History reveals itself

Fifteen years after the idea was initially proposed, the illustrious history of the Illawarra Women’s Hockey Association has finally been properly documented.

“The idea goes back to 1993 when a group of us met and it was first suggested,” one of the book’s co-authors, Val Kirkwood, 80, said.

“But because we all had families, were helping to run a club and were all getting older it didn’t happen until we had a big 70th reunion in 2001.”

Encouraged by long-time friends at the reunion, Mrs Kirkwood spent countless hours writing and researching the book alongside fellow Illawarra hockey stalwarts Eileen Bird and Dorothy May. The latter died from cancer in September of this year, shortly after the book- entitled History Of Illawarra Women’s Hockey Association 1931-2001- was completed.

Mrs Kirkwood played for the Figtree and Unanderra clubs and all three have been life-long servants of hockey in the Illawarra in both a playing and administration capacity.The book covers the history of the Association from its formation in 1931 up until the end of the 2001 season.

The competition’s foundation clubs were Wollongong (two teams), Port Kembla (two teams), Albion Park, Dapto and Figtree-Unanderra.

Mrs Kirkwood said the trio spent a considerable period of time trawling through newspaper records at the microfiche at local libraries, but making their task difficult was the fact that no minute books from the years 1931-1949 were available.

Thankfully, they were assisted by Eileen Cawse, who represented Port Kembla in the competition’s first year of play. Mrs Cawse was able to provide the co-authors with numerous newspaper clippings from this era, which Mrs Kirkwood said proved to be incredibly helpful when collating information for the book, which also includes numerous photographs, lists of representative teams and assorted stories from past players.

Also on hand to provide additional memories for the publication were 94-year-old Noelle Burgess and Dot Eady, 92. Both were members of the Illawarra team which travelled to Sydney to compete in the Country Week competition in 1932.

“We didn’t realise the amount of work that was going to be involved,” Mrs Kirkwood said. “We’re relieved to think it’s going to be published after the work we’ve put into it. After all of the work had been done it was so sad to lose Dot and her not being able to see it finally finished, because she was involved with hockey in the area for 72 years.”

The book will be officially launched at the Unanderra Hockey Stadium (located on Waples Road) on Saturday, November 22 at 11am.