COUNCILLOR Brian Stockwell turned koala wrangler on Friday night after a koala invaded the soccer pitch during the nail-biting men’s finals at Noosa.
Working as a ground official on the night, Cr Stockwell said in his four years of volunteering at the club he had never had to help remove a koala from the pitch.
“I have chased streakers, escorted irate coaches and stood between warring factions, but none of these were as disobedient as our pitch invader on Friday night,” he said.
“Not once, not twice, but three times I had to escort this young unregistered player from the field.”
Cr Stockwell said the iconic animal first invaded the pitch before the fourth-grade grand final, then again when the tension was rising at the start of extra time for the third-grade game where the koala ran straight out of the box, through the centre circle and past the three officiating referees.
“On both occasions I assisted (the koala’s) exit toward the nearest gum trees behind the scoreboard, but this was not enough,” he said.
“On the third occasion he crept under the fence and I had to wrangle him around to the southern gate. Then, with the assistance of a gentle soul, we showed him the way out to the National Park rather than the carpark were he headed the first two times.”
Cr Stockwell said the koala appeared to be coming from the direction of council’s recent koala offset plantings just to the west of the field – “no doubt checking out the fresh young growth,” he said.
Unfortunately, Cr Stockwell lost his glasses in the first pursuit and, without being able to push the right buttons to turn on his camera, he missed out on capturing the incident on camera.
“For the record, the only local team, the Cooroora fifth-grade Wombats, won the Grand Final, but that’s unlikely to command the number of shares (Australian and overseas) of the Facebook message I posted from my phone on the night,” Cr Stockwell said.
