SSJCA awards 16 trophies annually (or more or less as required) to premiership winning teams in all grades from U16A down through to 10D. Further to this there are another 15 awarded for individual performance.

Cricketer of the Year

In determining "Cricketer of the Year", who shall be selected from the 16A competition, primary consideration will be based on performances over the competition rounds.

However, SSJCA Management may, in order to select one from a number of outstanding candidates, take into account demonstrated performance at Representative cricket level. In assessing performances Management shall be guided by the standard set out above for the other A grade age groups.

Best Performance

To provide an objective standard for arriving at the "Best performance" by a cricketer in the age groups of under 10, under 12, and under 14, points will be awarded as follows:

• Runs - 1 point per run scored
• Wickets - 10 points for each wicket taken
• Catches - 5 points for each catch taken
• Stumpings - 10 points per stumping (applicable only to wicketkeepers).

Best Representative Team Player

The "Best Representative Team Player" individual award shall apply to those participating in the NSWDCA Inter-districts representative series. It shall be determined by reference to the recognition of individual performances made by the NSWDCA in the first instance. Additionally an award is given for the "Best representative team player - Presidents XII Competition".

Major Award Winners

Season 2008/09

Major Award Winners

Season 2007/08

Major Award Winners

Season 2006/07

Major Award Winners

Season 2005/06

SSJCA Awards

History and Meaning of the Awards

Over the years from the very beginning the financial structure of the Association has been supplemented through the generosity of individuals, corporate bodies, organisations and companies. This support has taken the shape of donations, underwriting operational costs such as representative cricket, providing trophies, providing cricket equipment, providing merchandise for fund raising activities, in short whatever has been necessary at a given time.

In the early days there seemed no shortage of such generosity. In more recent years it has declined seriously and at present there are too few sponsors.

The longest contributing financial supporters sponsoring the Association have been the Kingsgrove Sports Centre, a sporting equipment marketing company and Marine Product Marketing Pty. Ltd a seafood importer. The association of these two companies goes back well over twenty years. The next most reliable and consistent sponsor has been Caltex Australia. It first advertised in 90/91 and only withdrew support in 2003/2004. That company, as Australian Oil Refineries P/Ltd, also contributed $500 towards the cost of the Honour Board installed in the Cricket Administration Centre, Caringbah.

For many years Bill Lawler and Don Masters, in addition to their management roles, supported the finances of the Association by placing business advertisements in the Annual Reports. Over the years there has been periodic support through advertising, much of which was gained through Bill Lawler's efforts and this came from insurance companies, banks, finance houses and the like. One of the best supporters for many years was Berts Soft Drinks from Taren Point who advertised consistently from 1981/82 through to 1992/93. There must be many former representative players who can recall the generosity of Berts Soft Drinks. For many years Berts were generous in providing their product free of charge to all our representative teams.

Many have donated trophies over the fifty years. The first trophies to be donated came in 1960/61 from the following generous contributors;-

• The J.A. Daly shield (for 16As) - from Jim Daly, (President from 1959-1969);
• The Miranda Glazing Works Shield (for Under 14s) from a company which was a keen supporter of Miranda Magpies;
• The Allen Fallin Shield (for Under 12s) - Allen was President of the NSW Cricket Umpires' Association and a great supporter in the early days of the Association;

Mrs. Chatland, a keen member of the Caringbah Sports Club. To this day who Mrs. Chatland was remains a mystery. Research has derived no information beyond the supposition that she was the grandmother of a lad who played for Caringbah Sports, loved cricket herself, and wanted to help and, apparently, was in a position to do so. The Mrs. Chatland Trophy (no other name known) has been presented annually since 1961and is awarded to the "Best Association Batting Performance Traditional cricket U16/U14". Some 18 years later Mrs Chatland still supporting junior cricket with an annual donation made a sizeable bequest that at her direction was placed in a Trust Fund with interest accruing annually to be paid to the Association to ensure her trophy exists in perpetuity. Though time and inflation has eroded the relative value of that generous act that trust fund continues today.

These days there are 16 trophies awarded annually (or more or less as required) to premiership winning teams in all grades from U16A down through to 10D. Further to this there are another 15 awarded for individual performance. Reference has already been made on another page to the BERTSHELL Trophy which is awarded annually to the Club that wins the "Club Championship" and a list of winners is contained elsewhere in this site.

So follows a list of the Annual awards which consist of a Perpetual Trophy and the granting of a personal trophy to the successful player. This list contains a brief explanation of the name of the Trophy and how it came about. A review of trophies was carried out in 1998 which resulted in a decision to honour the efforts of Life Members and to wherever possible perpetuate their efforts by naming trophies and thus awards after them rather than having awards named simply as a 'SSJCA for ...'.

