It was with some fondness that I visited Werribee’s newest bar recently.
You see, I remember the newly refurbished Park Hotel when it was called the Tudor.
On the edge of Station Place, the Tudor was a proverbial ‘spit and sawdust’ pub.
While working as a local journalist in 2006, I was given four tickets to a wrestling match and told to bring some friends, so turned up with my husband and friends of ours, a married couple.
Our VIP seats were four plastic garden chairs, right next to the smelly changing rooms and a huge wrestling ring.
As we sipped complimentary pots of beer, there were a dozen bouts of overly dramatic, American-style wrestling, complete with loads of bicep curling, snarling and chest beating. And that was just the female contenders.
When the final contest, a blood match between ‘The Grudge’ and ‘Ironhorse’, mercifully ended, two rather attractive and scantily clad women appeared, at which point my friend and I dragged our husbands home.
My story, meant as a general interest fluff piece, ended up on the front page in what must have been a slow news week.
As a community we have often railed against those who mention Werribee with contempt, usually associating our municipality with the words ‘bogan’, ‘feral’ or ‘poo farm’.
For me, the metamorphosis of the old Tudor hotel to a sophisticated bar and restaurant is a sign of Werribee’s continuing rejuvenation.
Gradual changes to the commercial centre — our transformation from rough to cut diamond — has been a slow but rewarding process.
And while my only wrestling experience gave me a colourful story to tell, long may the positive progress in Werribee’s old heart continue.
Emma Sutcliffe is a freelance writer and is on Facebook at ‘Little River Emma’.
