Keith Gittoees tribute: Pacific pioneer hits a century

When Samoa and Tonga played their unforgettable Pacific Championships match at Suncorp Stadium last October players from both sides were unaware that a man who pioneered the Pacific Cup concept half a century earlier, was an enthusiastic spectator. 

Keith Gittoes, who celebrated his 100th birthday on Monday, watched the Pacific clash from the comfort of his lounge room at Tewantin, two hours north of Brisbane, proud of the role he played in helping to raise the profile of the game among Pacific nations. 

The first Pacific Cup in 1975 featured teams from Australia’s “non” Rugby League states Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and the Northern Territory, along with New Zealand Maori and the newly independent Papua New Guinea.

The tournament was played in Port Moresby after Gittoes had completed a reconnaissance tour of the emerging states and had met with officials in Auckland and PNG to organise the Cup program. 

Gittoes took on the Pacific Cup project in his role as NSWRL coaching director, and the Cup concept came about after he had coached a Northern Territory team against an outfit from Papua New Guinea in the early 1970s. 

In younger days, Gittoes was a prominent player, snapped up by English club Hull FC in 1948, before he had the chance to make his name in Australia.

He was an Eastern Suburbs junior, raised at Bronte, and played with the local surf club’s rugby league team in Easts’ C Grade competition.

His chance to play in England came through his coach, Cec Fifield, a former Western Suburbs player who toured with the 1929-30 Kangaroos. 

Fifield had purchased the local milk bar at Bronte and Gittoes recalled that “the young bloke who acted as our team secretary went and asked Cec if he would coach our team and he agreed”. 

After playing at Wests, Fifield spent six years with Hull where he played over 200 top-grade games and shared in the club’s championship triumph in 1936.

Returning to Australia, Fifield became a scout for his English club and over the next decade he enticed several Australians to sign up, including Balmain and Eastern Suburbs hooker George Watt, Newtown winger Bruce Ryan, and an unheralded centre from Easts juniors named Keith Gittoes. 

Aged 22, Gittoes had completed a printing apprenticeship and the offer and the opportunity were impossible to ignore.

He arrived in England soon after the start of the 1948-49 season, around the same time as the first post-war Kangaroo team and as fate would have it his debut for Hull was against the Australians. 

“And they played their Test side,” Gittoes recalled. “You can imagine how I felt as a young bloke of 22 in my first game in England!”

The Kangaroos’ line-up included Clive Churchill, Jack Rayner and Les ‘Chic’ Cowie and proved too strong in a 13-3 victory. The local Hull Daily Mail gave Gittoes credit for his role in the home team’s only score, which it described as “the best move of the match”. 

Gittoes’ initial contract with Hull was for four years but he returned in 1956 for another two seasons and remarkably he took on the Kangaroos twice more, in 1952 and 1956.

Apart from Hull’s contingent, Australian players were prominent in the English game in the 1950s, with such leading lights as Harry Bath, Ken Kearney, Trevor Allan, Rex Mossop, Pat Devery, Tony Paskins and Johnny Hunter among the best known. 

But the most prominent of all was Warrington winger Brian Bevan, who mesmerised opposition players and spectators alike with his dazzling footwork and incredible tryscoring prowess. 

The only player inducted into Halls of Fame in England and Australia, Bevan finished with the astonishing tally of 796 tries from 696 first-class appearances and not only did Gittoes witness Bevan’s skills at first hand, he became firm friends with the wing marvel, who also emerged from Sydney’s eastern suburbs. 

“Brian Bevan was the most dynamic footballer I’ve ever seen,” Gittoes said. “And I had the good fortune to end up good mates with him. He lived at Bondi before he went away. Gee, he was so fast. We see (Reece) Walsh here now. I would back Brian against him. 

“Brian would organise moves with his team-mates, telling them to kick the ball to this open space and he would arrive there before anybody else. He amused me how he would more or less pull up, waiting for the ball to come. That’s just to give you a highlight, but he was a bloody wizard.” 

Between his two stints with Hull, Gittoes returned to Australia and in 1954 joined St George on the recommendation of Ken Kearney, who had linked with Saints after three seasons with Leeds.

They were “between years” for St George, who were premiers in 1949 and building towards their epic run of success later in the 1950s. Gittoes played 18 of 20 games as Saints made it as far as a preliminary final before they were tipped out by Newtown. 

Another unforgettable experience awaited Gittoes in 1955 when he accepted a captain-coach position at Barmedman, a tiny railway town in the Riverina, population 800. “If you blink, you’d miss it,” Gittoes laughed. 

It was one of the smallest towns that contested the famous Maher Cup, and Gittoes was the only non-local in the line-up in 1955.

Larger towns had the funds to sign numbers of first grade players and even internationals from Sydney, but Gittoes was the lone “name player” in the town’s lineup.

“They were all farmers,” Gittoes recalled. “They’d won the Cup some time ago and they wanted it back. Boorowa was the team who had won the Cup from the previous season and so we had to go there to win it back and that’s what we did.” 

In a famous run that lasted for two glorious months in 1955, tiny Barmedman beat challenges from Junee, West Wyalong, Gundagai, Cootamundra and Grenfell, before finally surrendering the silverware to Temora. “And wow, we made them a lot of money … and made me a lot of money!” 

Gittoes married early in 1956 – Keith and wife Virley celebrated 70 years together earlier this year – before they returned to England where Keith played two final seasons with Hull. The Gittoes had a two-year working holiday in Canada before Keith took on the coaching director’s role with the NSWRL. 

It was a job that took him to all parts of the country, coaching coaches and working with former greats such as Keith Holman and Duncan Thompson to share their experiences and pass on knowledge. 

By the mid-1970s Gittoes took on the challenge of club secretary of the Balmain Tigers and was responsible for enticing a wave of exciting talent to the club, including Allan McMahon, Larry Corowa and a wrecking ball five-eighth from New Zealand, Olsen Filipaina. 

Born in Auckland but of Samoan heritage, Filipaina was the biggest name in rugby league in New Zealand in the late 1970s and Sydney clubs battled hard for his signature. “I went over to New Zealand for four days and met his parents and we signed the contract,” Gittoes recalled. 

Gittoes signed Corowa at an aerodrome in Cootamundra and the young Indigenous flyer became an instant crowd favourite at the Tigers, who climbed from a wooden spoon in 1975 to become one of the glamour clubs of the competition by the 1980s. 

These days, Gittoes relaxes at home with Virley and looks back on a life full of adventure and accomplishment.

Daughters Lindell and Julie prepared a special family celebration for the milestone and a letter from King Charles, another from Governor General Sam Mostyn and a special message from Hull FC added to the occasion. 

Happy 100th birthday Keith!