Sporting luminaries gathered at Eastbank in Shepparton on Friday, February 4, to welcome the newest inductees into the Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame.
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Since its inception in 2017 there have been 76 inductees — 46 men and 30 women — across 38 sports or categories.
Cycling has the most representatives (seven), followed by AFL (six), hockey (five), lawn bowls (five), sports administration (four) and cricket (four).
The Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame was established to recognise the achievement of Greater Shepparton sports people who have made a significant contribution to their sport including as coaches, officials and administrators.
Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame Inductees
Stacey Collier: lawn bowls
Stacey has been a top performer in bowls since 1992. She represented Australia on the international stage and was the world under 25 singles champion in 2000.
She won the state under-18 singles championship in 1988, the Australian under-18 junior singles in 1999 along with the Victorian singles and fours in 2000. Stacey has won eight Goulburn Valley titles.
Terrie Crozier: lawn bowls
Terrie Crozier grew up in Shepparton, the daughter of Shepparton’s best known all-round sportswoman Peg Curtis.
Terrie represented Shepparton as a softball and netball player prior to joining Shepparton Bowling Club and advancing to become a bowls official and umpire.
She umpired at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and as an accredited international technical officer with World Bowls has officiated in international championships.
Leigh Egan: BMX
Leigh was known as the master of BMX as soon as the BMX club was formed in Shepparton in 1980.
By 1983 he was winning Victorian titles and, by 1984, had won two world titles, taking out his class as well as the world open men’s.
He was Australia’s first ever elite male BMX champion and dominated Australian BMX racing.
Narelle Gosstray: baseball
Narelle grew up in the Goulburn Valley and played basketball, volleyball, badminton, tennis, indoor cricket, netball and softball, representing Greater Shepparton in each.
When she moved to Melbourne to study she became involved in baseball and was selected in the inaugural Australian women’s baseball team in 2001 and since then has donned many representative caps as a player and coach.
Julie Gross: basketball
Julie Gross grew up in Tatura and played basketball at Shepparton High School and represented the Goulburn Valley and Victoria.
She was elevated into the Australian team and played for her country in two world championships, coming under notice of American talent scouts.
She was awarded a scholarship to Louisiana State University and was the first player to be selected in the “All American” team.
Stephen King: AFL
In the early 1990s talented young Shepparton ruckman Steven King was selected to play for Murray Bushrangers and went on to wear the #1 jumper for Geelong and eventually captain the club.
He has the interesting honour of playing in Geelong AFL and VFL premierships in 2007. He played a total of 240 games of AFL football before going into coaching.
Jarrod Lyle: golf
Only one golfer from Shepparton has appeared on the world stage.
Jarrod Lyle came to notice as a teenager and performed well enough to win a place in the Australian Open.
He rose rapidly to reach the US PGA Tour but his career was interrupted by the return of leukaemia, which he’d battled as a teenager.
Jarrod won praise from the world’s top golfers as he fought his illness to play the game he loved for as long as he could.
Dennis Myers: sprint car racing
Dennis was attracted to sprint car racing when he watched his father drive on Goulburn Valley circuits.
He won hundreds of races representing GV Auto Club including the Australian title for Midget sprint cars twice, and numerous state titles.
Emma O’Keeffe: sport aerobics
Emma has been involved in sport aerobics for much of her life.
She loves the sport and has worked hard to perform at the world championships.
She has won Victorian and Australian championships and represented Australia in international competition in New Zealand, winning gold in 2012, 2013 and 2015; and gold at the world championships in 2014.
Emma still competes in competition aerobics.
Steele Sidebottom: AFL
Steele Sidebottom was a top player with Murray Bushrangers and starred in the curtain-raiser to the 2008 AFL grand final, kicking 10 goals.
Collingwood took him as pick number 11 in the 2008 draft and Steele has been a fixture for the magpies for 243 games including being the youngest member of the 2010 premiership team.
He will pull on the black and white again in 2022.
John Sutherland: trap shooting
John amazed the world with his accuracy and ability for over 50 years as he won 103 championships and held the world record for the number of targets shot in a single competition.
Interestingly he didn’t shoot under his own name John Sutherland, but used the name “Calrossie” as his professional name.
His first shoot was in Shepparton in 1895 and by the end of his globe-trotting career he was referred to as the best shot on the planet.
Raelee Thompson: cricket
Raelee grew up in Shepparton and joined Victoria Police in 1971.
She played women’s cricket in Melbourne and rose to play international cricket for Australia from 1972 to 1985.
She was captain of the Australian team in the 1984-85 series against England, which Australia won 2-1.
Raelee was a member of the Australian team which won the world cup in India in 1979 and in New Zealand in 1982.
