West End’s 1964 Premiership side. Arthur Jong is the second player from the right in the front row
Arthur Jong represented Ipswich in the prestigious Bulimba Cup inter-city competition and won four Premierships with the West End Club – in 1959, 1962, ’63 and ’64.
Arthur started his career with the Tivoli Tigers but the club was controversially kicked out of the Ipswich competition when he was 15 so he switched to West End.
In 1963 when he represented Ipswich against Brisbane and Toowoomba his teammates included future Internationals, John Cleary, Johnny Brown and Jeff Denman and Queensland representative, Peter Lobegeiger. Cleary toured Britain and France with Kangaroos in 1963-64.
Brisbane won the Bulimba Cup in 1963 but Ipswich had a memorable win over their big city neighbours in the first match of the series with the Queensland Times newspaper describing it as one of the greatest upsets in the Cup’s history. The match also crowned the opening of the new oval at the North Ipswich Reserve.
West End defeated Railways 10-7 in the 1959 Grand Final with fullback Bill Cameron West End’s captain-coach. The opposing fullback was Harry Langer, father of Broncos’ legend Allan. Harry played the entire second half with a suspected fractured collarbone. The West End forwards were magnificent with Tex Parry, Jong and Thorton Jones getting most of the plaudits from the media.
The 1962 GF was a brawling affair with referee Bob Diflo dismissing Ray Verrenkamp (Railways) and Mick Spannagle (West End) for brawling. Jong and Mick Scully were singled out as West End’s best forwards with one newspaper report describing their style of play as an inspiration to teammates. Jong was a regular in first grade in 1963 but did not play in the grand final win over Railways. But he was back in 1964 and played five eighth outside Johnny Brown in a 15-0 win over Railways in the decider.
A devoted supporter of the Family of League (formerly Men of League) Foundation, Arthur was a regular at Kick-Off Club lunches at the Broncos’ licensed club, often attending with Ipswich representative hooker, Bob Christison and his wife Jan.
Men of League patron, the late Ron Atkins, described Jong as “a tough bastard” which is high praise indeed coming from Ron who played for Seagulls at Tweed Heads and Wests Panthers in Brisbane. I think Ron and Arthur clashed in Trades and Labor Cup inter-city games, which was one rung below Bulimba Cup.
It is one of my regrets that I didn’t interview Arthur about his life and career. I would love to see the Asian community more heavily involved in our great game and I know the NRL have been trying to increase participation from that section of the population. I did chat to Arthur a few times and he told me at one of those Kick-Off Club lunches that he was descended from a Chinese seaman who jumped ship in Port Melbourne.
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Thanks Steve,I did not know about Arthur until your story.A Chinese playing rugby league,especially in fifties and sixties White Australia,a very tough man.I agree it would be great to see more Asians playing,that to me would represent real evidence of assimilation.