By Tania Phillips
It was the day of the Gremlin at Stanthorpe on Saturday with the Stanthorpe Rugby League Club celebrating 50 years as Gremlins.
Gremlins president Roger O’Brien said it was a big day on and off the field for the 105-year-old club.
“Fourteen games of footy – kicked off at 8am in the morning with under sixes kicking us off,” he said.
“We went right through to the open ladies and open men’s.
“It was a good day, we were very competitive. Not all grades won and I’d like to thank Warwick Collegians for making it a very special day for us. Those guys travelled too, we had such a massive crowd all day. Not just for the seniors but the junior crowd was massive as well. It was great that the town got behind us yet again.”
The senior sides were up against the McIntyre Warriors.
“We had a very good crowd for the seniors games, everyone who was going to the event later in the evening pretty much turned up and watched the kids and the seniors, it was a really exciting day for the club,” O’Brien said.
“In the seniors our men’s got rolled 30-24 – it was a great game of footy – nice atmosphere and our ladies got done 26-6.
“They are super competitive they’ve got good skills.”
After the games it was time to move on to the celebration dinner at the Stanthorpe Civic Centre where more than 250 were sold.
“It’s a case of finishing the footy at Sullivan Oval at 4pm, the event started at 6pm – it was a battle kicking everyone out just after 5pm so I could get down there,” he laughed.
“We had Bernie Pramberg as MC and he did a wonderful job. He’s amazing, we really want to give thanks to him for MCing for us. He had a great interview with Marty Driscoll – the original coach of the ’74 team, Marty told some wonderful stories. Robert Reeves had a good chat about his time with the Gremlins. He’s still obviously involved, being a part of the Gremlins. He had a good chat with Bernie as well which tied into the auction. We had replica jerseys of the 1974 jersey that the senior team played in and they were auctioned off for a fundraising event for the club. Amazing result. Probably the biggest fundraiser we’ve had when we’ve auctioned jerseys. They were spending some money, it was wonderful. That will all go straight back into the club. We did the auction for the senior men’s and we did a silent auction for the ladies jerseys. It was a bit over $15,000 for the jerseys.
“Once the formalities were done we pretty much danced and talked the night away. Cole Train, our local band played, There were plenty of stories told, it was lovely.”
There were lots of old faces as well as lots of the younger members of the club.
“It was a nice night, we had our 17 boys doing the meet and greet with the guests coming in,” O’Brien said.
“Our 15 girls and some of our younger teams helped out through out the night. They were wandering around chatting and they helped assist with some of the food prep and they served at some of the tables. It was just nice having the full Stanthorpe Rugby League involved in the night – past, present and future.
“The culture of Stanthorpe Rugby League is, and has always been amazing and when we do things like this it really enforces the history of our club.
“At the end of the day, we’re 105 years old and this is our 50 years of the Gremlins badge and we should celebrate it. These things don’t come along often.”
