November 25, 2015
A life-size bronze statue of tennis champion Roy Emerson will be erected in Blackbutt following a successful fundraising lunch held in the town at the weekend.
Lunch organiser Hazel Christie-Small told southburnett.com.au sculptor Mark Snell will now be given the go-ahead to begin work on the statue in January.
Hazel said the lunch, which also featured an auction of tennis memorabilia, had been “a great success”.
Guests paid $50 a head to listen to guest speakers Mal Anderson – another Australian tennis great – and author and raconteur Hugh Lunn who has written extensively about another Queensland tennis champ, Ken Fletcher
Hugh revealed an unexpected link between his mate “Fletch”, an Aussie larrikin who died of cancer in 2006, and Blackbutt … Fletch’s mother Ethel was born there.
Roy Emerson, who now lives in the United States, grew up at Nukku and became, in the words of Mal Anderson, “one of the best backhand volleyers that tennis has ever seen”.
Mal, who married Roy’s sister Daphne, said his brother-in-law was also one of the best doubles players Australian tennis had produced.
The cost to erect the bronze statue has been estimated at $65,000.
A single donor, Bermuda and Tasmanian businessman Sanders Frith-Brown, is contributing half the cost.
Other individual donors have also contributed to the fundraising.
On Saturday, another $2100 was raised from an auction, including $700 for an autographed and framed photo of Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova.
Related articles:
- Last Chance To Book For Tennis Lunch
- No Way For Roy Emerson
- Petition Lodged To Honour Emerson
- Tennis Champ Has A Ball In Blackbutt
- Tennis Legend To Visit Blackbutt
When I was an apprentice with the Kingaroy Herald in the early 1950s which operated a competent weekly broadsheet newspaper covering Kingaroy and Nanango news, I had the job of riding a bicycle down town each morning and lighting burners underneath linotype machines so that the metal was melted for operators to start work at 8am.
There was a gate in Alford Street belonging to the garage of Townson & Heaslip and next to the sports store of Norm Brimson who had earlier been a Davis Cup player.
As I leaned the bike against the fence one Saturday morning, another teenager of about my age rode in on his cycle and parked it against my machine. A conversation developed and Emmo, as we know him, said he had just ridden from Blackbutt for regular coaching with Brimson.
And so that’s where it really all started, with Roy later transferring to Brisbane to really start a tennis career which made him the outstanding tennis singles and doubles player in the world throughout two magnificent decades.
And isn’t it nice that after all those years, Roy at an earlier function remembered our meeting and gave me a great big hug. That’s what special people are all about!
What a fantastic report and such great photos. On behalf of Blackbutt Tourism & Heritage, we thank you so much, we all had the best day.
I enjoyed reading Keith Kratzmann’s story on his meeting with Emmo, perhaps we could encourage Keith to be a guest speaker at one of our history mornings held at the Museum, 3rd Friday of the month. A very relaxed chat over a cuppa, that’s it!