Miscellaneous
Welcome everybody to episode 51 of the Football United vs Soccer City podcast. I am sincerely grateful and thankful for every interviewee that has participated and graciously shared their journey. In addition to the podcast, there are the Football United vs Soccer City social media pages, which have been a great source of reminiscing and community interaction. So thank you to the people who continue to send items through and interact on these pages.Keith Learmonth is our interviewee in episode 51. Keith was born in 1933 and grew up in Fairy Meadow. He and his 4 brothers played soccer from an early age and Keith was successful as a goal scorer and generally as a player. The teams that Keith played with invariably had success and he regularly contributed to this success through his goal scoring exploits. In his junior career he was successful with the Gwynneville Soccer Club and Fairy Meadow Public School, which over a few years led to a succession of representative selections in Illawarra, New South Wales and Australian teams.After a glittering junior career that encompassed tours to Victoria and Queensland, Keith aged 16 joined his brothers at the strong North Wollongong Soccer Football Club in 1950 and it was here that he impressed by helping North Wollongong win every trophy that year and being selected in the Illawarra representative team. In 1951 he was then snapped up by the state league Corrimal Rangers after overtures from them and fellow state league teams Balgownie and Woonona-Bulli. And over the next 10 seasons with Corrimal Rangers and Corrimal United he won countless trophies with in my opinion the most successful Illawarra Club team in our history, played for his state and was the first person in Australian football to represent his country at junior and senior level after he played against South Africa and numerous touring club teams in the green and gold.This interview was never going to do justice to Keith and his achievements. I am sincerely grateful to have recorded little parts of his memories from over 60 plus years ago and I thank Keith for the opportunity to record his thoughts and allowing me to copy some pictures from his archive. Please note at the end of the interview with Keith I have added two brief interviews with Barry Salisbury and Peter Glass who give their insights and thoughts on Keith as a player. Please enjoy this interview!