Manly-Warringah District Junior Rugby Football League
President's Cup Team
Season 1956
Here's a photo of my brother, Robert Wright, aged 19, with fellow team mates of the Manly-Warringah District Junior Rugby Football League President's Cup Team for 1956. Robert is in the middle row, second from the left (click on the image to enlarge it).
I remember attending Robert's football games in the 1950s with my parents when I was a little boy. Rugby League was a brutal sport back then. Certainly not for the faint-hearted, either as a participant or as a spectator. It was, quite literally, a blood sport. I remember vividly seeing Robert splattered with blood, his own and that of rival team members, as he left the field after a game. This is one of the few remembrances I have of Robert from my childhood. That and the fact that he was very fit. He trained very hard and was into jogging long before jogging became trendy. He used to jog along the beach, on the sand, from North Narrabeen to Collaroy. I remember once asking our father why it was that Robert jogged on sand, which appeared to me to be much more difficult than jogging on a firm surface such as grass. Dad responded that that was exactly why he did it. He would have made an excellent Ancient Spartan, in more ways than one.
Alas, all the glittering promise of Robert's gilded youth, academic and sporting, came to nothing. He was only 45 when he died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1982, alone and unfulfilled.
"Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first call promising."
