"Mad bastards": How a round of golf with Ned Kelly explains what the Raiders faced first game against South Sydney
The Raiders' first game was against South Sydney Rabbitohs at Redfern Oval. A round of golf with the late and great Noel 'Ned' Kelly explains Souths fans' fanaticism
ONCE UPON A TIME, when it was possible to earn a decent (and very good fun) living writing things in hard-copy magazines, Rugby League Week paid me to play golf with Ned Kelly.
Yep – the great Noel ‘Ned’ Kelly: front-rower for Western Suburbs Magpies, Queensland and Australia; hooker in Australia’s Team of the Century; champion of all Ipswich and the heights of Collaroy. They bandy ‘Legend’ about willy and also nilly.
But for old Ned, who passed away in June of 2020 aged 84, it was bang on.
Not that you’d know it.
“G’day boys!" he boomed at the first tee of Long Reef Golf Club on Sydney’s northern beaches, pumping our hands with his great butcher’s mitts. “Noel Kelly! How you goin’, alright? Whose bloody idea was this? What a bloody beauty!”
The idea – and it was a bloody beauty – was that we’d play golf and I’d tell a story of it for League Week.
And so old Ned yapped away, laughing, his eyes twinkling in that way of his. We were disarmed. What a cracker of a bloke. So Australian. A walking-talking piece of league history and more entertaining than your fun uncle telling porkies while holding up the back bar at Harbord Bowlo.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Milk to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.