Ourimbah RLFC: Magpies stalwart Brent Radburn celebrates 500th game for the club

Brent Radburn bleeds black and white. Over three decades since he first pulled on an Ourimbah Magpies jersey, the-now 38-year-old will line up for his 500th game. Read his incredible journey.

Richard Noone

@richard_noone

2 min read

June 3, 2023 - 5:00AM

Central Coast Express Advocate

Ourimbah Wyoming Magpies rugby league player Brent Radburn will play his 500th game. Main picture: Sue Graham

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Ourimbah Wyoming rugby league loose forward Brent Radburn first donned a black and white Magpies’ jersey as an Under 7 in 1992.

The Brisbane Broncos won their first NRL premiership that season.

Three years later the skinny kid with the laser-straight fringe played in his first winning premiership when Ourimbah won the U10s.

Thirty-one years later the journeyman will line up at Bill Sohier Park from 3pm on Saturday to captain his beloved reserve grade team around the pitch one more time.

But this isn’t just any Saturday afternoon bush footy match.

Brent Radburn who will be playing his 500th game for the Ourimbah Wyoming Magpies rugby league cub on Saturday. Pic Sue Graham

What makes his achievement so much more remarkable is it will be his 500th game for the same club.

“I just love playing footy and I don’t know when to stop,” he jokes.

As a seven-year-old.

Sure other players have come and gone, having notched up hundreds of Junior and Senior games. And even Radburn himself moonlighted with another club, in the Newcastle competition, during the dark days of early Covid.

But few have the longevity in the body to wrack up 500 appearances in the gruelling gladiatorial arena that is full-contact rugby league, let alone for a single club.

It has come at quite the cost.

While most younger players would hang up the boots after one serious injury, Radburn has climbed the mountain three times coming back from rupturing his ACL twice in his left knee and once in the right.

“Probably trying to tackle someone and going in too hard,” he said of each time in 2012, 2017 and 2019.

“I’ve planted my foot and they’ve stepped me and it’s just snapped.”

Ourimbah Wyoming Magpies rugby league logo

The self-confessed gym-dodger has also broken bones and spilt blood – some of it his own – over three decades.

Perennially humble, Radburn said he just loved playing with his mates rather than setting his sights on any higher honours.

“I was pretty proud to play Jersey Flegg,” he said.

“I was 82kg back then and I was never really interested in the gym. The first game my coach threw me into the forwards and the other front row was all six-foot-five and 110kg. I thought `oh well, I guess I will be tackling low today’.”

As current vice president and former president of the Magpies, Radburn and his wife Kristy have been credited with saving the club from the brink of collapse at the height of Covid.

Ourimbah Magpies football manager John Coman said Radburn had been instrumental both on and off the field.

“There’s a lot of the young blokes, who have come up through our juniors, who just want to play with him,” Mr Coman said.

“I think that’s what’s inspired him to play on.”

Radburn said while he still loved the game every bit as much as when he was seven, he enjoyed passing on his hard earned experience.

It will be a massive day at the Magpies’ home on Saturday where reunions have also been organised for the 1993 Under 18 and 2003 Under 19 Premiers to coincide with Radburn’s 500th.