DIARY UPDATE | WEEK 2, 2025

MONDAY, JANUARY 6

New World Darts Champion, 17-year-old Luke Littler, is a Warrington Rugby League fan. Darts is a working man’s ‘activity’ just as rugby league is still very much a working man’s sport. 

Here in Australia the battle is on between the various sporting codes, to get the loyalty of youngsters. The January edition of ‘Hills Echo’ includes registration day ads for hockey, netball, Australian rules, rugby union, touch and rugby league. The league club is Albany Creek Crushers. Aussie rules (Aspley Hornets) is given space for an editorial, probably because they have placed the most expensive ad., and there is nothing wrong with that. Former Queensland Origin forward, Billy Moore is looking forward to this year on two footy fronts – reunions for the 1995 side which defied the odds to win the Origin series 3-0 – and an announcement by the NRL that a new side will play out of Perth, in conjunction with Billy’s old club, North Sydney. He has his fingers crossed for the second one.

There is an outbreak of something called HMVP in China. Let’s hope the Chinese Government doesn’t let loose its people for their New Year, if this is something akin to Covid. They wouldn’t do that, now would they. The Chinese Government has such a wonderful regard for other countries.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 7

Former Broncos, Penrith and St George Illawarra coach, Anthony ‘Hook’ Griffin is back in Brisbane on a Christmas/New Year break. I have a nice chat with him at Gaythorne RSL where he is having lunch. ‘Hook’ is Director of Rugby at the Eastwood club on Sydney’s northside. Former Wallaby, and Sydney Roosters’ rugby league centre, Brett Papworth is club president, and ‘Hook’ rates him highly. In his younger days, Anthony would stay just up the road from Gaythorne RSL with his mate, Brogan Melit, son of former Brothers’ winger, and then president, Frank Melit. “The club was a bit wild in those days,” Griffin says. “It’s certainly gentrified now.” Anthony is a rugby (league and union) consultant and his services have been utilised by Tonga Rugby League coach, Kristian Woolf and also the West Australian Government’s NRL Bid (which he thought was just about over the line). I also run into a ridiculously fit Wests Panthers’ historian, Nigel Cox, who played his junior football across the road at Wests Mitchelton. Nigel, ex-Army, is working on a documentary involving rugby league and the Armed Forces.

Council mowers ‘in action’ at Corbett Park here in Samford. Hope they do a better job than just before Christmas when they absolutely butchered the grassland. They left behind enough heaped grass to supply the Northern Territory cattle herd. I almost got the residents of Samford Grove out with garden rakes for a photo to send to Moreton Council, to embarrass their workers. Maybe the council could get the workers to get into the Telstra depot in Camp Mountain Road. It hasn’t seen a law mower for eons.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8

The mighty Newtown Jets (previously the Bluebags) celebrate their 117^th birthday and lay claim to the title Australia’s oldest rugby league club. The Jets play out of Henson Park, and there is even a beer named after the ground – Henson Park Draught. The Wallabies go into camp in Sydney ahead of their campaign against the British and Irish Lions. They will get hammered – by the Lions, I mean. Former South African rugby union star/turned league star, Fred Griffiths comes up in conversation with neighbour, Gary Gardner. We were talking footy and the goal kicking of Great Britain hooker, John Gray in 1974. For many Australians John was the first round-the-corner kicker they had seen. Fred wasn’t an around the corner kicker, but he was quite nonchalant with his style, according to Gary, who followed North Sydney.

Samford Museum re-opens and volunteers start prep for Australia Day celebrations.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 9

A fire engine and two police cars roar into Samford from Brisbane at 2.30 p.m.

Neighbour, Gill Outen, like many young Aussie girls at the time, embarked on a back packing/working holiday around New Zealand in the late 1960s. Gill, from Tasmania, worked in the orchards of Motueka on the tip of NZ’s South Island, and also in bars and cafes in Wanganui and Christchurch. My wife Marie (nee Donnelly) travelled to NZ with close friends, Janell Vidler and Michelle Gordon, the three girls working in the tobacco at Motueka. Marie stayed three years and also worked in office jobs in Hamilton and Christchurch.

