This thought passed through this correspondent's addled mind as we were travelling over the bridge we've always known as Brown's Creek Bridge just last week.

This correspondent has been travelling over Brown's Creek Bridge for most of our natural life. We were a Chatham junior, so naturally to get to town generally required a trip via one of the two bridges that span the aforementioned Brown's Creek.

In all that time, and we're talking one and a half decades here, we've only ever known the waterway as Brown's Creek. A filthy, foul smelling and neglected embarrassment to the town it once was.

We have no idea who named it Brown's Creek, although we would guess it would be someone named Brown. Or perhaps it was because the water was brown. Who knows?

Now, due to the on-going and selfless rejuvenation work of the Friends of Brown's Creek (FOBC), the creek has been...well, rejuvenated.

Why, they tell us that fish have been spotted there, along with birdlife. Back in the day the only fish that would have been found in Brown's Creek would be ones that were hopelessly lost.

For the record under no circumstances are we having a shot at the FOBC here and we trust they'll continue with their worthwhile endeavours. So we hope Bill Dennis (one of the FOBC heavyweights) won't set his acid tongued family members on us for this piece.

A bit of local sporting history here. There was once a rugby league club around there known as Brown's Creek. The Creek, as they were rather unimaginably known, wore black and white jumpers, not brown and white, as would be expected. They were powerhouses in local rugby league just after the war, but eventually morphed into Taree United so the less said about them the better.

The majority of players worked at a shipyard domiciled on or near Brown's Creek way back then, hence the name, apparently.

But to the best of our knowledge the club wasn't ever known as Crooked Creek RLFC.

Crooked Creek/Brown's Creek was the subject of some fiery debate at Monday night footy at Struggle Street the other week.

"Never heard of Crooked Creek,'' one long term resident and Monday night footy devotee fumed after seeing the freshly minted signs earlier that day.

"Council's just wasting ratepayer's money again. They'd be better off fixing the potholes.''

Now we aren't all that well versed in this sort of thing. But we don't think the money spent on placing the signs would fill too many pock marks in the road although that's not really the point here.

We understand there was also a lengthy and at times heated conversation on Facebook on this subject recently as well, although there always seems to be lengthy and at times heated conversations on Facebook about something or another.

So we call on council to end the Crooked Creek furore once and for all. Show the community documented proof that the creek was once known as Crooked Creek. End the controversy now, we say.

And we can live in peace.