Neville Hannah

Your Say

• Anonymous
  15 Oct 2012 1:56pm

  Newcastle representative, played in win by Newcastle against Great Britain in 1962

• Anonymous
  6 Sep 2021 9:51am

  From Robert McIntyre on facebook Sept 2021: My Pop, Neville Hannah passed away on Wednesday evening. He was 84 years old.
  
  He played first grade for South Sydney in the early 60’s. He was a Hunter valley boy that made the move to South’s along side the likes of Johnny Sattler.
  
  One of the more memorable highlights of his football career was the victory that the Newcastle represtative team had over the touring British side in 1962. The story was told by Nev plenty of times which was awesome to hear.
  
  The Newcastle herald more recently re-counted the story. They wrote the following:
  “A classy blend of Newcastle players including Les Johns, John Sattler, Don Schofield and Neville Hannah survived the bullying tactics of the British to record their first victory over an international since beating New Zealand in 1956.
  
  Great Britain had two players sent off and several other cautioned.
  
  The tourists lost hooker John Shaw after he used a ‘Rabbit Killer’ punch to the back of Schofield’s neck, and prop Jack Wilkinson after he hit halfback Hannah with a high tackle.
  
  Wilkinson’s high shot sparked an all-in-brawl that included Hannah’s non-playing brother Les who jumped the fence when Neville was hit”.
  
  From Pop’s retellingnof the story Les was laying flat on the field as he came off second best to the Pom’s but it was a classic old school footy tale.
  
  If there’s any folks out there that knew Neville or had a relative that played along side him, I would love to hear from you. He was a great man that we will be farewelling next Tuesday.
  Many thanks!

• Anonymous
  4 Sep 2024 8:08pm

  I believe I worked with Nev at Newvale 2 Colliery back in the '70s and '80s. Good bloke. And of course Les is a legend from his Wyong Kangaroos days, and I'll bet he's still telling the story of how Cessnock got their nickname (Go Hannah!!). Great memories. :)

• Lindsay Cox
  19 Jan 2026 3:16am

  Note
  I happened to be their that day with my father Ernie Cox (Another ex Rabbitoh) and every word of it was true
  Les was quite near us when he jumped the fence and hung one on Jack Williamson which started the pommies doing a bit of a soft shoe on poor Les. The crowd were pretty keen to get on the field and mix it with the pommy forwards which could have got quite ugly
  but sanity prevailed
  I was 15 at the time and 78 now and remember it clear as a bell

Want to have your say? Add a comment.