Cracker Old Boys day celebrates grassroots to greats

Souths Sunnybank has got their annual Old Boys Day down to an art.

The food and drink takings alone cater for about one-third of the annual revenue the canteen generates in one year as retellings of yesteryear flow between generations of club servants.

This year’s event on March 25 will be no different.

Their tales may get taller with age, but each one builds a bond driving an unbreakable Magpies spirit.

This success tapping into nostalgia hasn’t happened overnight. Souths Sunnybank president Steve ‘Timer’ Day has put years into making sure those like him - especially ones who have worn the jersey – are engaged in what is essentially a year-round countdown to the next big day.

He started a dedicated Old Boys Facebook page for plenty of banter and historic team photos, which has grown to more than 800 members.

“It happened just because I was trying to catch up with mates, so I started a Facebook page about 15 years ago and it’s just got bigger and bigger. We post old photos and sometimes we’ll put up rubbish like who was the fastest player, just things people can interact with,” Day said.

“On Old Boys Day last year we had 400 or 500 turn up and it gets bigger every year. It’s the first thing people ask me when they see me during the year.”

No matter what any of its alumni – including the likes of champion halfback and Queensland Maroons assistant coach Johnathon Thurston – has achieved, the passion for the club is shared across all the Old Boys, going way back.

This year a group 14 players from the 1973 Under 23 team will be attending and Day couldn’t be prouder of how the celebration of history is resonating around the club.

It makes Old Boys Day a good opportunity to “show off” what the club has become since moving to Woff St in the 1970s.

In recent years the club has put more than $600,000 in government funding into new dressing rooms, terraces and scoreboard upgrades, and spent its own money renovating the inside if the club rooms, adding air conditioning, repainting the outside and fitting out a small gym.

It has spawned more opportunities to support other tenants, who brought in $35,000 for the club last year and celebrate its supporters, from sponsors to government, keeping the club going strong into the future.

Souths Sunnybank’s Old Boys Day is on March 25 from 1pm.