Wynnum Manly this week lost one of its most recognised and best players with the passing of Bob Greenhill.
Bob Greenhill was a member of the 1952 Under 20’s premiership winning side that defeated Easts in the 2nd year of the Wynnum Manly Rugby League Football club’s entry into the competition.
Greenhill was a Brisbane representative player and was recognised as a player that should have played for Queensland.
Bob was an imposing forward standing at 193cm and 115kg with outstanding ball skills and was terrifying defensive player.
A great description of the footballer Bob Greenhill, was written in the book ‘Voices of the Brisbane Rugby League’ with former leading Brisbane Rugby League referee Henry Albert quoting the following –
“There were some real hardheads in those days, the Bishop brothers from Wests and the Greenhill brothers from Wynnum. The players today, they wouldn’t know they were alive against these fellows, the toughest blokes today are schoolboys compared to these chaps.” “They weren’t dirty players they were just hard.”
“They crash tackled players, upright tackles and they went down and they went down on top of them. Nothing was illegal, but they were hard. Mind you, if you hit them, you’d run a mile to get away from them.”
Bob Greenhill was also known a “5 Pound Bonus Bob” this was in reference to him wining the 5 pound bonus that was on offer to the Courier Mail player of the match award on a frequent basis. Bob won this bonus in a player of the match performance when Wynnum won their first ever piece of Silverware when they club took out the Presidents Cup in 1959.
Bob played over 100 games for Wynnum Manly spanning from 1955 to 1960, scoring 76 points with 16 tries and 14 goals, quite an effort for a second rower in that era.
