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Paying tribute to the women in league

Expert
19th June, 2012
7

In 1907, James Giltinan, Victor Trumper and Henry Hoyle went to Dally Messenger’s mother and asked permission for Messenger to switch over to the new code. Annie gave her blessing and the rest is history.

Even then, mum was the word.

Over a century later, not much has changed. The role women play in our great game can’t be underestimated. The annual Women in League round is here once again and this week we celebrate all the wonderful things that women contribute to the game.

The week has taken on extra meaning in 2012 with the terrible news that Sonia Farah had passed away on Sunday. Sonia was the mother of Wests Tigers captain Robbie, with the New South Wales Blue understandably missing Sunday’s game against the Sydney Roosters.

In Farah’s darkest week, the rugby league community has come together.

The National Rugby League sure is awesome. But what is it without women like Sonia? A mother who watched her son play his first ever game of footy way back when and right through to captaining his club and the representative honours that have come since.

Wests pay tribute each year to a special lady, which will now be known as the Sonia Farah Memorial Award.

“The award has been presented for the past two years to honour a woman who has contributed to our club and it will be now renamed after Sonia,” Tigers boss Stephen Humphreys told The Telegraph on Tuesday.

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Where would any of us be without the support and love of our mothers or our partners or our sisters?

As a seven-year-old, my mother Anne took me to my first training session. We had to take two buses and a seemingly endless walk to Worrell Park in Ruse. It wouldn’t be the last time we took that trip. She never stopped me from playing footy or said the commute was too much.

There are mums in the country who drive hours on end just to get their kids to a game. All because their kid wants to play footy.

When I was lost and nowhere near focused my grandmother forked out $1200 for a writing course she wanted me to do.

After a Mad Monday many moons ago, I was lost and very intoxicated somewhere near Thirlmere.

Guess who took my call? Mum.

To donate: The Concord Cancer Centre, c/o Dr Prunella Blinman, Department of Medical Oncology, Concord Repatriation General Hospital, Hospital Road, Concord, 2139.

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