The Boorowa Touch and Netball Carnival is celebrating its 60th Anniversary in 2025.
Originally started in 1965, the carnival is still going strong today, with more than 4000 Primary School ages students participating in both the touch and netball sections of the day.
With over approximately 3500 spectators and school staff attending as well, the carnival is the biggest combined touch and netball carnival in NSW (and perhaps the country).
To celebrate this amazing history, students from St Joseph, Boorowa and Boorowa Central School, are interviewing members of the Boorowa community who have been active in the carnival’s history, to gain an insight into the history and stories of the carnival.
Written by Ed M We interviewed five locals who have had a lot to do with the carnival since 1965.
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Leah Wales, Bertie McMahon, Dawn Barton, Leon Wales and Jenny Reid told us some memories of their time helping at the carnival.
From being an organiser, umpire, referee, ground keeper, catering, first aid and playing, our five interviewees had amazing stories to tell us, especially about the food over the years.
The original carnival, started in 1965, was only a rugby league carnival held on Saturdays.
The carnival started because other towns such as Yass, Young, Cootamundra, Cowra and a few more started to have carnivals around the same year.
The first carnival was organised by the junior rugby league club and many people in the town would help and organise on the day.
All the boys playing brought their sisters on the day and, with nothing for them to do, the committee decided to add netball in 1969 for the girls to play.
Written by Alfie S
Our five interviewees shared some amazing memories with us.
Bertie shared his memory of the cold Saturdays it was held on, with big bonfires, warm soup to enjoy and one of the dads offering the volunteers a sip from his hipflask - just to keep warm!
Dawn explained how the canteen for the netball control was just a small caravan and how she umpired the netball all day without rest.
Leon shared his happiness about how big and successful the carnival is, with thousands of students participating over the years.
Jenny remembered how she used to put the large pots of soup around the bottom of the bonfires, welcoming the kids with a warm treat before they took the field.
Leah shared her memories of playing netball in the fog and cold when she was a kid and staying all afternoon and into the night around the bonfires.
Bertie also shared his memory of gathering stringy bark posts for each of the sixteen fields.
They all recalled how everyone pitched in to help, everything from, line marking with lime powder to cooking barbecues and making soup.
Leon and Bertie told us about how the rugby league teams were organised on weight instead of age.
Gary Martin was responsible for checking all the players weight, making sure no one ended up playing against someone who was triple the size of them.
Leon had to stamp the player’s hand to show they were ‘correct weight’.
Written by Ivy C
From the beginning, the carnival was always held on a Saturday in July, resulting in cold, foggy, frosty mornings for the players and parents.
To help stop the cold, a bonfire would be lit; staying on fire for the whole weekend.
Warm soup was offered to the players on arrival to keep them warm and energetic for the long day.
To avoid the cold, in the 1990s, the decision was made that the carnival would change from July to October.
Today we are grateful that we play in much warmer weather, even though there have been colder days at times.
Many teams were involved with some of the very first carnivals held.
The first carnival had 60 teams turn up to play Rugby League.
In 1975, the carnival had 63 football teams and 87 netball teams.
The carnival’s biggest number of teams was in 2017 with 250 touch teams and 194 netball teams.
Last year we had 237 touch teams, 163 netball teams, 400 altogether.
This year, the 60th year, we are hoping to have another massive carnival to continue the carnival’s success.
Written by Finn C
The carnival was on a Saturday and was a town held carnival.
It was run by the junior rugby league.
Then it was taken over by the two schools from Boorowa in 1998 and was run on a weekday.
It was originally just tackle footy but then in 1969 there was a netball comp brought in.
The council put in a lot of effort into the Boorowa carnival: collecting stringy bark trees to make posts for the football from outside the small town of Rugby and they made the big bonfires.
The Boorowa carnival is now touch football and netball and is in October so the weather is much better.
The canteen was very different in the early days; it had meat pies and steak sandwiches, the BBQs were under makeshift tents and all the men were squeezed into the tents cooking the BBQ.
The ladies were either umpiring the netball or in the canteen.
The netball had an old caravan and it was called the netball canteen. There wasn’t any power to heat the soup so they kept the pots warm on the bonfires.
St Joseph’s Year 6 students are looking forward to bringing you more memories and reflections from Boorowa Touch and Netball Carnival’s history over the next few weeks.
