life and football 1920s-1960s in Tumut, Gundagai, Cootamundra, Young, Harden-Murrumburrah, Junee, Temora, Barmedman, West Wyalong, Cowra, Grenfell and Boorowa
Wal Galvin Source: image posted on Cootamundra Remembers by Bernice Bristow
Some men are remembered fondly in Maher Cup Country because they were fine and fair players. Some are remembered because they excelled at administration. Others are etched in our memory for their indefatigable team loyalty. A few are remembered for being painstaking recorders of history – for their commitment to keeping the memories alive.
Wal Galvin is remembered for all of the above.
Born in 1927 he was the youngest son of Owen Galvin, a sharefarmer of Yeo Yeo Road near Stockinbingal.
A teenager during the war years there was little football to be played. However in 1946 Wal played for the Stock team against local clubs like Wallendbeen and the Old Boys and Railway teams from Cootamundra. Continue reading →
So far 3,233 accounted for with a few others still in hiding. The latest alphabetic list of players is here. The chronological match and team members list with scorers is here.
Of these 3,233 men some 150 played in the Maher Cup for two different clubs, 19 for three clubs and just two, Clarrie Joyce and Frank Blundell played for four. Clarrie Joyce was a builder from Tumut who played in the first Maher Cup match back in 1920. He then joined Gundagai in 1921, West Wyalong in 1923, and Cootamundra, where he settled, in 1926. He died when still quite Young. Blundell the energetic father of squash champion Heather McKay, hailed from Queanbeyan and played there as well. He was a baker and like Joyce he had a occupation that enabled him to easily relocate his work. Continue reading →
It took a decade, 1911-1921, for Rugby League to succeed Union in what became Maher Cup country. It did not set up in competition to it – in most places it simply replaced it. Below is a brief history.
The Sydney competition under ‘Northern Union’ rules, as it was often referred to then, with its 13 players and the playing of the ball, commenced in 1908. Spectators were excited by the open flow of the game and players preferred it. By 1911, with a rapidly growing fan base, a most successful tour by the British Lions, and defections from the Wallabies, League had become ascendant in the city. However country towns didn’t just follow fashion and fall into line. Continue reading →
Maher Cup Country was and is a pretty culturally homogenous place, but there was always enough of a mix to make it interesting.
An hour before the first ever Maher Cup match Otto (Boydie) Beegling, the butcher’s son, and a highly respected young man from Tumut, warmed up the crowd when he took on a Adelong rival in a challenge footrace at the oval. Eric Weissel, Bill Lesberg, Eric Kuhn, Charlie Schwartzel, Henry, Les and Tony Gelfius, Joe Steinke, Paul Butz, Len Koch and a 100 or more others with German names helped bring home the Cup to excited communities. Continue reading →
There is probably no-one as revered in Maher Cup football as Ron Crowe. In 1965 when he was aged just 32 the new Rugby League ground at West Wyalong was named in his honour. When in 1962 he accepted an offer to play for Souths we all became Rabbitoh fans at Toppy school. Ron and brother Les cut wood in the mallee country. My dad, a farmer, bought strainer posts from the Crowe brothers and used to point to them and say, they’re just like ‘Dookie’, a little bit bigger, and stronger and tougher than your regular posts. Off the field Ron Crowe was a most gentle man. Continue reading →
After the war increasingly enormous efforts were made to wrest the Holy Grail and awash local pubs, cafes and sundry businesses in Maher Cup money.
Legendary internationals with plenty of fire still in the bellies went west in the late 1940s – Joe Jorgenson to Junee, Herb Narvo to Cootamundra, Clem Kennedy to Grenfell, Nevyl Hand to Gundagai and George Watt to Boorowa. Barmedman scored probably the best man never to play for his country – Tom Kirk. The results were mixed. Narvo, Watt and Kennedy brought the Cup home – albeit all briefly. Jorgenson disappeared. Hand failed and was replaced – but phoenix-like became the inspirational leader of possibly the best side ever formed in country NSW. Fred De Belin, Kangaroo and partner with Harry Bath in the second row of Balmain’s 1946 premiership winning team, was intending to follow suit. Continue reading →
This old book from 1940, probably the first attempt to record in any detail the history of the Maher Cup, has been kindly shared with this site by a player of the time. The book promoted 2LF’s live broadcasts which had commenced in 1938. Initially there were complaints from clubs that these broadcasts ‘hurt the gate’. However they did much to develop a deep interest in the game throughout the region at a time when people huddled around their radios for entertainment. Continue reading →
Below are those who in my calculation played in 50 or more Maher Cup matches.
69 matches –Lionel ‘Nick’ Cullen (Harden-Murrumburrah) – 1950 to 1970 – and still playing first grade after the Maher Cup finished. A Harden local (Aurville), he played for over two decades for his home town with remarkable resilience and consistency. According to Eric Kuhn he was one of only two players who participated in every match in Harden-Murrumburrah’s amazing 29 Maher Cup streak from 1958-1960. He later coached local teams and still lives in the area.
66 matches –Bill Lesberg(properly Leseberg) (Cootamundra) – 1922 to 1931. It’s quite amazing that Lesberg was aged 28 when he played his first Maher Cup match for Cootamundra and still had time to amass 66 appearances. Victorian-born, his winter sporting interest had initially been Australian Rules – where he developed his phenomenal kicking skills. Long, accurate, both placed and dropped goals (when the latter was worth two points), often from ridiculous angles and with either foot, resulted in ‘Berg’ being the Cup’s undisputed all-time point scorer. Like most of the men in this list, train driver Lesberg worked and then lived his retired days in Cootamundra’s Warren Sub.
