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23 - after-match presentation
* Life Members Meet with a plan for the future: November 2018

40th anniversary MVCC all the pictures!

Our 40th anniversary night takes the cake

Some 85 past and present players and supporters attended the 40th anniversary dinner for the Moonee Valley Cricket Club on Saturday, January 28, and a great night was had by all.

A highlight of the night were speeches both humorous and sincere from past greats Greg Peters, Laurie Mayne and Club founder Ray Storey, and equally compelling presentations by greats who are still pulling on the whites in Darren Nagle, John Talone, Ian Denny and Sandro Capocchi.

Highlights of the night were the cutting of the 40th anniversary cake, designed and donated by past women's captain and current committee member Tien Polonidis, a loop of old and not-so-old photos organised by secretary Peter Golding, and a display of memorabilia curated by Kevin Gardiner.

Club legends come together for Valley's night of nights

Club legends past and present - and some from both the past and the present - were part of the gathering when Moonee Valley Cricket Club celebrated its 40th anniversay with a function at Happy Receptions in Ascot Vale on January 28.

Fifteen Life Members, seven presidents and four past Coaches were part of the gathering of about 85, as we all celebrated a rich and varied history.

The biggest applause for the night was reserved for Club founder Ray Storey when he arrived about 9.30pm with wife Heather, having driven down to the function after playing lawn bowls in Moama, NSW.

The night was expertly h osted and MCeed by Life Members Darren Nagle, John Talone and Sandro Capocchi, who between them shared an aggregate 31 years as Club President and Club Secretary.

The three had an aggregate of more than 830 MVCC games between them, and the crowd was enthralled to hear Darren, John and Sandro individually detail what was important to them about Moonee Valley, what were their prime inspirations and what led them to spend a significant part of their life at the Club.

The gathering was also hushed as we heard presentations from Greg Peters, Ian Denny, Ray Storey and Laurie Mayne on Moonee Valley's rich past, while current president Charlie Walker detailed the last 10 years of growth and development, starting from the formation of our juniors in 1996.

The Club also acknowledged our future, welcoming our international first class players, Ihtisham Uddin and Nasir Ahmed from Pakistan, and First Eleven stalwart Amit Chaudhary, with his strong links to India.

The gathering also heard about our foray into the new frontier of Twenty20 cricket, and how it's a part of our future in that up-and-coming leaders of our Club in Matt Thomas and Stephen Ward are captaining our current sides.

We also heard the definitive story from Ray Storey on how and why our mighty Moonee Valley Cricket Club was formed.

Ray told us that he, Rod McLeod and others had been playing for the Moonee Ponds Salvation Army team at Ormond Park, but the Salvos started to become insistent that its players were required to attend church at least once a month.

That didn't suit Ray and some of the others. The option was to buckle under and get down and pray once a month, or stand up for religious freedom and split.

Thankfully for Moonee Valley Cricket Club and our history, that's what they did - and so the origins of the Moonee Valley Cricket Club were born and we took to the field for the first time in the 1971/72 season. The Club played as Moonee Ponds Cricket Club until we assumed our current name in 1977/78.

The support of the Moonee Valley Football Club was also acknowledged on the night, with a table of 11 representatives from MVFC at our celebration, led by President Alex Tomsic.

Three of the Football Club representatives on the night have a direct links to us, as Bill and Sally Wilson and Charlie Intagliata all pulled on the whites for Moonee Valley.

Moonee Valley's own Night of Stars

Special thanks goes to Tien Polonidis, for her tireless work in putting together the function, making the booking at Happy Receptions and setting up, to Victoria Thorneycroft for her help in setting up and in organising and running the raffle, to Peter Golding for pulling together pictures from the Club photograph archives for a continuous loop of images, to Phill King and Joe Ansaldo for their selection of music that appealed to Club members of all ages, and to Kevin Gardiner for his display of Club memorabilia.

For the record, our Life Members at the function were Jim Polonidis, Dan Terzini, Bob Sciacchitano, Ray Storey, Sandro Capocchi, Greg Peters, Ian Denny, Laurie Mayne, Darren Nagle, John Talone, Ian Sutherland, Jim McKenzie, Warwick Nolan, Joe Ansaldo and Charlie Walker.

Our past coaches were Rex Bennett, Tony Gleeson, Greg Peters and Ian Denny.

And our Club presidents were Sandro Capocchi, Ashley Mayne, Laurie Mayne, Darren Nagle, Ray Storey, Ian Denny and Charlie Walker.