Kathy Brown, with daughter Terry Dunbar and grand-daughters Lilly Wosomo and Serena Dunbar, has retired from hockey after playing the sport for half a century. (Photo: Justin Sanson / Northern Territory News)
It is hard to go past reading a great tribute story. There are so many people who have given much to the development of hockey and we witness a person like Kathy Brown who plays well into her later years it is worth sharing with others. It provides great motivation for those of us who would like to play hockey forever. This is the Kathy Brown story.
Much loved matriarch of East Darwin HC hangs up her stick at 75 years old. Kathy Brown’s incredible legacy will live on long after her retirement from a 50-year Darwin hockey career.
The much-loved life member of the Darwin Hockey Association and matriarch of East Darwin has decided to hang up her stick at 75, after first playing the sport in her early 20s. But with six children, 30 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren – who all play hockey once they are old enough – her footprint in the Top End hockey community will always remain.
A passionate member of Easts, Brown said all of her offspring would never dare play for another club because “it would be hard to play with broken legs”. She debuted at half-back, but during her first game switched to goalkeeper at half-time when her teammate didn’t want to play there.
Brown played goalkeeper in A and B-grade for the first 20 years before spending the next 30 in C-grade. A winner of multiple premierships, club awards and NT representative honours, Brown, who grew up on a cattle station outside Elliott, said she fell in love with hockey the moment she started.
“I remember Keith Kemp came up to me and said, ‘who taught you to play hockey?’ – I said it was my first game and he said, ‘you’re bloody good’,” she said.
“I used to wear my husband’s football boots because it had the steel caps, and in those days you didn’t have head gear (playing in goals).All my kids were born two years apart and I used to manage it so that I could play right up until I was four months along, and then by the time the next season came round I already had the baby. I’ve made a lot of friends at the club, and all the kids respect each other like brothers and sisters. But if I kept playing my family would probably come and knock me out themselves.”
Brown is famous for her lucky stones she used to carry in her bra. After winning the 1970-71 grand final, Brown gave the stones to the East Darwin men’s keeper to put in his pants for good luck, and they also won the premiership.
She has little time for rivals St Marys, but all of her daughters dated St Marys footballers. Brown also confessed to enjoying playing bingo at the Saints clubhouse and “winning their money” from time to time.
Terry Dunbar, one of Brown’s five daughters, who have all represented the NT in hockey, said the whole family is proud of her achievements.
“I was coaching the C-grade side in her last few games and she still had a bit of fancy stick work there. Mum has been a wonderful role model for staying fit and healthy, working hard and showing how to embrace people with humility. She has always been generous to families who needed help to have their children play hockey. It was never too much to pick up and drop off children to play hockey. She always felt that children needed to be playing sport to keep them out of trouble. She will still be around
hockey every week even though she’s not on the field.
“I think the old stick and the pads will go in the grave with her” said Terry
Go Hockey News wishes Kathy many good times ahead.
Source: NT News
