Many regional rugby league centres boast proud histories where local competitions regularly attracted well-known representative players from larger competitions as paid players.
This boosted the local game tremendously and helped with the development of juniors.
A case in point is the Burdekin region of North Queensland, which boasts a remarkable rugby league history, including the fact that close to 20 internationals played in the local competitions between the 1920s and1980s.
The list includes two members of the Australian team of the century in Duncan Hall and Noel Kelly.
Well known rugby league players are just the tip of the iceberg though, as the Burdekin, like so many country centres, boasts a long history of hard working people running and playing the game at all levels.
This is all captured in a book - A Short History of the Ayr, Home Hill and Burdekin Rugby Leagues – soon to be launched by rugby league historian Martin Grandelis.
Grandelis grew up in the Burdekin in the 1960s in the heyday of rugby league in the Burdekin district.
The great rivalry between the region clubs – Brothers, Colts Home Hill and Hornets who made up the local club competition from the early 1960s, as well as the excitement of Foley Shield matches at Rugby Park, are great memories for players, administrators and supporters from earlier times.
“As a kid growing up in Parkside in the 1960s, Rugby Park was the place to be, particularly on Foley Shield days,” he said.
Grandelis said he was inspired to chronicle the history of rugby league in the district through the pages of a new book, and recalled how clubs were fertile hunting grounds for recruiters as well as big name southern players who came north as coaches for club and Foley Shield teams.
Grandelis initially considered writing the history of rugby league of the Burdekin district from the years following World War II; however, he soon realised that a crucial part of the story started with the breakaway from rugby union in the early 20th century and the intense rivalry between Ayr and Home Hill.
“The history of rugby league in the Burdekin district is such a fascinating and at times turbulent story,” he said.
“Ayr Football League formed following a break from the Lower Burdekin Rugby Football Union which saw matches of rugby league in Ayr from 1916 with Natives, Rainbows, Hornets and possibly Ramblers the foundation clubs.
“Across the river the Home Hill Football League was formed shortly afterwards and by the early 1920s, four clubs in Zambucks (named after a famous ointment), Osborne, Cities and Iyah made up a senior and junior competition”.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, new clubs and representative teams emerged, and some foundation clubs disappeared.
In the decades that followed a great rivalry developed between the two centres despite at times both leagues combining and playing as a Lower Burdekin representative team. Both leagues experienced great periods of success throughout the years before World War II.
After the war, the community throughout the Burdekin and more widely in North Queensland embraced the passion that the Foley Shield competition generated from 1948 with Ayr and Home Hill intense rivals in the early years of the competition.
Underpinning the representative competition was a vibrant club competition in both centres that saw clubs rise and fall, great players emerge and a passionate number of hardworking administrators, supporters and benefactors that sustained rugby league.
The years from the mid-1940s until the disbandment of the club competition at the end of 1986 is a fascinating part of the story.
Spanning 760 pages the book includes controversies, club and representative matches, grand finals, recollections of players, referees and administrators.
More than 350 stories have brought the book to life.
The book launch will take place at 6.30pm on Saturday, November 12 at Ayr’s Kalamia Hotel with the QRL History committee represented by northern member and former Burdekin resident Greg Shannon.
