Woodville Cricket Club and Woodville-West Torrens Football Club mourn much-loved stalwart Ernie Wenske
Woodville District Cricket Club and Woodville-West Torrens Football Club say goodbye to their local legend.
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Ernie Wenske was Woodville District Cricket and Woodville-West Torrens Football clubs’ version of Barry ‘Nugget’ Rees.
Mr Wenske, who had an intellectual disability, was a loveable cult figure of the cricket and football clubs.
The clubs are mourning the loss of Mr Wenske who died following a stroke on June 24. He was 86.
Mr Wenske – who had been involved with the clubs for more than 40 years – was always seen sitting in the front row of the Percy Fox grandstand at cricket games, decked out in Woodville gear, listening to a transistor radio.
So strong is the local love for Mr Wenske, the cricket and football clubs play an annual Twenty20 match and the winner takes home a trophy named in his honour.
“Ernie was our ‘Nugget’,” Peckers chairman Tim Pillion said.
“He wan an enormous Woodville supporter.
“He came here for all the football games in the winter and all the cricket games in the summer.”
He said Mr Wenske also went to all Woodville’s away games.
“That would mean he would catch two buses and a train from his home at the Brighton Minda campus to get to the ground when we were playing away,” Pillion said.
“As the players came on and off the field, he would say their names and ‘well done’.”
And he always kept score of the game.
“He’d know the score off by heart because he would keep it and count every run for every ball the whole day,” Pillion said.
“During afternoon tea, Ernie would always join the cricketers.
“Each player in the A grade would also get a Christmas card from him.
“He just loved the green and gold.”
Woodville-West Torrens Football Club chief executive Luke Powell described Mr Wenske as an “affectionate person”.
“His favourite player was Robert Shirley and he seemed the have the biggest jumper collection ever – he wore a different Eagles jumper each week,” Powell said.
“He was always a person that brought a smile to your face no matter how bad things were going at the footy club.
“Whether you won or you lost you always saw him sitting behind the goals and it always bought joy to the players’ faces and also the supporters around him.”