Old Colleagues News

January / February 2012 News

BONDI TENS

For Old Colleagues suffering rugby withdrawal make your way to Woollahra Park 2 & 3 Friday February 10^th and Saturday 11^th take a position on the club house balcony and enjoy some top running rugby. The Bondi Tens has gained a reputation for being a highly organized pre-season season event played in the right spirit for several very worthy charities. This year 32 teams from all parts will compete and for the younger Old Colleagues I am well informed that the after party is one of the best ever. Old Colleagues would do well to put aside some time to see this event with Woollahra Park in early February looking suspiciously like the Bong Bong Picnics!!

LONG LUNCH 2012

Long lunch 2012 is set for Friday 30^th March. The long Lunch is simply a great occasion to catch up with your legendary rugby mates. This year’s lunch will have a special vibe about it after the club’s remarkable achievements of season 2011. Contact your table captain and book a seat now Tatts Club, Elizabeth Street Kick off 12.30 with Colleagues tie!! Prepay tickets only banking details from your table captain.

FROM THE IN TRAY

Old Colleagues will enjoy the following excerpt I’ve taken from a letter I received from Ian (Hoots) McGregor in December congratulating the club on its record breaking 2011 season. If you would like to email Ian I have his contact details.

Linlithgow West Lothian EH49 7AP United Kingdom

Dear Tim

I suspect you may not recall me, but I played for Colleagues for one exceptionally enjoyable season in 1981, during a year’s working holiday in Australia. It wasn’t my best ever season on the field partly because I confess I found it quite hard to adapt to playing on hard paddocks and in predominantly fast dry conditions after learning my rugby in the UK, and partly because the coaches at the club took one look at me and decided I could never usefully play at flanker, my favored and accustomed position up to that time. So, it was as a second rower and latterly as a prop that I played variously at Burke, Whiddon and Judd levels. Though I wasn’t playing where I’d chosen to personally, the fact is I never played for a better club before or after my year with the Colleagues. I still wear my club tie from time to time; though I can’t say it’s widely recognized in this part of the world, I have the immense honor and satisfaction of knowing that as a True Blue, I played for a club that was – and clearly still is – simply the best on the planet. Both on and off the field, I found myself having the best of times with the best bunch of blokes. One can’t ask for more from a football club.

As you can imagine, with the advent of the internet I have, particularly in recent years, been able to follow the fortunes of the club remotely. It is this, and the club’s quite staggering achievement winning five out of six competitions and emerging as Club Champions that has at last prompted me to write and convey my congratulations on a simply phenomenal outcome and to also offer my very best wishes to everyone at the club. To not only win all those grand finals, but to do so back-to-back, must have made for an astonishing day. I can’t imagine the sort of tension and excitement that must have built up towards the last match, particularly when some of the victories leading up to it were by the finest of margins. I can however, imagine what the party afterwards must have been like…..! Colleagues are the club everyone else wants to beat, and it’s been great to see over the years that all other clubs continue to gnash their gums in frustration at their inability to do just that, though I note that our deadly rivals of 1981 Hunters Hill have after some years in the wilderness at last climbed back into the top competition.

I’m a bit late in writing this letter, which I’ve been meaning to get round to for some weeks, but I hope nonetheless that you will fine some opportunity to pass on the message that I have, as an Old Colleagues thousands of miles away, raised a very generous tumbler of malt whisky, firstly to celebrate the club’s success, secondly to honor its players and supporters, and thirdly to toast the prospect of six out of six next season??

I often think back on my time in Sydney with great pleasure. Living and working in Australia and playing and partying at the Colleagues Club were great experiences and did a lot for me. Over time I have lost touch with people, but it does me good to see still familiar names on the Colleagues website and to read of the club’s continuing triumphs. I hope at some stage over the not-too-distant future to come back to Australia and visit the club maybe around Grand Finals Day? There’s sure to be a Colleagues team or three involved.

With all good wishes Yours sincerely

Ian “Hoots” McGregor, Colleague 1981 

DAVID BROCKOFF OAM

Old Colleagues and rugby people alike would be aware the middle of last year rugby legend David Brockoff sadly passed away. Although not an Old Colleague he was a close friend of the Colleagues and I remember asking him to take a Kentwell Cup training session during the 1980’s and then later asked him to be a guest speaker at the long lunch. I was lucky enough to know him through a family connection and he was eager to offer his help on both occasions.

For Old Colleagues and Colleagues I have reproduced with thanks to S.M.H an article that tells the story of the great character and great rugby man that was “Brock”

Brock with towel around his neck would unleash in classic fashion, holding the ball up for all to see. “Its in the noodle fellas, passed down from God himself through Moses, then Danie Craven, then to Brock. It’s about the fruit men, the fruit, THE FRUIT! You’ll run out, you’ll line up on the other side of halfway, and no excuses, cause havoc at the breakdown, like sharks in a school of mullet. And when you’re through the other side we’re like crowbars through the Opera House window. We get in, loot the joint and get out. Quick seed to the dancing man all day fellas, all day like wind through the wheat. Centre stage, I want to see arms through the briar bushes and dinosaur steps through the guts. And fellas when we get to the top of the mountain, grand piano stuff, we plant the flag! Above all slaughter house, Friday nights at the old showground, blood on the floor. We must have the fruit, so every lineout a dockyard brawl. But not in our 22, There, we are like a row of ministers” It was said that it was best to get Brock to weave his magic on a Tuesday night so that his turn of phrase had time to sink in. Thanks for the memories Brock RIP 

See you at the Bondi Tens

"Go the Colleagues"

Boothie