COUNTRY Women's Association delegates from across NSW had packed the Albury Entertainment Centre to listen to Prime Minister Scott Morrison during the federal election lead-up in May when an incident, which would become national news, unfolded.

Albury retail worker Amber Holt instantly became known as "Egg Girl" when she found a crack in security surrounding the PM as he engaged in chit-chat and had photos taken with excited visitors and tried to break an egg on his head from close range.

A 70-year-old delegate was knocked to the ground in the ensuing fracas before Ms Holt was detained and escorted from the building.

She was found guilty of common assault, but spared jail when she fronted Albury Local Court in July.

Mr Morrison was on his first visit to the region in the election campaign with the second to Wangaratta made in a last ditch bid to help Indi Liberal candidate Steve Martin.

BYE, BYE TIM

LITERALLY a who's who of the Australian political scene both past and present converged on Albury in August for the funeral of former Deputy Prime Minister, National Party leader and long-term Farrer MP, Tim Fischer.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison headed the line-up of political figures for the state funeral and lauded Mr Fischer, who died at the age of 73 after a long-running battle with cancer, for his part in tightening gun laws in Australia as his biggest achievement.

Mr Fischer's ally on guns and Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, also made his way to Albury for the farewell along with every National Party leader since Mr Fischer's retirement from politics in 2001.

Kevin Rudd, the Labor prime minister who appointed Mr Fischer as Australia's first resident ambassador in the Vatican City, attended as did current Labor leader Anthony Albanese.

Mr Fischer's coffin travelled by train from Wagga to Albury before the state funeral.

GOLD CUP WASHOUT

THE Albury Gold Cup created history for the wrong reasons when the marquee race meeting of the year was called off.

In one of the driest years on record, Albury Racing Club experienced the frustration of 23mm of rain falling in 20 minutes on race morning which led to stewards declaring a section of the track unsafe to race.

The Albury track had only undergone a $1.2 million upgrade two years earlier.

Desperate attempts to dry the track included a helicopter hovering above the wet patches in question with chief steward John Davidson declaring the meeting would have been called off a lot earlier had it not been the Gold Cup.

An estimated 6000 racegoers were already at the track when the decision was made to call the meeting off with attempts to reschedule cup meeting to another date being unsuccessful.

INDEPENDENT'S DAY

POLITICAL history was created in Indi when an independent MP was replaced by another independent in the May federal election.

Cathy McGowan held Indi for two terms and handed over the Team Orange baton to Helen Haines upon her surprise decision not to seek re-election for a third term.

Dr Haines emerged from a selection process facilitated by Voices for Indi as the chosen one to follow in Ms McGowan's footsteps.

Her main rival was Liberal Steve Martin with the Coalition's chances of reclaiming the seat dashed by a poor showing from the Nationals with support for their candidate, former Wodonga mayor Mark Byatt, plummeting from 17.2 per cent to 9.45 per cent from the 2016 to 2019 polls.

Across in Farrer, Liberal incumbent Sussan Ley stared down a high profile challenge from independent candidate and Albury mayor Kevin Mack and retained her spot in the federal parliament for another three years.

In the election wash-up, Ms Ley was returned to cabinet as the environment minister.

DEPAN DEBACLE

THE discovery of unsuitable soil at the Lavington Sportsground redevelopment site two years ago wasn't the end to dramas associated with one of Albury Council's largest infrastructure projects.

The soil issues led to a $3.2 million blowout, but more dramas rolled out in March when Depan Group, which was appointed to complete the additional playing field and other facilities, entering into voluntary liquidation.

More than 10 sub-contractors who worked on the project were caught up in the company's collapse which remains unresolved at year's end.

Cr Murray King called a meeting of sub-contractors in the wake of the revelation and Farrer MP Sussan Ley put the acid on Albury Council to come to the rescue of those out of pocket as part of the federal election campaign.

CLANCY OVERFLOWS WITH SUPPORT

HE was jokingly likened to champion racehorse Winx in the lead-up to NSW election in March, but the comparison was on the money when Justin Clancy romped home as the Liberal candidate in the ultra-safe seat of Albury.

Greg Aplin announced his retirement last year from the position he had held for 15 years with veterinarian Mr Clancy preselected ahead of two other rivals.

His election was a walk in the park as he easily fended off the main challenge from Labor candidate Lauriston Muirhead.

During the year Mr Clancy voted in favour of the decriminalisation of abortion in NSW, but not before last minute amendments were made to the legislation which was eventually passed by the parliament.

TIGER TURMOIL

Albury Tigers decade-long domination of the Ovens and Murray league came to an end when the powerhouse outfit was bundled out of the finals series in straight sets.

But arguably a bigger Tigerland talking point came just four rounds into the season when the bombshell dropped that club and senior coach Peter German had parted ways.

German's exit amazingly came after a 133-point win, but rumblings of a strained relationship with senior players had been swirling around for weeks.

Club stalwart Tom McGrath and veteran player Luke Daly were appointed as co-coach replacements and re-appointed for 2020.

The Tigers were beaten in the first semi-final by Myrtleford with Lavington winning its first flag since 2005 by stunning pre-match favourites Wangaratta, which lost a second successive grand final on its home ground.

The grand final lead-up was laced with controversy when Magpies ruckman Zac Leitch was suspended for a week for striking Panthers eventual grand final hero Shaun Mannagh in the second semi-final Wangaratta won.

In a tit-for-tat response to Leitch being reported on video review, the Magpies cited Lavington coach Simon Curtis, who was also suspended for one match from an incident in the second semi-final.

Curtis appealed his suspension, but due to a backlog of cases was cleared to play in the preliminary final on a stay of proceedings before eventually having his suspension overturned on appeal and leading the Panthers on grand final day.

The Panthers beat the Magpies in the grand final by 34 points.

BIG DRY ROLLS ON

Drought dominated 2019 with the ongoing anger at zero water allocations in the southern Riverina being firmly directed at Canberra.

Water woes resulted in the National Party losing its stronghold of Murray which included the towns hardest hit by the drought, Deniliquin and Finley in the NSW election.

Angry irrigators then descended on Albury in the lead-up to the federal election in a show of support for independent candidate Kevin Mack, who was taking on Liberal incumbent, Sussan Ley.

But Farrer voters stuck with Ms Ley with irrigators then converging on Canberra late in the year to maintain a call for the Murray Darling Basin Plan to be canned.

Frustration also boiled over south of the river when Moira Shire was denied $1 million in federal government drought funding due to red tape.

The shire was informed the number of people employed in agriculture fell 0.1 short of the required 16.9 per cent to qualify for the funding.

END OF AN ERA

One of Albury's biggest employers for 40 years, the Norske Skog newsprint mill, had its fate sealed in October when owners announced the Ettamogah factory had been sold to paper giant, Visy.

The plant had 250 employees at its peak, but when the curtain came down there were 180 workers made redundant.

The final newsprint rolled off the production line in December ahead of the 2020 handover to Visy.

The sale followed on the heels of the 2018 gas explosion which claimed the lives of two employees.

Also in December it was confirmed Norske Skog had been charged with workplace health and safety breaches following the two after the suspected gas leak.

CRASH SHOCK

The Border racing community was left stunned in late October when leading Wodonga trainer Brian Cox was killed in a truck rollover in the Upper Murray.

Cox, who was in the final stages of a three and a half year ban following a marathon inquiry dating back to late 2016, was driving a concrete mixer near Talgarno.

He was a nine-time winner of his hometown Wodonga Cup and three-time Albury Cup winner.

2019 QUIZ: How well can you recall the year that's been on the Border?