Left to right: Eric, Eddie, Roy, Bill and George Thorogood, 1995.

Good Sports

The Thorogood family were local sporting legends who excelled at cricket, tennis, bowls, rugby league, touch football and badminton from the 1930s onward.

The story started when Edwin Thorogood migrated to Australia from England in 1888, aged just 19. In Bundaberg he began work as an undertaker, then at the sugar refinery. Later he became a ganger on the railway line and he remained a ganger for most of his life.

In Bundaberg he met and married Ellen Rose Georgina Risebrook who had emigrated from England with her family when she was just two years old.

Edwin was transferred to Gympie for a few years and then to Brisbane.

In 1930 the couple came to live permanently on the family farm in Valdora Road. Edwin died in 1952 and Ellen in 1958. They had seven sons and four daughters and many of their descendants live on the Sunshine Coast.

Some of the Thorogood brothers are pictured at the dedication of the Thorogood Oval at the Yandina Sporting Complex in 1995. They are, from left: Eric, Eddie, Roy, Bill and George.

The full story of the Thorogood family, and their contribution to Yandina, can be read in the book To Coolum by Tram and Other Stories by Audienne Blyth.

Photo courtesy of: Picture Sunshine Coast. Sunshine Coast Council.