Cootamundra 1926: with eight players who qualify for the over 50 match club: Bill Leseberg (far left), Ray Sheedy (4th from left), Jack Kingston (6th), Gordon Hinton (7th), Eric Weissel (8th), Jack Watson (10th), Dade Quinlan (2nd from right), Phil Regan (at end).
66 matches –Sid Hall (Young & Bendick Murrell (one game)) – 1925 to 1945. A brilliant and tough centre for Young, Sid Hall declared his retirement from the game aged 31, in 1933. The next year we was back as the teams’ captain-coach. Not even the hiatus of the war years wearied him – he was part of a highly successful Cherrypickers’ Maher Cup side that reformed in 1945. He finally retired aged 43.
65 matches –Eric Weissel(Cootamundra and Temora) – 1922 to 1934 . The brilliance of ‘The Wizard’ – on display most winter Wednesdays at Cootamundra in the 1920s – probably did more than anything else to enshrine the Maher Cup with legendary status. Although he spent all his life in the Riverina, representative games and international duties frequently took him away. Further the vagaries of the Maher Cup draw resulted in his adopted club Temora being granted no challenge for two years between July 1927 and July 1929, when the team turned their attention to other challenge cups in play, particularly the Jack Hore Gold Cup. In 1930 Temora created their own Eric Weissel Cup – which is still in play.
65 matches –Ray ‘Rawbones’ Sheedy(Cootamundra) – 1922 to 1928 – hooker in almost all Coota’s matches during their golden era; died in 1950 after falling from an electric train in Sydney.
64 matches –Ron ‘Dookie’ Crowe(West Wyalong and Barmedman) – 1951 to 1971. If he wasn’t so good we would have played more matches. Scores of representative games for group, region, NSW and Australia, as well as commuting to South Sydney during 1962, kept him away from many Maher Cup games. The Cup petered out in the late 60s but ‘Dookie’ Crowe was still able and available for West Wyalong and Barmedman will beyond its demise. He retired from playing football well after the Maher Cup era, in 1978, aged 45.
64 matches –Bill Kearney(Young) – 1933 to 1946. If there was anyone who could be dubbed Mr Maher Cup it would be Kearney. His influence went well beyond being a player; as coach, broadcaster, club official, local government councillor and businessman. Kearney was a most effective captain and a deft kicker, who played and led during Young’s most successful footballing period. He was a big personality remembered by all, mightily respected, but not always loved.
64 matches –Jack Watson(Cootamundra) – 1924 to 1932 – consistently in-form winger in Coota’s glorious 1920s team; captain in 1931.
62 matches –Col Quinlan(Barmedman) – 1945 to 1966. Probably no-one played Maher Cup football over such a long period; from aged 16 to 37 (brother-in-law ‘Rusty’ Gorham comes close). The driving force within the feared Barmedman forward pack – dubbed the Clydesdales – ‘Guts’ Quinlan just kept playing on and on. He collapsed and died while working on his farm in 1967.
57 matches – Les‘Dade’ Quinlan(Cootamundra) – 1922 to 1927 – First Word War veteran and consistent Coota forward who didn’t play Maher Cup until aged 29. From a farming family at Yathella, he never married and quietly worked as a general hand at Cootamundra’s Sacred Heart Hospital for many years. He died in 1961.
55 matches –Phil Regan(Cootamundra) – 1922 to 1927 – from Glebe where he played first grade from 1911; wounded in the Great War; and probably the first paid player-coach in the bush when he took the Coota job, also aged 29.
55 matches –Eric Kuhn(Barmedman and Harden-Murrumburrah) – 1953 to 1968. From a farming family at Weethalle in the mallee country, Eric was enticed to ignore the local club, West Wyalong, and play for Barmedman. Under Keith Gittoes the littlest village in Maher Cup Country enjoyed a most successful Cup run in 1955 – with young Eric becoming a star half back. In 1957 Harden started to build a powerful team and signed up the ‘The Mighty Atom’. He was an essential ingredient in the most successful Maher Cup side ever. Eric later coached teams at Harden, Murrumburrah, Galong and Bathurst. He and still resides in Harden.
55 matches –Garry Lanham(Harden-Murrumburrah and Cootamundra) – 1957 to 1966 – started Maher Cup football aged 17; partnered Nick Cullen in Harden’s second row during the ‘Hyphenates’ record run 1958-1960.
53 matches –Gordon Hinton(Cootamundra) – 1926 to 1932 – originally from Gunnedah played at Armidale before coming to Coota. He was also a boxer and swimmer; kidney injury limited his full potential. He made his career as a fireman in Sydney. Died in 1996, buried at Cootamundra.
52 matches –Abe Hall (Young) – 1929 to 1941 – Sid’s little brother; another to start playing Maher Cup aged 16; died in 1950 in an industrial accident at Grenfell.
50 matches –Jack Kingston(Cootamundra and Young) – 1925 to 1932 – Coota international who toured with Weissel to play the English; also played at Young, Leeton, Kiama, Western Suburbs, Werris Creek and maybe elsewhere.
If you think you know someone who I’ve overlooked for the 50 Club tell me and I’ll tally them up as we now have almost complete teams for the 729 Maher Cup matches played.
I have created a list of more than 3,300 people who have played for the Maher Cup. I believe it includes more than 99% of players 1920-1971. Often names are miss-spelled in newspaper reports. Frequently surnames only are printed. Two newspapers covering the same match can produce differing player lists. Match programs give the selected team, not the team that took to the field – so checking, expansion and correction of the data will be ongoing. Continue reading →
No matter how tough and physically damaging Maher Cup matches were there were many warriors who just kept on battling on, long after their ears had turned to cauliflowers. A handful played for more than 20 seasons.
Below are a very select group of stoic stalwarts – men with a minimum of 18 seasons between their first and last Maher Cup matches. Continue reading →
