THEY hopped out of their burrows resplendent in their red and green ... (ahem, cardinal and myrtle to be exact) jerseys, caps, scarves and flags.
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The local fans of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, who tomorrow will watch their side take on the Canterbury Bulldogs in the National Rugby League grand final, created a colourful sight in Arnold Court on Wednesday evening.
They were responding to a call from perhaps the most passionate local Rabbitoh of them all, Kelso’s Barney Rumble – the man whose front lawn features a red and green letterbox and his foyer has been transformed into a shrine to Souths.
He invited them to turn up for a photograph for the Western Advocate to record the moment in history.
And turn up they did, keen to swap stories of the 43 long years in the grand final wilderness, two of them kicked out of the competition altogether, until club
legend George Piggins drew on people power and fuelled a successful legal challenge to the expulsion.
Bill Wilcox from Oberon typifies the Rabbitohs spirit. He was “badly smashed up” in the Vietnam War and was recovering in Liverpool hospital in the weeks before the 1969 grand final.
“I made them take me to the game in a wheelchair,” he remembers proudly. “I wasn’t going to miss it.”
The Rabbitoh-mad Smith family had several members present for the photograph. Brothers Tony and Brian found it difficult to agree on a “favourite on-field Rabbitoh moment” but in the end decided the day the club was re-admitted to the competition was special.
Barney agrees. He was in Toowoomba on the morning of the announcement.
“I walked the streets looking for a pub at 10am so I could watch the outcome as it unfolded,” he said.
Dennis Gay was at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1967 when Souths and Canterbury last met in a grand final. Souths legendary second-rower Bob McCarthy scored a memorable 75 metre intercept try that day to win the contest.
He rates McCarthy alongside John Sattler, John O’Neill and Greg Inglis among his favourite players.
These legends of the golden era, between 1967 and 1971 when Souths won four grand finals, are household names to all league fans, but the diehard supporters pay respect to some of the lesser known players who played for the club during their 43 years in the premiership wilderness.
Players such as Ian Roberts, Les Davidson, Jeff Withers, Ziggy Niszczot, David Boyle, Rocky Laurie, Michael Pattinson and Terry Fahey are all part of a journey that the fans hope ends triumphantly on Sunday in glory, glory, glory to South Sydney.
