Marty Hay and David Tout received Life Membership of the Gundagai Tigers at the 2024 presentation ceremony and it was fitting that both men received it at the same time having joined the committee together and bringing with them and their fellow committee members a new dawn of Rugby league for the town and the first premiership since Cliff Lyons played Five Eight for the club in the 83 Premiership.
Marty said, “You don’t do the job for those sorts of accolades, but it’s nice recognition.
“Touty and I took the reins thirteen years ago and we just tried to do our very best for the club and we have been lucky enough to have a reasonable amount of success with a number of Reserve Grade premierships and the League Tag premiership and a few First Grade premierships.
“It’s also pretty important for the club that we have the Under 18s coming back next year.
“It will definitely be my last year next year. I will hand it over to someone else and they can grab the baton and run with it.
“We are proud with the success that we have had with the club since we have been steering it.
“Don and Kathy Tuckwell brought Maika Sivo and a few other Fijian boys to the club and they were beautiful people and lovely to have around and Maika has gone on to the success that he has achieved in the NRL.
“He’d never played rugby league. It was his first year of rugby league with us. He’d only ever played rugby union.
“The boys taught him how to play footy and we were lucky enough to win a premiership with him and that was our first premiership in 32 years in 2015 and what a day that was for the club when we won First Grade, Reserve Grade and the League Tag.
“We’ve been lucky in our positions. We thought about it long and hard and the only way to be competitive is to purchase players and put them around your nucleus of your local players, otherwise you can’t be competitive as we are too small of a town.
“We have received our fair share of negativity in regards to the purchase of players but you just can’t compete and we’ve often put it out there with the committee and to the local players “do you want us to buy players or do you want to try and play with a local team” and the resounding response is no, you have to buy players because otherwise you can’t be competitive.
“We have been lucky enough to have some fantastic players and most importantly I don’t think we’ve signed anyone during our time that has been disappointing as a person. They have all been terrific people.
“We were lucky enough to have Maika turn up and the addition of Cameron Woo, Blake Dunn, Brock Dunn, the list is endless and so long, Seb Cottam, I could go on and on and on with players that we’ve had that have come from out of town; Jack and Matt Lyons, they have all been good people.
“The Club has a no riff raff policy. When we sign players it’s only a handshake agreement, we don’t do the contracts like the other clubs do and they are all registered with NSW Rugby League and when we do sign them we tell them that at any time they want to walk away they can and we have never had anyone walk away.
“It’s great to watch the kids come through and then play from Under 16s and Under 18s, that’s the most important part I think for the Club. It’s watching those kids develop as footy players and as people and come through and play and be an important part of the First Grade. That’s the best part of being involved in the leadership of the Club.
“The League Tag has been a brilliant addition to the Country Rugby League. It has just made it more like a family atmosphere type thing and it’s been really good all round.
What are some of the things that you do behind the scenes that people wouldn’t know about and obviously there’s a fair bit of organisation that goes into putting a footy club together and First Grade finishing third with a torrid run of injuries?
“This year Derek and Blake did an amazing job with the team and the injuries that we had. You take Luke Berkrey and Royce Tout out of any First Grade footy side in the bush and you are going to suffer and to get so far and deep into the semi finals, it was a credit to those two men.
“They have high expectations and that is why they are successful as people and as footy players because they demand respect and demand attention to detail.
“It’s great to see people like James Morgan and Royce Tout represent Country this year. We’ve had various Country representatives and a stack of players represent Riverina and that is important. A lot of clubs don’t support that concept but we always have and we always encourage it.
“James Luff was a member of the side that played for Country and they defeated City, it’s just little things like that.
“The most important thing is the kids. I’m extremely disappointed about that decision about the Under 16s going back to the Minor League and as a collective, every club in Group Nine was against that, but NSW Rugby League elected to go against our wishes and we are not in any way shape or form against the Women’s Rugby League and the Under 18s Women’s Rugby League, we know that is on its way, but we just thought they rushed it.
“It was very disappointing and you feel like you are not getting the full support of the people that are running the league.
“We are running the league for nothing because of our love of the game and then you are forced to do something that you are not entirely comfortable with. Hopefully it is successful, but I’m not sure how we will go with the two grades next year fielding those sides.
“It’s been an enjoyable ride.
“Touty and I are best mates and we have always bounced things off each other. We have done everything together and I don’t think we have had a cross word about footy.
“Then you have people in the club like Mark Elphick. He’s honestly pound for pound the toughest footballer I’ve ever seen and that includes TV.
“He’s played so many games, year after year after year and he plays Reserve Grade and then sits on the bench for First Grade and has played a lot of First Grade himself with 200 games this year.
“It’s not only that, we took over from Steve Rose and Mick Wheeler and they were phenomenal for the Club and before that you’ve got Gordon Lindley, Abb McAlister, Len Tozer, people like that and I hate singling anyone out because I’ll forget someone, but you have to do your little bit for the town and that’s the way Touty and I looked at it.