Watch part of  1968 Sydney Rugby League preliminary final between Souths and St George. There is some quality stuff and Bob Moses (Souths) is Man of the Match. Bob was a barman at a Sydney pub across the road from where I was staying on assignment for News Ltd in the 1990s.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 10

The Herald Sun’s top AFL writer, Mark ‘Robbo’ Robinson has retired, and is afforded close to a full page in ‘The Courier-Mail’, which I think is way too much for a Melbourne scribe. I only met ‘Robbo’ once – at Channel 9’s Brisbane studios for the filming of an episode of Main Game for FoxSports. He had been in Queensland covering a Lions game (I think) and had had a big night. He was very dusty indeed, and I didn’t envy the make-up girl her job.

Our youngest grandson, Connor turns 8 and celebrates his birthday on Moreton Island with his father, Lliam and older brother Ethan. There is a small beached shark and Connor does his best to put it out to sea, but it is plainly dead. Lliam and the boys are having a great time staying in a house on Moreton. The nearby resort of Tangalooma host hordes of cruise passengers disgorged by tenders.

There is a blessing of the Trophies by an Indigenous elder at the Tennis Tournament in Adelaide. I didn’t know there were aboriginals blessings. You learn something new every day. But then again, I imagine every culture has a version of a blessing.

Marie and I enjoy Happy Hour at Samford Grove. Eris Platt, a former PA at the XXXX Brewery and then the Broncos, tells stories about leading a party of 33 men on a European tour many years ago. I can’t imagine leading 33 women around Europe. Eris and her husband, Russell always loved the company of former Wallaby, Chris ‘Buddha’ Handy, when he was licensee of the Jubilee Hotel in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 11

Wake to an overnight text from Laurie Parker from Charleville to say that former Queensland forward, Les Geeves has died (See Vale Les Geeves this website). I have a nice chat with Laurie, just as he is heading to buy The Australian. (He prefers the Sydney Morning Herald).

There has never been a British rugby league player Knighted, while the honour has fallen to heaps of union types, as well as Ian Botham. I wasn’t aware of this until alerted to it by fellow League historian, Lyle Beaton. Plenty of league players have received MBEs or OBEs, or received honourable mentions, but none have been Knighted. Of course, we have ‘Sir Graham Lowe’ in the Southern Hemisphere. Lyle says ‘The Times’ have an article about the ‘oversight’, but only because they were alerted to it by Kevin Sinfield, who has had roles in rugby union. If he had stayed a ‘leaguei’, he probably would have been ignored. Lyle thinks Ellery Hanley should be knighted, but that could be a stretch. Then again – Botham!

A big freeze in the UK sees the RFL postpone a number of Challenge Cup rugby league matches. It is hot in Newcastle, Australia as Harold Matthews (under-17) trials are held involving Newcastle, Wests Tigers and South Sydney. Chase Butler, grandson of my good mate, Greg Grainger, is Newcastle captain. The Knights are coached by former Test forward, Steve Simpson. This time in 1995 Marie and I were staying at a caravan park at Waratah in Newcastle with two of our children – Melanie and Lliam – as our eldest son, Damien represented Brisbane North in a cricket carnival. Damien was billeted by a family. Grainger says the same caravan park was subject to a drug bust not so long ago. My wife reminds me her great grandmother, on her Mum’s side (Mrs Amos) loved her cricket.

Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham have been drawn to play Tamworth in the FA Cup. Geez. It’s a long way to come.

Our daughter, Melanie Mariotto undertakes a swim instructor’s course at Miami Pool and stays overnight at the Tweed Heads’ home of my brother, Jeff and his wife, Ann. Our friends from Devon in England, John and Glenda Tapp, are holidaying in the Dolomites in Italy, where it is minus 6. Not as cold as Leeds.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 12

Melanie has huge wraps on the organisation of the Australian Open. That’s high praise indeed because ‘Mel’ is a gun events organiser. The 120^th Open gets underway in Melbourne, and my wife will be glued to the channels of Nine for a big part of the next fortnight. One of Channel 9’s commentators says “Mr Ruud has run out of balls’ – hope it wasn’t Rodney Rude.

I stumble across a channel devoted entirely to episodes of The Lone Ranger. As a kid I loved that show, and had no idea the theme music – the William Tell Overture – harked back to 1829. I thought it was penned especially for the TV series. Likewise, when Billy Thorpe released ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ I boasted to my parents that the Aussie lad had come up with a song even they would like. Of course it was his version of the 1930s song made famous by Judy Garland. Learn of the passing of America singer, Sam Moore. I loved a number of his songs, particularly ‘Soothe Me’ and ‘Hold on I’m comin’.

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