Tickets are now on sale at the Dubbo RSL Club for what should be a great weekend of football and social activities.

Ian O’Neill is part of the organising committee and, as should be expected, is looking forward to it all.

No stone has been left unturned in a bid to make the occasion something special, especially when you know that the organisers include Mark and Pam Murphy, Gavin Board, Sonya Warwick, Barry Perry, Bomber Forrester, Barney Chandler and Bobby Pilon - all having had wonderful memories of the proud club over many, many years.

“It’s been a lot of hard work but I think we are starting to get there,” O’Neill said this week.

“The response has been very good and people are now urged to get their tables together for the dinner as only 300 seats will be made available. My concern is that we won’t have enough room to fit everyone in, taking into consideration the number of local Macquarie people still here in Dubbo, plus the visitors.

“We have been working closely with our master of ceremonies Geoff Mann, so it should be a great night for everyone.”

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Obviously having the 50- year celebrations in the middle of rugby league’s centenary year is a bonus and some of Macquarie’s really great players of past year - Leo Nosworthy, former English international Dick Huddart, Tom Rutherford and Athol Currey - will definitely be there, but sadly other stalwarts such as Neville Honeysett, Peter Morgan, Bob Pack and Colin Cross are now deceased.

However, it seems certain their names will come up regularly during the weekend.

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Andrew Barnes, the WIN Television cameraman and rising star in documentary making, is rushing to have a feature on Macquarie finished in time for the celebrations.

A minimum 500 copies of the DVD will be available for sale at the football on the Saturday when Macquarie play Narromine at Apex Oval in the last round of Group 11 football and at the dinner.

The Macquarie Raiders have commissioned the DVD and Ian O’Neill is looking forward, like everyone, to seeing the finished product.

“We consider the DVD as an investment into the history of Dubbo Macquarie rugby league and we are confident it will prove popular with our people,” O’Neill said.

“Andrew (Barnes) has spoken to players old and current about their involvement with Macquarie and some of the feature stories will be on our first ever international Don Parish and Marshall Peachey who needs little introduction to Macquarie people.

“Also on the DVD will be footage of some of our grand final games and for us all there are certainly many wonderful memories of those successes.”

Also part of the celebration dinner will be an auction of some of the original Macquarie guernseys which organisers have sourced from various contacts in the past few months. It should be a lot of fun with the football, the dinner and the memories.

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It’s been a big week for David Peachey on and off the field.

After scoring five tries for Macquarie Raiders in their win over Nyngan last Sunday in Group 11 football, ‘The Peach’ has been active with a number of projects in his home city during the week.

One of the main ports of call was the annual David Peachey and Russell Richardson primary schools rugby league carnival finals played on Friday at Apex Oval.

The man himself is still as popular as ever as demonstrated by the many kids (young and old) who made themselves known to him.

The Peachey family has been one of the stalwarts of rugby league at Dubbo Macquarie for many, many years and the presence of family members will be a highlight of the 50th year celebrations in August.