Tucked away in a quiet place in Doug Thornton's archives was a curious piece of history: a Newcastle Rugby League program from a game on Saturday, July 28, 1973, between Central-Charlestown and the Northern Suburbs.
Northern had a record of 14 premierships and eight minor premierships since the inaugural competition in 1910 through to 1967. A few years later, the club would go on to win a 15th premiership in 1979, but in the middle of the '73 season, they were outdone by Central in an 18-11 defeat. Mr Thornton remembers refereeing that game. He pulled the final score from a scrapbook he kept from his 25 years on the whistle from 1963 until he retired from the sport at 50 in 1988.
Of course, neither Northern nor Central appeared in the grand final that year (Maitland ultimately defeated minor premiers West Newcastle 27-18), and on any other day, that mid-season clash might have seemed inconsequential, but for one detail. Mr Thornton's linesman was the late legend of Newcastle League, Leigh Maughan.
The Newcastle Knights' founding father - a titan of Newcastle rugby league - passed away on March 28 and has been the source of an outpouring of tributes this week.
From the mid-1970s, when he first spurred the idea of a Newcastle side in the national competition, to when the city was granted a team and beyond in the club's early years, no one championed the cause more. Maughan's tireless efforts to found the Newcastle Knights are legendary, but his commitment to the local competition was just as storied.
He was a player, a referee, and a Newcastle Rugby League board member. He was renowned for his commentary on local radio and later on NBN Television.
He was, as Mr Thornton recalls, also one of the notable class of 1950 at New Lambton Boys Primary School that included fellow Newcastle rugby league personality Gordon Doyle, who played on the bench during Newcastle's 1964 State Cup victory over Paramatta, and Ken Warby, who would go on to become the world's fastest man on water.
Interestingly, both Maughan and Warby were also members of New Lambton's first Scouts troop circa 1949.
"When Leigh and Ken set out, their goals seemed virtually impossible," Mr Thornton, who was in the same notable class, said this week.
Warby famously set the world water speed record of 511.1 kilometres per hour in a boat he designed, built, financed and piloted himself in 1978. He died on February 20, 2023, at 83 in the United States.
In 2015, the Newcastle Herald wrote that Warby's timber boat had been designed on the kitchen table, built in the backyard, and was powered by a second-hand engine that had cost him $65.
"Once you leave school and go through life, you can lose contact with people," Mr Thornton said, "I never came in contact with Ken Warby again, but the last time I saw Leigh was a few years ago at Broadmeadow Railway Station.
"I was with my wife, going somewhere, and he was on his mobile talking to somebody. He gave me a wave, and that was it.
"We had two fellows in the same class, and both achieved things you wouldn't have thought possible."
