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In 1947 the
Daily Telegraph
produced a souvenir supplement to commemorate the 150th anniversary of
the founding of Newcastle. The following article titled 'Australia's
Strongest Sports Centre' mentions many of Newcastle's sporting heroes
of the day
AUSTRALIA'S
STRONGEST SPORTS CENTRE
Newcastle
in proportion to its size is the strongest sorting centre in Australia.
Eighty per cent. of its male population of eligible age take part in
some sort of sport.
And
Newcastle's greatest successes have been in the tougher sports -
football, boxing, racing.
As it
was with their forefathers more than 100 years ago, sport is
always the topical conversation over a pot of beer, on the pit
tops, and in the factories.
champion becomes a public idol. Rugby League players and
supporters are just as proud that young Cyril Burke is getting a
trip to England with the Australian Rugby Union team as they
were when League men like Wal Prigg and Herb Narvo went abroad.
A
sporting visitor is always well received and cared for at
Newcastle.
Sixty years ago the captain of the English Rugby Union touring
team, W. Sneddon, was drowned while swimming at Maitland.
Newcastle and Maitland people still look after Sneddon's grave
in the local cemetery as if he had been a local born idol.
It
all developed from a time more than 100 years ago - long before
organised sport was thought of, and Newcastle sport was a weird
and wonderful thing.
The miners made their own sport on pay Saturday. Publicans
provided it on back Saturdays.
Miners played a strange game of Rugby, in which rules were few.
They also loved their racing on the small tracks in the outskirt
villages.
The publicans arranged pie eating, cock fighting and porridge
waddling contests, quoits, and club swinging.
The publicans' sports continued until early this century.
The porridge waddling contests were famous and Newcastle had its
champions.
The porridge was cooked in a huge copper behind the hotel.
Contestants would gorge themselves. On lookers would bet beg
money about which candidate would eat most.
Those porridge waddlers could eat too. A character known as 'Bibby"
is supposed to have eaten 84 plates of porridge to win the title
at Lambton in 1889.
Newcastle was as proud of "Bibby" then as it is of champion
boxer Dave Sands today.
Newcastle produced quoits champions too.
The old miners will tell you that "Chook" Henderson was the
greatest quoits player Australia has produced. Henderson threw
25 successive ringers with two and a half pound iron quoits on
clay ends 18 yards apart in 12min. 5 sec. at Empire Hall, Kurri
Kurri in 1905.
Quoits is still played on the distant coalfields, but only in a
small way.
Before quoits reached its heyday the men bet on all sorts of
freak sports.
A
character known as "The Flying Pieman" became famous for his
performances in freak sport just 100 years ago.
These are some of "The Flying Pieman's " performances:
•At Maitland in 1847 in seven weeks, he walked 1000 quarter
miles in 1000 quarter hours.
•The same year he walked backwards half a mile in 6 min., ran
one mile in 7 1/2 min., and wheeled a barrow one mile in 15
minutes without a rest.
•Did 50 leaps 2ft 6 in high 10 ft apart in 6 min., 28sec., put
50 stones weighing half a hundredweight each a yard apart in 14
min., walked one mile in 11 min., wheeled a cart half a mile in
11 1/2 min. He accomplished all this in 90 minutes.
•He bet £100 he would pick up 100 cobs of corn a yard apart and
place each in turn at a given point in 55 minutes. He did it in
53 minutes.
The Flying Pieman is still talked about in Newcastle and a local
racehorse was named after him.
C.
Hearne was another notable in the freak sports. He
defeated T. Wall in a 100 yards race backwards in 15 sec. for a
£20 side wager at Maitland in 1835.
In
1884 Joe Byrnes cleared 120 ft. in 10 standing jumps.
Bill Hickey, one of the colony's best rowers, on three
successive Saturdays in 1865 beat J. McLear for £100, R. Green
for £200 and H. White for £200. He used a different type of boat
each Saturday
Hickey won 15 successive races that year. including the
championship of Australia. He again won the championship of
Australia in 1873.
Newcastle had its track champions in those days too. In
1875 Bob Walson broke the Australian 440 yards record when he
ran the distance in 50 1/4 seconds.
The first fight on record in the Hunter Valley took place at
Hanging Rock, a gold digging near Nundle on November 1852.
H.
Young beat Quinn in 11 rounds for a side wager of 100. They
fought bare knuckle and each knock down ended a round.
The Paddy Sinclair v. "Yellow Jimmy" fight at Maitland in 1857
was the first fight stopped by police in Australia.
Sinclair beat "Yellow Jimmy" in seven rounds and won a side
wager of £100.
Newcastle began to organise its sport in the latter part of the
19th century.
Rugby Union was the first to take shape, and competitions were
arranged.
Soccer football, which has developed into Newcastle's strongest
sport, had its birth there in 1884.
Four Scotsmen, named Jack Winning, Bill McCrorie, John McCrorie,
and Bob Frame, received a newspaper from home. They read about
the growth of Soccer in Scotland, and decided they should have
soccer in Newcastle too.
They sent home for a book of rules and a ball. The book of rules
and a five panel ball arrived 12 months later.
The four Scotsmen posted a notice on the pit top at Lambton
inviting anyone interested in the "new game of football" to
attend practice in a nearby paddock.
They got a good roll up, and after a few weeks practice, the
players had learned enough to arrange a match against a Sydney
team called the Caledonians.
The match was played at Lambton on August 17 1885. The Newcastle
team won 3-2.
The Newcastle Herald reported the match two days later in its
district news column. The paragraph was headed " A Strange Game
of football"
Newcastle played a prominent part in the founding of Rugby
League in Australia in 1908.
It
formed a team and played in the Sydney competition that year.
Under thorough organisation Newcastle sport began to flourish.
Many champions were produced, and Newcastle soon was well
represented in international contest.
Newcastle boasts it has produced more than 20 Australian boxing
champions.
In
recent years it has been the feeding ground for Sydney in both
Soccer and Ruby League football.
About 15 years ago Wallsend could put a Soccer team on the field
worthy of representing Australia.
At
least 80 per cent of Australia's greatest Soccer players came
from Newcastle
In
Rugby League Newcastle players have built up almost every Sydney
club.
Newcastle has produced nine Rugby League internationals in the
past 20 years - Wal Prigg, Jim Gibbs, Len Dawson, Herb Narvo,
Dave Parkinson, Ron Bailey, Noel White.
Seven of the New South Wales team of 17 which toured Queensland
this year learned to play in Newcastle.
Many champions would never have got a chance if they had not
gone to Newcastle settled there, and learned the ideas on which
local champions are built.
Test cricketer Arthur Chipperfield is the outstanding example of
this.
Chipperfield was an 'unwanted" in Sydney, could not even get a
job. He settled in Newcastle, immediately became happy with real
friends all around prepared to help him.
Within two years Chipperfield was chosen in the Australian team
to tour England in 1933 - 34.
His selection was a shock in Sydney, but it wasn't in Newcastle.
Newcastle people had seen how his form had improved under the
happy life they had helped give him. For since the days of the
porridge waddlers and 'The Flying Pieman" friendliness has been
one of the characteristics of Newcastle sport
Daily Telegraph 1 September
1947
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