She’s Australian rugby’s Mother Teresa at 81-years-old
OVER the past 37 years Jan Tricker, 81, has devoted her time to the Manly Savers rugby club.
Manly
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JAN Tricker, 81, is Australian rugby’s version of Mother Teresa.
Over the past 37 years she has devoted her time to the Manly Savers club, washing and sewing up torn jumpers and shorts, cooking sausages on the barbecue and even darning footy socks that have seen better days
The long-term Balgowlah resident has also provided a moral compass and lots of jelly snakes to generations of players who have passed through the peninsula suburban rugby club.
Mrs Tricker was rewarded for her decades of dedication when she received the Peter Kelly Medal for service to rugby at the NSW Suburban Rugby Presentation night, getting a standing ovation from a full room of people from 40 clubs,
“All I know is that it has knocked me over, I am totally stunned and this is a team effort,” she told the Manly Daily.
Mrs Tricker’s involvement with Savers started in 1982 when her son Bill — “Sticks” — was a player and told her she did not know enough about Sydney.
He insisted she get on the Savers bus when they travelled to away games. And she has been on board ever since, becoming an irreplaceable member of the team.
“You’re just the gofer,” she said. “I do the repairs, I like sewing and learnt it from when I was two years old. And I remember one night we cooked 200 sausages.”
While it has been a huge commitment above and beyond what anyone would expect, Mrs Tricker said she got a lot out of her involvement with the team.
“I’m an old nurse and I very much like people,” she said. “And we get such a variety of people from every country, here, there and everywhere,” she said.
“It is so easy to have no anchor and nowhere to belong and at Savers you always belong.
“It helps young fellas bind together and gives them something to do.”
Mrs Tricker said the team had to have rules, which she reminded the players about.
“I say to them, ‘You don’t steal, you don’t tell lies, you don’t take drugs and you don’t run after all these floozies that are about’,” Mrs Tricker said.
“And they go, ‘I’ve never done any of that’. Well, there you go ... told a lie.”
Mrs Tricker said the club was like a family.
“Once a Saver, always a Saver, no matter where you go,” she said.
“I think I am going to die on the football bus.”
Savers president John Szaka described Mrs Tricker as a legend to multi generations of Savers players and the rugby community.
“She is a phenomenal person. She won’t take money, she won’t take gifts,” Mr Szaka said.
“It’s impossible to give her anything but a lifetime achievement award.
“I don’t think anything I could say would do her enough justice