A TRUE QUEENSLAND GREAT – JOHNNY GLEESON.
By Steve Ricketts. Johnny Gleeson was a quiet, humble man, who largely retreated from the spotlight after a stellar rugby league playing career at International, State and Club level. Gleeson, […]
Category Archives: The Column
VALE JOHNNY GLEESON
One of Australia’s greatest rugby league players, Johnny Gleeson, died today just four days short of his 83rd birthday. Gleeson, a brilliant five eighth, toured Britain and France with the […]
VALE JIM FENWICK
Jim Fenwick was one of Queensland’s finest news photographers, with a special feel for events on the rugby league field. He won several awards for his photographs of matches at […]
‘BROTHERS CLOSE AND FAR’
Five Star Cinemas at New Farm hosted a World Movie Premiere with a difference on November 4, with the ‘A Listers’ all broken down, old footballers. It was the first […]
BRISBANE BEER AND BEEF CLUB
When I retired from Queensland Newspapers in October, 2012, aged 60, I wondered how I would keep myself busy in the coming years. I needn’t have worried because, like many […]
FROM WATFORD TO WIDNES FOR THE WORLD CUP
My decision to have an early night before a Rugby League World Cup quarter final, meant I missed a spectacular bar room brawl, with women the main participants. The fact the […]
GIVE US A WAVE, GORDIE
Spectators in ‘The Threepenny Stand’ at The Boulevard, Hull were regarded as some of the most knowledgeable and quick witted in the game of rugby league. They could make life miserable […]
GREEN AND GOLD COMES FIRST
Good on you Benji Marshall. It took a Kiwi to remind Australians that inter-state football should be a trial for Test selection. And you know what? If State of Origin […]
SPECIAL K REVISITED
By Steve Ricketts, former Courier-Mail chief rugby league writer. ‘Touched’, a Broncos’ fan yelled sarcastically, as Karmichael Hunt barely got a hand to rampaging South Sydney centre, Campbell Graham, in […]
VALE HARRY CAMERON
Harry Cameron won club premierships in Sydney, Brisbane and Ipswich and represented his adopted State of Queensland five times in the 1970s. A crowd favourite in a star-studded Brisbane Wests’ […]
VALE DES LEE
To say Des Lee played above his weight is an understatement. The feisty rugby league halfback never tipped the scales at anything over 10 stone (63.5kg), but never let his […]
SOUTHS MAGPIES HALL OF FAME
Super coach, Wayne Bennett describes the South Sydney Rabbitohs and Brisbane’s Souths Magpies as kindred spirits, in that they are working class clubs, with a never-say-die ethos. And the embodiment […]
VALE BOB DUNCAN
by Steve Ricketts, Chairman, Queensland Rugby League History Committee. Bob Duncan was tipped as a future State star when he first burst onto the representative scene with Toowoomba in 1960. […]
TOM TERRIFIC COULD NOT BE CAGED
by Steve Ricketts. Tom Raudonikis took the wheel of his car, after a long lunch at the Breakfast Creek Hotel, and invited the passengers to help themselves to a beer, […]
START OF A NEW ERA
April 1, 2021 marks the 60th anniversary of the opening of Lang Park’s new Frank Burke Stand, by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Henry Abel-Smith. The completion of the stand, […]
VALE KEN MCCAFFERY
By Greg Shannon, QRL History Committee The QRL would like to pass on sincere condolences to the family of a truly remarkable rugby league identity, former Queensland and Australian player Ken McCaffery who passed away on February 6 at 91 years of age. Ken had a long and […]
VALE PAUL ‘SCOBIE’ MALONE
Paul ‘Scobie’ Malone was by my side at countless rugby league matches, firstly as a rival, and then as a ‘teammate’ at ‘The Courier Mail’. We were rivals when I […]
‘GILTINAN’S TOUR -1908’
by Tom Mather. Available in paperback, or as an ebook, via Amazon. BOOK REVIEW Prominent Sydney sportsman, James J Giltinan is widely recognised as the driving force behind the movement, […]
VALE DAVE BOLTON
Dave Bolton was man of the match in Balmain’s shock 11-2 win over Souths in the 1969 Sydney grand-final, a match magnificently chronicled in Ian Heads’ book, ‘The Great Grand […]
THE POWER OF SLEDGING
This is an article I wrote for The Courier-Mail in October, 1995, but to my knowledge was never published, not for sinister reasons. I think it was simply a lack […]
Steve Ricketts 