1994 Intermediate Boys Football

Our first ever State Champion Football team, which triggered the start of a Golden Era which would produce 7 State Champion boys teams, plus 2 Herald Shield Premiers, and 2 State Champion Girls teams, in the space of 12 years. 

They defeated Swan Hill by 33 points in the State Final at Oakleigh, Drouin by 32 in the Semi Final at Croydon, Pembroke HS by 68 in the Eastern Zone Final at the Barr, and beat Galen by 115 points in June.

They won the Final without tough Year 9 Heath Fulton, who almost chopped his foot off with a Chainsaw just prior to the game.

Interestingly of all of those 9 Champion boys teams, this team was one of only 2 that didn’t feature a future AFL player. However they were stacked with talent.

Captain and rover Brad Miller was the star of the side. “Gooch” that year won the 1994 McCormick Medal (League B&F) in the U17s Junior League (plus Runner-Up the year before), and most say could have been a star for the Murray Bushrangers if he had bothered to try out. Instead, the casual Miller became a topline midfielder in the Ovens & Murray for a short time, before leaving to the Ovens & King where he’d star in 2 Premierships, one at North Wangaratta (1997), one at Tarrawingee (2007), and finish Runner-up in a Baker Medal Those that saw him play over the next 15 years rate him one of the most skilled, balanced and poised footballers ever seen in Wangaratta.

A massive boost for this school team, was that 4 boys were repeating Year 10 – Miller, as well as mates Troy Carson, Dave Hickey, and Jeremy Winnel. That extra year of age and size of those players (Miller and Carson at the Centre Bounce, and Hickey key back, Winnel a classy small forward) helped them dominate in those key positions. Miller, Carson and Hickey would all be in the Top 4 best players according to the Coach’s Match Reports, while Winnel was the team’s Leading Goalkicker.

Two boys that year played in the 1994 Ovens & Murray Under 15 Schoolboys (equivalent to today’s V-Line Cup) – Year 9s Scott Thompson and John Hutton. Two would later play for the Murray Bushrangers at Under 18 TAC Cup level – Thompson and Luke “Pooch” Ellkngton.

Elkington played 12 Bushrangers games two years later as a Year 12 in 1996. He would go on to play some games for Preston in the VFA (now VFL), Subiaco (WAFL), win a Senior B&F at Northam in Western Australia, and returned to play 100+ Senior games for the Rovers. Devastatingly, Pooch died in 2023 but will always be remembered and admired by those that knew him as one of the coolest characters ever to attend the school.

Thompson was a special talent that was looking like he would be drafted during his final year of Bushrangers in 1997. In one of the most tragic moments in our School Football history, he was playing in a school match at the Rovers Ground, and did his knee. He missed the rest of the season, and some say it cost him the draft. Thommo was good enough to play in a Senior Ovens & Murray Premiership for Corowa Rutherglen as a 21 year-old, and kick 7.7 from Full Forward. The Brisbane Lions recruited him, however he returned home after a few games in the QAFL.

Four of the team (Elkington, Thompson, Cam Tilson and Mark Valencia) would the following year play in the 1995 Rovers Thirds Premiership team as Year 11s, alongside 5 other High School Boys (3 of whom were in our 1991 Junior State Runner-Up team). Two years later, Tilson and Valencia went Back-To-Back in the 1996 Rovers flag, joined by four others from the team (Glen Ellis, Shane Flynn, Simon Grant and Rohan Woodward) and four other schoolmates. The Rovers Thirds would win 4 flags in 5 years, with 36 Wangaratta High boys featuring in those flags.