More than a century after the Albury Sportsground was used as a quarantine camp during the Spanish Flu outbreak, one of the city's showpiece venues is being called onto help in another major medical crisis, albeit in less dramatic circumstances.
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Following an extraordinary chain of events, players from the NRL powerhouse Melbourne Storm stepped onto the ground on Wednesday to train together for the first time in six weeks, ahead of the national competition re-starting on May 28.
But the Storm were in danger of being sent back to Melbourne when permission to train at the city's dedicated rugby league ground, Greenfield Park, was blocked on a highly contentious 5-4 vote of a councillor group largely upset they had been kept out of the loop of such a major decision.
The vote split not only the mayor Kevin Mack and his deputy, Amanda Cohn, but two medical professionals on the nine-member council, Cr Cohn and Cr John Stuchbery.
Cr Cohn was one of the most outspoken opponents of the Storm coming to town.
"I'm not willing to bet the lives of my most vulnerable patients on NRL players following the rules," she said.
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Cr Stuchbery disagreed and said people travelling on the troubled North East rail service were at more risk of catching coronavirus than the Storm players.
Cr Mack warned the city had scored a major own goal in making life difficult for a national sporting team in a competition it hopes will look favourably upon using another city sporting jewel, the Lavington Sportsground, presently undergoing a major, but trouble plagued upgrade.
It is due to be completed later this year after initially starting in 2016 with the assistance of significant federal and state government investment.
Former NRL best and fairest winner Mike Eden, who has called Albury home for a decade and has been involved in the talks about bringing the Storm to town, fears the repercussions of the decision will be felt for years.
"The negative backlash nationwide will make it very difficult for council's events team to attract elite sport in the future," he said.
"It hasn't done the brand any good, anywhere.
"If you were the CEO of an elite sporting competition, you would be looking to go to Tamworth before Albury.
"Red carpet, not red tape is what I thought Albury was all about.
"This has made it very difficult now for that message to get across to anyone."
But Cr Darren Cameron doubted any organisation would be so "bloody minded" about such dealings.
"There is a suggestion I've got rocks in my head if I believe the NRL or Melbourne Storm will ever come to Albury again," he said.
"It an offensive position to take and what it says is the NRL and Melbourne Storm are so vindictive and would engage in such vindictive behaviour they would blacklist Albury and not come to Albury out of spite because they didn't get their way.
"It's a nonsense and I don't believe the Melbourne Storm operates that way and I don't believe the NRL operates that way.
"I can't believe any professional organisation would stoop to using those tactics."
Albury Tigers were contacted on Tuesday morning about their homeground being the plan-B option if Melbourne Storm could not use Greenfield Park.
The ground, like all community sport grounds, has sat idle in recent weeks.
"The ground had only been mowed a couple of days beforehand," club president Stuart Hodgson said.
"Nobody has been inside the facility for six weeks.
"I don't want to get involved in any of the politics of what has happened to get to this point.
"It's not for any of us uneducated to comment.
"There are suitably qualified people in place for the federal and state governments making these decisions.
"They are the experts and as much as we all might be frustrated with what the situation is we've all got to abide by the laws and do what we're told."
He hopes the Storm resuming training might be a small sign community sport is also coming back.
"It might be the first few steps of the whole process and if it is we are happy to play a part."
He said he remained unsure whether the Tigers would be seen in action on the sportsground this year.
"The AFL hasn't said when they are going to start yet," he said.
"Everyone wants to be doing what they are normally doing at this time of the year."
"We can't stay in lockdown forever," he said.
"The protocols the NRL has in place are greater than any government restrictions.
"We are following all the rules and regulations.
"Albury has been trying to get the Storm back for about a decade now (for a pre-season game), we had a long-term relationship with the local region and we're really disappointed about this
"But the Albury Tigers have stepped up."
Albury Council chief executive Frank Zaknich explained during the extraordinary meeting the Tigers homeground was a back-up plan if the Greenfield Park proposal crashed.
The ground is leased to the Tigers, but in a separate arrangement to other sporting clubs in the city which use council-owned facilities, the O and M club manages the venue on an "exclusive" use basis with an ability to sub-lease, as has happened with the Storm.
"Council has no direct management of that site. It is leased to Albury Tigers with an exclusive use provision with exclusive use being for the purposes of the ground, so sporting events and the like," Mr Zaknich said.
The Joss family, largely, has transformed the sportsground into a high class facility in the past two decades with rugby league and rugby trials played at the ground in addition to O and M matches.
The venue also hosted a rock concert in 2010 when Powderfinger toured as part of its farewell tour.
The Tigers signed up on a long-term lease deal in the mid-2010s, but a decade earlier a plan was floated by council to relocate the club to create better links between the Murray River and the Albury CBD.
The possibility of the Storm coming to Albury to train emerged in early April when the state of emergency in place in Victoria, which prevents the club from staying in Melbourne and using AAMI Park, was extended.
As part of its due diligence, Storm officials travelled to Albury later in the month to inspect facilities before it emerged Yarrawonga-Mulwala was also in the mix.
But the latter option fell over when an exemption to use Yarrawonga's J.C. Lowe Oval to train was knocked back by the state government due to the venue being inside the Victorian border.
Yarrawonga Football Netball Club president Ross Mulquiney said his dealings with local government officials about the possibility of the Storm using the J.C. Lowe Oval had only been positive.
The Melbourne Storm vote adds to a long list of contentious decisions made by the council in its current term, which has included an unpopular plan to introduce lane hire swimming fees for local swimming and water polo clubs and ongoing dramas associated with the Lavington Sportsground redevelopment.
Council elections were due to be held in September, but the NSW government pushed them back to next year early in the coronavirus crisis.
Cr Mack will face an election for his mayoral title later this year with rumblings of a challenge in the air.
Cr David Thurley, who voted against the Storm coming to town, has flagged his interest in the top job, but the dust is yet to settle from this cyclone.
