Here’s Cheers in the form of the Wynnum Manly cheer squad. From left – Lou MacKinnon, Zan Baker, Helen Curtis, Liz Heymer, Carol Paroz, Glenda Smith, Jan Seymore, Dina Stone and Denise Shepherd
Watching their team having tense matches is hard enough for the cheer squad of the Wynnum Manly Football team.
But having women in the crowd yell insults athletes the squad is a bitter lot for the charming young ladies to take and the prize verbal backhander thrown at the girls was: “You’re all from the slums.”
After a barrage of remarks from women at Lang Park, a Wynnum reader wrote to Telegraph Rugby League columnist Peter Gallagher.
The cheer squad came from good homes and should not be subjected to abuse, the reader said.
The girls, with their uniforms in the club collars of red and green, with boater hates, have become a glamorous part of the Rugby League scene.
Were they upset by the abuse? “No, definitely not,” said Carol Paroz, 22, wife of the team’s half-back. “It’s part of the sport, I suppose. Some people have nasty digs, but we don’t worry about it.
“The woman who said we came from a slum later apologised. She said she had been carried away during the game.”
The cheer squad of 11 young ladies could be pardoned for being carried away too, for eight of them are the wives of players.
Carole’s co-cherrers on the squad are Zan Baker, 20, Helen Curtis, 21, Dina Stone, 24, Jenny Moloney, 19, Liz Heymer, 25, Lou MacKinnon, 21, Jan Seymore, 20, Glenda Smith, 20, Patty Crowley, 19, and Terry Hawbrigg 19. The squad will be on the job again tomorrow when Wynnum-Manly meet Brothers at Wondall Road, Wynnum.
This will be the last match for the Wynnum-Manly A Grade side. But the girls will cheer on the following weekend, for the club’s C grade team will oat in the semi-finals. The 11 young ladies will be there – in spite of what remarks women spectators may make.
Story Source: The Brisbane Telegraph 1968
Photo Source: The Brisbane Telegraph 1968 (Compliments of Helen Curtis)
