DIARY UPDATE: Week 5, 2020
DIARY OF RETIRED RUGBY LEAGUE WRITER WEEK 5 2019 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3 Englishman, Shaun Wane succeeds Australian, Wayne Bennett as coach of the Great Britain Rugby League side. It is […]
Tag Archives: jon ricketts
DIARY UPDATE: Week 2, 2020
DIARY OF A RETIRED RUGBY LEAGUE WRITER WEEK 2 2020 MONDAY, JANUARY 13 Fellow rugby league historian, Greg Mallory tells me former Builders Laborers’ Federation boss, Jack Mundey was a […]
GREAT SENSE OF COMMUNITY AT GOODNA
The first time I heard mention of the Ipswich suburb of Goodna, was when other kids told me, that’s where you finish up, if you go crazy. I was living […]
DIARY UPDATE: Week 47, 2019
DIARY OF A RETIRED RUGBY LEAGUE WRITER WEEK 47 2019 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25 Former Valleys’ premiership winning halfback, Ross Threlfo has died, aged 77, in a nursing home at Ballina […]
DIARY UPDATE: Week 45, 2019
DIARY OF A RETIRED RUGBY LEAGUE WRITER WEEK 45 2019 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11 Remembrance Day is observed with respect, as I shop in Coles, Lutwyche after a medical appointment at 10.15 […]
FLASHBACK: June, 1970
JUNE 1970 There have been at least three ‘Battles of Brisbane’, involving the Australian and Great Britain rugby league sides, and I was ‘privileged’ to be in the crowd for […]
ARTHUR SUMMONS – GENTLEMAN GLADIATOR
By STEVE RICKETTS ARTHUR Summons had the dubious honour of coaching the last Australian team to lose an Ashes Rugby League series against Great Britain. He won’t be remembered for […]
MY SECOND KANGAROO SUPPORTERS TOUR
TRAVEL Recently a mate asked how many times I had been to Britain and or Europe, and when I answered ’20’, he said I should write a book. I’m not […]
LONDON TO A BRICK ODDS
TRAVEL Who would have thought my friendship with Widnes’ bricklayer, Frank Kennedy in Australia in 1973 would lead to a stay in his country manor house in England, nearly 30 years […]
THE MEN IN BLACK
‘The mighty All Blacks’ The first time I took substantial notice of New Zealand’s legendary national rugby union team was 1967, when they were touring the UK and France at […]
MY FIRST KANGAROO SUPPORTERS TOUR
TRAVEL Recently a mate asked how many times I had been to Britain and or Europe, and when I answered ’20’, he said I should write a book. I’m not […]
DIARY UPDATE: Week 22, 2019
DIARY OF A RETIRED RUGBY LEAGUE WRITER WEEK 22 2019. MONDAY, JUNE 3 Spring Bluff Rail Station and Ravensbourne National Park are our destinations, as Marie and I drive west […]
VALE FRANK MYLER
VALE FRANK MYLER Frank Myler made his first team debut for Widnes when he was just 16, in 1955. Fifteen years later he captained the Great Britain Lions rugby league […]
DIARY UPDATE: Week 16, 2019
DIARY OF A RETIRED RUGBY LEAGUE WRITER WEEK 16 2019 MONDAY, APRIL 22 A photograph of Wally Lewis, making his Test debut for Australia against France at the Sydney Cricket […]
FLASHBACK: February 2010
FEBRUARY 2010. The likes of Northern Rivers’ Indigenous heroes, Lionel Morgan, Walter Slockee, Stokel Currie, Alan Lena, Billy McDermott, Claude McDermott and Gerald Chadburn came to mind as I covered […]
FIRED FOR EFFECT
BOOK REVIEW Jasper Samuel Creagh, from Wingham in New South Wales, was one of the ‘old originals’, who sailed to Europe with 13 Battery in 1915. Two years later, Creagh’s war […]
DIARY UPDATE: Week 6, 2019
DIARY OF A RETIRED RUGBY LEAGUE WRITER WEEK SIX 2019 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11 OzTag competitors leave lots of litter behind, at our Emerald Beach Caravan Park. Excellent coffee from Emerald […]
FLASHBACK: December 2009
DECEMBER 2009 Queensland Rugby League managing director, Ross Livermore said his organisation would not stand in the away of an independent commission taking over the game, but insisted grassroots development […]
DIARY UPDATE: Week 4, 2019
DIARY OF A RETIRED RUGBY LEAGUE WRITER WEEK 4 2019 TUESDAY, JANUARY 22 MY grandmother, Polly Kelly, would not grant the wishes of her daughter (my mum) to board at […]
IT’S NOT THAT BAD, LADS (AND LASSES)
TRAVEL A week in Leeds! The 44 people who had signed up for my 1994 Kangaroo rugby league supporters’ tour were horrified, when I first raised the prospect. ‘Leeds? It’s […]
