BY STAFF WRITERS
Curtis Woodward’s FootyTown app is out, about and in full-swing, with 1500 locations and available on the App Store and Google Play.
While we’re always adding new locations on a daily basis – it is after all – Rugby League World Cup time!
There’s no Australian rugby league without Sydney and there’s no Sydney without rugby league.
Here’s ten Kangaroos-related locations on the app…
Download the app to find out more and the locations!
CHARLES ‘CHOOK’ FRASER
Home where Balmain Tigers champion Charles “Chook” Fraser was born in 1893. The gun fullback or centre won an incredible six premierships with Balmain and was selected for the 1911 Kangaroo……..
VIC HEY
Legendary Australian and Magpies five-eighth Vic Hey lived on this street for many years. Nicknamed “The Human Bullet”, Hey was selected for the Kangaroo Tour in his debut season and won a premiership with the Magpies the following year.
Decades before Jack Gibson and Ron Massey introduced NFL-style video sessions, it was Hey who first used match films……..
THE FORDHAM COMPANY
Long-time, and current, business address of The Fordham Company, founded by John Fordham. In the mid 1990s, Fordham’s clients included QE2 and Tyrells Wines. He also had one rugby league player on his booking during the Super League War… a halfback named Ricky Stuart.
Negotiations to get Stuart out of his original News Limited contract, which was signed alongside Raiders teammates in Townsville in early 1995, was in full swing with ARL lawyers promising Stuart and Fordham they could get him out of that contract and jump back to the ARL. The offer from the Packer-backed ARL was worth $1million a season.
Reported by Mike Colman in his book ‘Super League’, Stuart had 24 hours to make a decision. Journalists were living on Stuart’s front lawn……..
RAY NORMAN
Location of South Sydney’s premiership-winning Kangaroo representative five-eighth Ray Norman’s funeral in 1971. Ray had three brothers, Bernard, Roy and Rex Norman, who all played first grade football. Ray Norman, who kicked the ball off both feet, was ahead of his time and published a book on the tactics of first grade football. In 1941, he produced the game’s first instruction film called ‘Football Fundamentals’ ……..
THE ‘ELVIS PRESLEY’ OF RUGBY LEAGUE
Future Sydney and Brisbane star, and Kangaroo Frank Drake went to school at Rozelle Christian Brothers College before leaving to become an electrician.
From the creativewriter.com.au:
“While he was doing extremely well on the field, he was starting to receive some negative attention off it. The mid-to-late 1950s was a time when pop culture in America saw the birth of rock’n’roll in music and the rebellious anti-hero in movies. Elvis Presley was the undisputed ‘king’ of the new music craze. One of the biggest hit movies of this time was The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando as a motorbike-riding, leather-clad gang leader. When this culture started to have an impact in Australia, older citizens were horrified. Parents were worried that their children would start to act and dress like these stars, and that this would lead to juvenile delinquency. Frank rode a motorcycle, wearing leathers, ‘spaceman’ boots and gauntlets, and had long ‘Elvis-like’ sideburns. He was considered good-looking, and while he signed autographs……..
ANNIE MESSENGER
A story from Dally R. Messenger’s book ‘The Master’ about family matriarch and Dally’s mum, Annie Messenger…
“Like most women of the Victorian era, she always had a keen sense of what was proper. When she was in her seventies and long after her husband was dead, from her home in Castra Place at the end of Pearce Street, she visited an old male friend on the other side of Double Bay and stayed for the evening meal. By the time she decided to walk home it was quite late.
“Her son, Wally [former Easts premiership-winner and Kangaroo], was also coming home late that night, and close to midnight, almost bumped into her in a back street. “Mother,” he said, “what on earth are you doing walking the streets at this time of night?”
“When Mother explained where she had been, Wally asked, “Why on earth didn’t you catch a taxi?”
“What, and not have everyone in Pearce Street notice……..
LEN SMITH
One of the biggest rugby league scandals of the 1940s was when imcumbent Australian captain/coach Len Smith missed selection for the 1948 Kangaroo tour despite also just being named the premiership’s player of the year and leading Australia to a series win over New Zealand. The SCG game day programme was full of praise for the new skipper who was now a Dual International and a war hero:
“Playing his first Rugby League match for Australia to-day Len Smith has the double honor of captaining the home side,” the preview began.
“He is the bulwark of the Australian defence and the spearhead of attack, a strong running centre three quarter whose soundness in every phase of the game makes him such a desirable type to lead in an international match.”
Smith’s name was then not read out for the touring party.
Rumour has it Smith……..
JIM ABERCROMIE [MASKELL]
The peculiar case, and home street, of pioneering Kangaroo and Wests Magpies big man, Jim Abercrombie. Born in South Australia as James Maskell, Abercrombie would change his surname several times over the years. In 1907, while playing rugby union for NSW in a tour match against Western Australia, Abercrombie was suspended for 14 months for kicking an opponent. That sent Abercrombie toward rugby league. In early 1908, Abercrombie attended several town hall meetings for new fledgling rugby league clubs, including Norths and Western Suburbs. Without Norths or Wests knowing, they’d both voted him as inaugural committee……..
BRETT KENNY
Growing up Brett Kenny almost picked baseball over rugby league with dad Alan “Lucky” Kenny, an Australian baseball hall of famer, who helped build several local baseball clubs including Blacktown Workers. ‘Bert’ eventually took footy seriously and was scouted just as quickly by the Eels. Kenny scored two tries in three-straight grand final appearances and was then denied two tries in the 1986 grand final which the Eels won against the Bulldogs. Kenny went on the 1982 and 1986 Kangaroo Tours and dominated an individual State of Origin battle with Wally Lewis over many seasons. The incredibly classy five-eighth also won the Golden Boot in 1985……..
DAN FRAWLEY
This building was once a butcher where a young Dan Frawley would go and collect the family’s meat before sprinting home, side-stepping anything in front of him with the meat tucked under his arm. Frawley would become an Eastern Suburbs champion and a pioneeing Australian Kangaroo. Malcolm Andrews tells a great story in his book, ‘ABC of Rugby League’.
“In one match for Easts against South Sydney, Frawley was playing on the wing, outside the man they dubbed ‘The Master’, Dally Messenger. That day, Messenger was trying to do too much himself and rarely passed the ball to Frawley. Upset, the Easts fans began to chant: ‘Why don’t they feed Frawley?’ His father was in the crowd and eventually the chants of ‘Feed Frawley’ got on his goat. He turned to the barrackers and shouted: ‘I’ll have you know that I’m his father. And young Dan gets a pound of steak every day except Friday!'”
Frawley is also the only man to represent both Australia and Great Britain……..
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