BY STAFF WRITERS
The FootyTown app is available right now on Google Play and features over 700+ locations and counting.
Enjoy ten locations from the app below including blurbs from the app.
Download and find them.
SIR DONALD BRADMAN
Former home of the greatest cricketer of all-time, while playing for NSW, Sir Donald Bradman. ‘The Don’ lived here between 1927 and 1934 and will forever be linked to the pioneering game of rugby league. A fast bowler playing for South Australia named Jack Scott was the first man to dismiss Bradman in Sheffield Shield cricket. Prior to moving to Adelaide, Jack Scott was a Sydney man and dabbled between rugby league and cricket. In fact, Scott played first grade footy for Newtown in 1908 as a centre and was the first try scorer in the history of NSWRL, in the game against Eastern Suburbs at Wentworth Park. Scott would then become a cricket umpire and stood in ten Test matches.
ERIC & RAY STEEDEN
This is the location of Australia’s oldest, and still-running butcher shop, operating since 1876. ‘Victor Churchill’ and other butcher shops across Sydney have a deep and meaningful link to rugby league and adoring youngsters over many decades. While the Steeden brothers were Brisbane-based, their leather footballs play a very important part in the game’s history. From the 1950s, the craftsmen brothers hand-stitched their footballs and would soon become the leading footy in both NSW and QLD. Buying a brand-new Steeden was not cheap and many kids would be presented with second-hand footballs. The trick was heading to the local butcher and buying lamb fat which would restore the stitching and polish the ball. Steeden is still the official football of the NRL, today.
ROGER COWAN
Former CEO of the Panthers of fourty years [1965-2005] and a founding father of the club, alongside Merv Cartwright.
“His entrepreneurial spirit and vision grew Panthers into the business it is today. His leadership was energetic and hands-on, and he gave great importance to the club’s employees’ interests, wellbeing and goals,” former Panthers chairman Barry Walsh said when Cowan passed in 2017.
A Gaming and Racing inquiry conducted by Ian Temby QC in 2004 found decades of alledged dubious dealings between Panthers and Cowan’s family business, Phyro Holdings. Several newspaper reports from 2004 found that Phyro had invoiced the club for upwards of $3million in that year alone for providing “legal, marketing and other services.”
Cowan’s family home was on Riverside Road in Emu Plains.
SYDNEY HARBOUR
Somewhere at the bottom of the world’s most famous harbour, an NRL premiership ring sits since 2014. While on their third day of Mad Monday celebrations after winning the grand final, South Sydney’s Dylan Walker’s ring slipped off his finger, over the side of the yacht and perished in the water. In 2025 during a police drug raid in Darwin, a 2014 premiership ring was found but apparently not Walker’s as he was given a replacement at the time. 72 rings were made in 2014, 20 awarded on grand final night to players and officials.
THE FEDERATION BELL
The Federation Bell was first rung out prior to the round one match between Souths and Norths at Birchgrove Oval in 1908. Lower grade Souths player Albert Clift began a life-long obsession with Rabbitohs memorabilia and support of the club. Clift bought the bell in the 1920s and was part of his collection for many decades. Clift was also a long-time timekeeper and the team’s first ‘Reggie Rabbit’ mascot in the 1960s. A 97-year-old Clift rung the bell alongside Russell Crowe moments before the club’s return to the NRL in 2002.
IAN COLLIS
Former address of of R T Furse Accountants where Ian Collis worked between 1990 and 1995 [he became an accountant in 1972]. A few years earlier, Collis began collecting rugby league memoribilia. A historian, author and stats buff, Collis and Terry Liberopoulos [founder and editor of Rugby League Review], first worked with Super League in 1997, providing revolutionairy stats for live matches. In 2006, Collis, alongside David Middleton, created NRL Stats. From 2007 until 2019, Collis ran Fox Sports’ stats department.
THE KING OF TONGA
Story goes several Sharks players were at the St George Sailing Club in the 1980s after a big day on the drink. St George cult hero John ‘The King of Tonga’ Fifita walked in and quietly asked them to leave. The Cronulla group quickly left.
Fifita was quite a character who could speak very little English and was the first Tongan-born player to feature in first grade in Sydney. A destructive prop or second-rower, Fifita could put the fear into defensive sides if they heard the call, “Johnny ball.” Despite barely throwing a pass during his six years in first grade, many St George fans believe that the Dragons could have won the 1985 grand final if Fifita was fit.
A famous drinker, former Dragons coach Roy Masters once wrote of Fifita’s exploits in The Sydney Morning Herald: ‘Fifita called teammates by their most identifiable characteristic, so schooner-loving Chris Johns was named “Foster”. He also caused a stir when he left for an off-season with Castleford, being farewelled at the airport by two women, whom he identified as “black wife” and “white wife”.
OLD BALMAIN LEAGUES CLUB
Address of the original Balmain Leagues Club before shifting to Victoria Road. Club legend Bill Kelly worked as an MC for many events at both the Nelson Street location and then when they shifted to Victoria Road. Kelly is just one of four men to represent both New Zealand and Australia. After playing rugby union and rugby league in New Zealand, Kelly moved to Balmain in 1914 and was immediately selected to play for the Kangaroos. The following season, Kelly was the captain/coach of the Tigers in their maiden premiership victory and the first Kiwi to appear in a NSWRL grand final. In 1917 while stationed in Belguim, Kelly was badly wounded when a German bomb landed near his machine gun post. It was the last Kelly would see of the war. In retirement, Kelly became the ‘Prince of Coaches’, leading Balmain to the 1939 premiership. He also coached University, Newtown, St George and Canterbury.
SEA BREEZE HOTEL
John Raper says his great teammate Eddie Lumdsen was the “laziest man I ever saw” [as per Larry Writer’s ‘Never Before, Never Again]. Provan showed up in a truck to help move furniture for Lumdsen’s parents who were moving to their new home on the South Coast. According to the book, Eddie complained for hours and that everything was too heavy. Eddie’s wife Sybbie couldn’t take it anymore and told her husband to call Billy Wilson to help. Once arriving on the South Coast, Lumdsden jumped out of the truck and saw a group of kids across the road. Eddie headed over and explained who he was and had a sore back with a big game on the weekend. The boys helped unload the truck while Eddie watched on. On the way back in the truck, Lumdsen spotted teammates Ian Walsh and Kevin Brown sitting outside the old Sea Breeze Hotel on Tom Uglys Bridge.
“Eddie reckoned he’d earned a drink after all his hard work and wanted to join them, but I said I wanted to go home and shower and change first. So he pulled my keys out of the truck’s ignition and threw them way down under the bridge and while I was scrambling around searching for them he had his beers with the boys.”
OZTAG
Oztag was created in the early 1990s by former St George, Cronulla and Illawarra halfback Perry Haddock while the retired playmaker was coaching the Saints President’s Cup side. The first ever official Oztag games were played at Barton Park in Banksia in 1992. This version of rugby league currently has over 200,000 participants across Australia.
Part Two: Ten amazing locations from Curtis Woodward’s FootyTown app available now on Google Play
Part One: Ten amazing locations from Curtis Woodward’s FootyTown app available now on Google Play
