Manfred Moore returned - after thirty years!

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The Newtown Rugby League Football Club welcomed Manfred Moore as a special guest of the Newtown club as part of the 2007 Reunion Day celebrations.

on the Thursday night of Reunion Week, Manfred attended a celebration dinner at the Bowlers' Club of NSW and then, on the Saturday, joined Newtown supporters at Henson for the annual Newtown Jets players and supporters reunion.

He also attended the Sunday morning Church service on the 26th August, conducted by the Newtown Jets club chaplain Father Dave Smith of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Herbert Street, Dulwich Hill.

Manfred is well remembered as the high-profile American professional footballer who joined the Newtown Jets for several matches in the 1977 NSW Rugby League premiership competition.

His recruitment was an audacious if not entirely successful venture, but both Manfred and the Jets have remained in contact with each other – and his return was his first visit to Sydney in thirty years. What amazing changes there have been to this great city and the game of Rugby League football in that time!

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Manfred was both a graduate in Business Studies and an outstanding college athlete at the University of Southern California in the early 1970's, and then embarked on a professional football career with the Oakland Raiders, San Francisco 49ers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Minnesota Vikings franchises.

He was with the Oakland Raiders when they won Super Bowl XI in January 1977 – and only a few months later he was turning out for the Jets at Henson Park!

He is now a successful Los Angeles businessman and a lay preacher in a neighbourhood Church.

He was delighted to renew acquaintances with some of his Newtown Jets compadres from 1977 – men such as John Singleton (now the Newtown Jets official club patron); his former coach Paul Broughton (now the chairman of the Gold Coast Titans); former Jets secretary Frank Farrington, and players John Floyd, Paul Dawson, Col Casey, Jets international Phil Sigsworth and Colin Murphy.