The call needs to go out now for the next couple of blokes to put their hand up as both Hay and Tout will have had their time at the end of next year. Someone needs to start thinking about it to fill their shoes.
“Almost since the start we’ve been in there and we have had the same nucleus of volunteers.
“Unfortunately no-one new comes along and joins the committee and not everyone is happy to help out.
“You need a good strong committee and we’ve been lucky to have a good strong committee but it seems to be the same nucleus of people year in and year out and you just can’t keep doing it.
“In saying that, there has been so many wonderful people involved with the running of committee and the club over the years.
“David has been the President and the leader of the Club and he does all the speeches and that sort of thing on a Sunday night and he’s done a great job.
“Every business or sporting club needs a strong leader and we have been lucky to have that with Touty and I’m sure that is one of the main reasons for our success.
The Times caught up with David after speaking with Marty.
He was also chuffed at the acknowledgement from his peers.
He said, “It’s a massive privilege and honour to receive the Life Membership. I probably don’t deserve it as much as Marty.
He’s done all the hard work as secretary/treasurer. He’s the one that does all the hard yards, I just tie a few loose ends up.
“It’s a massive honour, but I could think of another twenty people that probably should receive it besides me, but I’m lucky enough to receive it.
“We came on board with the Tigers as President and Secretary in 2013.
“The last premiership was in 1983 and we won it in 2015.
“The 1983 premiership team had Cliff Lyons playing five-eight.
“I was running around and playing in the juniors then. Cliffy played in the second row in ’84 when Young beat us.
“I think they beat us by roughly the same score when we won in ’83 as what they did in ’84. We put a gap on them in ’83 and they put a gap on us in ’84. It was at Fisher Park in Cootamundra.
“When I was a young bloke Lenny Tozer used to run the club and if anyone was doing it a bit tough Lenny had a clothing store in Gundagai and he would always help them out whether it was with wisdom or financially. He was always the footballer’s go to man.
“Gordon Lindley always contributed.
“Abb McAlister was the sort of bloke that you would always look up to. I reckon as far as contributing to Gundagai, Abb would be at the top of the list, closely followed by Len Tozer.
“We were a bit lucky. We were thereabouts in 2000’s thanks to Steve Rose and Mick Wheeler in that they were the blokes that picked the club up off the ground. We did it pretty tough there for a while in the late 90s, early 2000’s.
“They got the club going again and we took it over in a pretty good position. We were lucky we had three Junee boys in Cameron Woo, Phil Latu and Damian Willis, they came along with a deal as they had signed the previous year with James Smart.
“Another thing that turned our club around was a gym. Mick Wheeler, Steve Rose, Keiran Pearce and James Smart came up with the idea of putting a gym in and that turned our club around. Everyone had a bit of mass about them and we seemed to play a bit better with a bit of body mass.
“We got fitter and stronger and seemed to play better after the gym was introduced.
“When we took over, the club was heading upwards thanks to the blokes that I just mentioned, and we were lucky enough to win three premierships in 2015.
“Another highlight for me was I remember as a kid going to the West Wyalong Knockout Carnival lots of times and we never could win it. We were lucky enough to win it in 2015 and 2016 consecutively and I don’t think too many teams have ever done that at the West Wyalong Knockout.
“The Clayton Cup eluded us but I think the teams we had in 2015 and 2022 were very very unlucky not to receive it. In 2015 we only got beaten once and in 2022 we didn’t get beaten at all, we drew with Albury down at Albury.
“I think we were a bit stiff not to receive the Clayton Cup, especially in 2022 and that’s one of the things I’m disappointed that the Gundagai Tigers didn’t pick up.
“I would never ever have received this award without our supporters. We have the best supporters going. Ask anyone and the Gundagai Tigers just follow, they support and they are good people and also all our sponsors.
“We wouldn’t be in a position to receive awards like this without our sponsors.
“Also our committee. We are very lucky. Everyone that has worked with me for the last 12 or 13 years, they deserve this award just as much as me. I’m just lucky enough to receive it.
“The committee has been fairly small and tight knit and has stuck together and supported each other.
“The most influential player that we have bought to the club would be Blake Dunn.
He just brought a bit of magic to the club and as soon as he turned up we went from runners-up to winners (with all due respect to the previous years). He was great for our club, but it was his time to move on and he has gone back to Wagga to coach Brothers.
“It’s a big job driving to and from Gundagai three times a week, but he’s been great for Gundagai on and off the field.
“This year is the fittest I have ever seen our club. It just goes to show that if you get fit you can do some good things at the back end of the year.
“If you are fit you will win your first few games, even if you haven’t got the cattle there to do it.
“I believe you have to bring players in if you want to be competitive. If you don’t bring players in you are going to run bottom of the pack.
“Without bringing players in we wouldn’t have had all those successes in Reserve Grade and First Grade. You just have to have them.
“Even in 1983 there was five or six bought players.
“Sadly Gundagai isn’t big enough to function without bringing people in.
Congratulations to Marty and David on their Life Memberships, the club wouldn’t be the same without you.