behind clubs which were once the heartbeat of their communities, but today no longer exist.

“I just go on my Google Maps and I have them all saved on there,” he says.

“I’ve probably got (350) grounds saved and I have been to about 35 so far.”

Munro is the definition of a footy tragic.

He has generated a cult following on social media as an avid collector of footy jumpers, amassing close to 500.

His footy fervour was inevitable, growing up about 15 minutes from the farm where dual Brownlow medallist Lachie Neale was raised.

Noticing other content creators tapping into the local footy market, Munro set about carving out his own niche.

“I just got interested in local footy looking through different Wikipedia pages and finding out about these different clubs I had no idea about. They weren’t too far away,” he said.

“I have TikTok, which I have done footy content on for a while, mostly about my footy jumpers.

“I thought it’d be a good thing to do over summer, not too much happening. Keep me busy.”

What started as a brainwave has turned into an obsession.

“I have sort of gone for the places with more former grounds around so far. I know that some are better than others,” he said.

“Preferably go to the clubs which have folded within the last 30, 40 years. Because (clubs) that folded 80 years ago or between the wars, it’s not so good.

“Anything after World War 2 is better, so I have been trying to go to those sort of areas where people can actually recall playing there.”

Munro’s travels have uncovered abandoned grounds, derelict clubrooms, long-forgotten scoreboards and missing goalposts.

They serve as a reminder of what the ovals once represented — community hubs and Saturday institutions.

Decades ago they would have been surrounded by cars and filled with a cacophony of horns every weekend.

Now, many are home to grazing cattle with few signs of their previous existence.

“A lot of them got used for cricket longer than footy. Pretty much there’s always a cricket pitch,” Munro said.

“Probably half of them have goals. It just depends how long they haven’t played there. If there was a ground that had a game in the last 30 years, there’s going to be goals. Anything older than that is a bit of a guessing game. Often they will have goals but one of (the posts) might be missing.

“With clubrooms, a lot of them are facilities for these regional places that they might still use. I have been able to get into two changerooms so far.”

One of his most popular videos was shot in Bessiebelle, a town of less than 100 people in western Victoria which is about three and a half hours’ drive from Melbourne.

Munro takes viewers onto an oval which now resembles a cow paddock, showing rotten goalposts, then makes his way into the clubrooms where memorabilia from as far as back as 1993 still features.

The club is best known for the longevity of stalwart Anthony Bourke, who played more than 600 games.

Records suggest Bessiebelle went into recess in 1996 before attempting an ill-fated return.

“90 per cent of the time it is the numbers (that force a club to fold),” Munro says.

“In the country areas obviously there is a bit of a decline. There’s way less people, way less jobs. There’s less reason for families (to move there) and there’s smaller families nowadays.

“There’s not as much reason to live in the country as there once was. A lot of people from these places have moved, they move to Melbourne and Adelaide but also places like Ballarat, Bendigo and places like that.”

Munro is fascinated by Ouyen United, which some claim to be an amalgamation of more than 40 clubs in Victoria’s Mallee Region.

Finding the time to visit all their previous homes has been another matter though.

One of his favourite venues has been Yaapeet, the former home of a club known as the Purples and a town which is home to less than 100 people.

“They only stopped playing there in 1999,” he said.

“Out the back there, there’s a room with photos and historical documents and stuff like that regarding the footy club which you can go and have a look at, which I thought was really cool … that the local people there are looking after the history.

“That’s the thing I try and do, talk about the history which is sort of forgotten.”

Munro has cultivated an audience young and old by mixing new technology and social media with his passion for local footy nostalgia.

“I get a lot of comments saying, ‘I showed this to my dad or my grandpa or grandmother and they enjoyed it’,” he said.

“I’ve been really surprised with the feedback, to be honest. I’ve been putting a lot more on Instagram and that sort of gets an older demographic interested.”

The average road trip lasts about 12 hours and Munro squeezes one in every two weeks around his duties on the farm.

If his schedule allows, he will sample a local bakery and spend time checking out what the regions have to offer.

More Coverage

‘What salary cap?’ How local footy honour system is being exploited

Paul Amy and David Johnston

Melbourne’s top 75 local footy clubs of 2023

Often he has to settle for a trip to the service station and lunch on the road, prioritising his travel plans over the quality of the meal on offer.

On the rare occasion he has time to stop and sample what a town has to offer, it provides Munro with an insight into what keeps remote communities ticking once their footy club is no more.

With 315 grounds across Victoria and South Australia left to chronicle — and more to be added to his list — Munro’s viewers are guaranteed more local footy history lessons for a long time to come.