Old Collegians RFC Golden Anniversary 1937-87

OLD COLLEGIANS:  History and highlights

An article written for the 1987 dinner

Old Collegians Rugby Football Club was formed in 1937 as Prince Alfred Old Collegians and is the third oldest Rugby Football Club in this State.  In 1940, during World War II, it combined with North Adelaide prior to the competition ceasing in 1941.  The club was reformed on renewal of competition play in 1945 and in 1947 was re-named Old Collegians.  Home grounds have included ovals at Prince Alfred College, the South Parklandsand now at Tregenza Oval.  The old green changing shed at Tregenza serviced players for many years.  Old Collegians now boasts of some of the best rugby facilities in South Australia.  The clubhouse was opened in 1972and the change rooms underneath were completed in 1977.  The latest improvement is the communal bath built to further the true traditions of rugby football.

Collegians won its first "A" Grade Preniership in 1956 and since then has won "A" Grade (Division 1) Premierships in 1959,1967, 1971, 1982.  During the last decade the club was consistently a grand finalist in Division 1, and has been a forse to contend with in the other three divisions as well as in the 7-a-side competitions.

Old Collegians has been involved in coaching rugby and in schools and in the early 1980's the club ran an Under-18 junior side for three years.  In 1985 'Junior Collegians' was formed to promote junior rugby in the club.  The year the club has teams in the Under-16, 12 and 10 competitions and runs mini-rugby for under 8 year olds each saturday morning.  At the senior level, the Club nowhas four teams with a fifth team playing it's first game next week.

During Summer, the club sponsors the Old Collegians Cricket Club which has teams competing in the Adelaide Turf Cricket Association.

Old Collegians is still well known for rugby played in the right spirit and for an excellent social atmosphere - it is one of the most prominent clubs in South Australia.

(Note this article maintains that Collegians' is the third oldest continuous Rugby club in this State whilst the article written for the 50 year celebration maintains that Collegians' is the oldest.)

1937-87 Personalities that represented the club during that period

Present:

Proceedings

Report of the 1987 Presentation Dinner 
From the Tregenza Times, 30th September 1987

The Club's 1987 Presentation Dinner held an September 25 at the Feathers Hotel was well attended. The evening was run smoothly by MC John Davies and the following Toasts were ably presented:

The Loyal Toast - Bob Stafford-Lee (does Qld. really have a Queen?)

The Clubs - Chris Cushing (at the last moment, because of sudden illness, Tim Farrah was unable to attend so Chris kindly stepped in - thank. you Chris.) 

Rugby Union - Ross de la Motte (brought back from Sydney at great expense to himself.)

Mark Loane entertained the masses with a well-presented, humourous after-dinner speech, recalling a number of anecdotes stemming from his experiences on tour with the Wallabies - and to think that we all considered that international rugby players were gentleman both on and off the field.

The player's trophies listed below were presented by the team coaches : Terry Jenkins (1sts), Tony McEntagart (2nds), Ray Murphy (3rds) and Doc Douglas (4ths & 5ths). The main take home messages in their introductory comments were that, regardless of this year's finals performance, O.C. is still a force to be reckoned with on the rugby field and that the future lies with the younger players being strong, fit and determined on the field. The coaches thanked team managers Geoff Holdich and Hammish Cranna (1sts), John Marley (2nds) and Jane Cushing (3rds) - did the 4ths and 5ths have a team manager or was it all by chance?

The Mayor of Burnside, Mrs. Jean Wickham, was unable to attend the dinner because of minor illness but sent her best wishes to O.C. for the evening. She also forwarded a plaque presented an behalf of herself and the Council commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Club. The plaque will be displayed in the clubhouse.

Mickey Finn was seen to enjoy the e dinner. Having devoured one main meal he returned from a dance to find the remains of another at his place. Following a comment along the lines of 'Good, our main courses have arrived. ', he t then promptly devoured the partially completed second meal. Was his gastronomic behaviour caused by the spirit of the evening or by the fact that Barbara has been away for some three weeks?

Thanks go to Greg Kenny for organising the dinner - word has it that Greg did not quite make bed that evening because he had a date with the Aussie rules grand final in Melbourne the next day.

Three ex-OC's, Roger McDaniel, Brian Sullivan and Jock Man, played together in the same team in a Grand Final at Ballymore this year - in the unfortunate OC tradition for 1987, they lost.

Congratulations to Rob Sadler for winning the SARU Sir Norman Jude Tackling Trophy for 1987. Rob decided on academia plus playing rugby union rather than pursuing a career in athletics - much to OC's benefit.

Thanks to Peter Allen for submitting this news item Ed.