The Immortals: Ian Heads' timeless gift to rugby league

From a seemingly endless stream of beautifully crafted words in print, to carefully chosen and equally significant words of wisdom, Ian Heads left an incredible legacy on our game and the people in it.

So it was no surprise that as word of Ian’s passing filtered through on Monday, colleagues past and present reached out from across the country and the world to share their memories.

Each in their own respectful way wanting to pay tribute to a friend and a father figure, a mate, mentor and master of his craft.

Many of them I had worked alongside at Rugby League Week, the game’s Bible that Heads had edited for seven years from 1981, the year he gave the game the greatest gift of all – The Immortals.

In conjunction with the magazine’s NSW editor Peter Peters, legendary celebrity agent John Fordham and wine industry guru Brian McGuigan, the idea to honour four great rugby league players was hatched.

As Heads told the assembled judging panel in 2012 when we came together to choose the eighth Immortal, it may well have been Peters who first uttered the word ‘immortal’ as they met in Rushcutters Bay to mull over the concept and how best to bring it to life.

“Maybe it was an inspiration beamed by Dally Messenger, who had, after all, grown up just a suburb away,” Heads reflected.

“Whatever… the word ‘Immortal’ (with its various meanings, including everlasting fame and unending existence) was seized upon, unanimously agreed to and locked in.

“The judges for the job at hand had to be the best were there – and I duly went in turn to Tom Goodman, the greatly-respected sporting scribe, Frank Hyde, champion player and doyen of commentators, and to the ‘old fox’ of coaches, Harry Bath, who had coached his last game that year and was heading back to Queensland. All agreed without hesitation to tackle the challenge.”

Let history show that those esteemed gentlemen debated long and hard over the seemingly impossible task of picking just four players to wear the ‘Immortal’ tag … and settled on ‘The Little Master’ Clive Churchill, John ‘Chook’ Raper, Bob ‘Bozo’ Fulton and ‘Puff The Magic Dragon’ Reg Gasnier.

On a glorious July day in 1981, the fab four donned their Kangaroos jerseys and strode to the middle of the Sydney Cricket Ground for a photo shoot for the ages, blazing a trail that would be followed by Wally Lewis and Graeme Langlands in 1999, Arthur Beetson in 2003, Andrew Johns in 2012 and Dave Brown, Mal Meninga, Dally Messenger, Norm Provan and Frank Burge in 2018.

By then, of course, the Immortals was in the safe hands of the NRL after Rugby League Week had ceased publication in 2017, some 47 years after Prenter rolled issue #1 off the printing press with a mantra of being “a football newspaper, not a scandal sheet”.

“We didn’t wallow in players’ misfortunes. There were too many good things to concentrate upon without dragging a player’s reputation through the mud,” Prenter reflected in the magazine’s farewell issue.

“We started with a circulation of about 10,000 a week and by the time I handed the reins to Ian Heads, RLW was selling 100,000. A tidy little money-spinner.”

With the magazine in rude health and a Wednesday staple for fans and players alike, Heads stepped into the breach in 1981 – revered by all those who plied their trade under his tutelage and respected by those at the coalface, the players and coaches.

"He cared for the sport, the participants and his readers. His writings were always fair, accurate, knowledgeable, entertaining, and without personal agenda,” said Phil Gould, a member of Newtown’s grand final side in 1981, Heads’ first year at RLW.

"He was a credit to his profession, and, I'm sure, an inspiration to many aspiring journalists. He also wrote many wonderful books. He will be missed. He made his mark and he made a difference."

By the time I arrived at Rugby League Week in 1995, Ian had moved on, but his legacy of excellence remained, carried on by Norman Tasker, the man who took a punt on me as a sub-editor to design layouts and conjure headlines for the brilliant stories of Daniel Lane, David Page, Adam Hawse, Darren Hadland, Glenn Jackson, Nick Walshaw, Jim Marr and so many more.

When I was given the honour of taking over as editor in 2003, it felt like I was standing on the shoulders of giants.

From Prenter to Heads and Tasker, they had taken a dream and run with it, turning Rugby League Week into the game’s most respected publication… a constant in the lives of so many footy fans for more than four decades.

Even when the curtain came down in 2017, the Immortals lived on, entrenched as rugby league’s highest honour, the deeds of the 13 men who carry the title still talked about in hushed tones.

Much like the deeds of the gentleman scribe who gave us the Immortals all those years ago.

• Martin Lenehan worked at Rugby League Week from 1995 to 2017 and was editor between 2003-11. He has been a senior journalist with NRL.com since 2018.