Raelee also served as an Australian and Victorian cricket selector.
Bryan Thomson: motor racing
In the years between 1960 and 2000, when Shepparton people spoke of motorsport the name Bryan Thomson would always come up.
Bryan was the first Shepparton race driver to compete overseas and drove against the best domestically.
He won the Australian Sports Sedan GT championship and finished third in the James Hardie 12-hour event at Bathurst.
Stephen Tingay: AFL
Football followers in Shepparton took notice when a blond-haired dasher for Shepparton Football Club started to show his brilliance.
Sublimely skilled, Stephen was soon snapped by the Melbourne Demons in 1989.
He played for Victoria and was named All Australian in 1994.
He played 162 games for the Demons and kicked 84 goals.
David Waite: volleyball
In the 1980s and 90s David Waite played volleyball for Australia and was capped for his country an amazing 260 times.
David was a recipient of two scholarships to the Australian Institute of Sport and maintained his high standard of play throughout his decade-long international career.
Adem Yze: AFL
One of the earliest players of Albanian origin to play AFL football, Adem Yze was recruited by Melbourne Demons in 1995 and had an outstanding career amassing a total of 271 senior games and kicking 234 goals.
His career was helped by his lack of injuries which allowed him to play 226 games consecutively.
Following his playing career he became an assistant coach with Hawthorn and has since rejoined Melbourne.
Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame Honour Roll Inductees
Aiden Blizzard: cricket
Aiden was the first cricketer from Shepparton to play international cricket.
He always wanted to be a professional cricketer and worked hard to come under the notice of state selectors.
He has played for Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania at Sheffield Shield and one-day levels.
He has also experienced India IPL playing for Mumbai Indians for five seasons including alongside the great Sachin Tendulkar.
Mathew Higgins: hockey
At 19, Mathew moved to Melbourne to play for Altona and soon won a place at the Australian Institute of Sport.
His won selection in the Victorian hockey team where he played 108 games between 1999 and 2008.
Mathew was also named in the Victorian “All Stars” team.
Barry Myers: speedway racing
Barry was regarded as the best speedway driver in north-east Victoria in the 1970s, winning the highest class of speedway to become the Victorian sprint car champion.
He was four times North Eastern Zone champion and six times GV Auto Club champion.
Val Sutherland: netball
Val has given more than 60 years’ service to Shepparton and Goulburn Valley netball as a player, coach, umpire, administrator, Country Week manager and selector, tournament organiser, as well as being the association’s president, vice-president and treasurer.
Tom Spark (OAM): squash
Tom has been the Victorian masters champion 16 times and Australian masters champion 12 times.
In 1994 he won the world masters championship in the 35 to 39 age group and in 1991 he was the world masters champion of champions in the 45 to 49 age group.
Doug Tuhan: athletics
The Murchison 10,000 running event was conducted for more than 40 years with Doug at the helm.
Doug has also trained many athletes to prepare for running events such as the Stawell and Wangaratta carnivals.
He has been involved in football with Murchison Football Club and the KDFL including as an umpires’ advisor for 27 years.
Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame Junior Honour Roll Inductees
Sam Brown: dance sport
Sam has been a fantastic success as an exponent of dance sport.
At the age of 10 Sam received a rural and regional scholarship from DanceSport Victoria and has progressed to win championships at local, state and national levels.
He has represented Australia at the world championships and has achieved the highest standard in all age groups he has danced in.
Connor Holland: hockey
Connor came to prominence in junior hockey in Shepparton as a member of the Strikers hockey club.
His talent stood out and he gained the opportunity to represent the Goulburn Valley at the under 13 level, and from there has gone on to be part of many representative teams.
He also played for Essendon Hockey Club as a junior and progressed to play Premier League at 14.
Connor was selected in the Victorian team in five age groups and has represented Australia internationally in South Africa and Europe.
Alan Rossignoli: badminton
Alan rose to prominence as a junior badminton player in the 1960s, playing for the St Andrew’s club.
He won the association singles, doubles and mixed doubles championships and was selected to represent Victoria, becoming part of a national championship-winning team.
He was selected to play in an exhibition match in front of Prince Charles and Princess Anne at the Albert Park centre in 1970 and in 1972 played in an exhibition match at the opening of Shepparton Sports Stadium.
Xavier Russell: clay target shooting
Xavier was introduced to sporting clay target shooting by his grandfather and within a few years as a junior shooter has reached a standard which sees the 19-year-old competing at world level.
He won his first junior national title in 2017 and by 2019 was part of a three-man junior team to shoot for Australia in England at the world titles where the team won bronze.
He also won an individual bronze medal at the world English sporting championship in Ireland in 2019, and has numerous other state, national and international titles to his name.
Shepparton News chief correspondent