• John Woodhouse Memorial Trophy. Donated by the family members and the St. Patrick's Club in honour of the first Treasurer of the SSJCA.
  Awarded to: The Cricketer of the Year.
• Cliff Paddy Memorial Trophy. Cliff Paddy worked for cricket. He served both Illawong Menai and Como Jannali Clubs. He served the Association as a delegate, a recorder and member of the Trophy Committee. He died at the age of thirty nine.
  Awarded for: The best performance by an Individual Representative Player competing in the NSWDCA Competition.
• Alan Ward Memorial Trophy. Alan Ward was a long and loyal serving member of the NSWDCA /JCU from 1951 to 1982. He was of great assistance to the early office bearers of the SSJCA during its formative years.
  
  Awarded for: Best Representative Team Performance in the NSWDCA Competition.
  
  In reading this history it may have been noted that this Trophy replaced one introduced for the same purpose and named in its early days, "The Mort Edson Trophy". At no stage in this history does there appear any reason why such a change was made but it is highly likely that it was suggested by Mort himself to pay tribute to Allan Ward who died in 1982.
• The Harry Peters Trophy. Harry Peters apart from being an Association Life Member has, along with his wife Carol, as Managing Directors of Marine Product Marketing P/L, been a generous financial supporter of cricket in the Sutherland Shire for many years.
  Awarded for: Representative Individual Achievement for competition play in the Presidents X11.
• The Peter Schofield Trophy. Peter Schofield is a Life Member of the Association and is recognised as one of the best cricket coaches in junior cricket.
  Awarded for: Best Representative Team Performance in Presidents X11.
• S.D.C.C. Trophy. This Trophy was made available by the "Grade Club" in 1968.
  Awarded for: Best Performance by an U14A grade player.
• Alan Craston Memorial Trophy. Alan Craston was Association Secretary from 1990 t0 1992 but before that he gave sterling service to Gymea Bay Club. He died after a relatively short illness but left a legacy of love for cricket behind him.
  Awarded for: Best Performance 12A.
• Andrew Hilditch Trophy. Recognises the efforts of Andrew Hilditch and his rise from grass roots boy cricketer to international test batsman.
  Awarded for: Best Performance10A.
• The Chatland Award. Named after a most generous contributor Mrs. Chatland for which the Chatland Trust Account exists.
• The Jim Lynch Trophy. Life Member and former Competition Secretary, renowned for always playing with a straight bat and expecting others to do like wise.
  Awarded for: Best Association Batting Performance Traditional Cricket U16/U14.
• The Stan Steed Trophy. A Life member who served the Association in the early eighties as Treasurer.
  Awarded for: Best Association Bowling Performance Traditional cricket U16/U14.
• The Brian Quinn Trophy. Brian Quinn a Life Member, as a Junior Vice President from 1982 to 1992 turned his hand to whatever task was needed to be done.
  Awarded for: Best Association Bowling Performance Traditional Cricket U12/U10.
• Don Masters Memorial Trophy. Earlier in this report (See "Those who serve") the extent of Don's work as Secretary can be appreciated.
  Awarded for: Best Association Wicketkeeper Traditional Cricket.
• Bill Lawler Memorial Trophy. Bill Lawler was not only a Life Member but would have to be the most prodigious organiser of sponsorships in the Association's history.
  Awarded for: Most catches U16/U14 Traditional Cricket.
• Jack Rutty Memorial Trophy. Fifteen years says it all. Jack, a Life Member was a hard working, fast talking man who, with his wife Irene, worked non-stop for cricket.
  Awarded for: Most catches U12/U10 Traditional Cricket.

Team trophies, as has already been stated, exist for each premiership team. With only one or two exceptions each trophy is named after a Life Member. So, the list for the season 05/06 reads as follows:

• 16A: The J.A. Daly Shield
• 16B: The Fred Malbon Shield
• 16C: The Ken Whatley Trophy
• 14A: The John Bannon Memorial Trophy.
• 14B: the John Moodie Memorial Shield.
• 14C: The Ken Gardner Memorial Trophy.
• 14D: The Gordon Thomson Memorial Trophy.
• 12A: The Ted Wykes Trophy (Not a SSJCA Life Member - Former leading umpire who was very supportive in the early days of the Boys' Competition).
• 12B: The Mort Edson Trophy.
• 12C: The Tynan Motors Trophy (Donated by Michael Tynan in 1973).
• 12D: The Irene Rutty Memorial Trophy.
• 12E: The Ray Brennan Trophy.
• 10A: The Ron Hilditch Trophy.
• 10B: The Ken Prendergast Trophy.
• 10C: The Wal Croucher Memorial Trophy.

As far back as 1960 there were a range of trophies donated. Apart from those already mentioned new trophies that year were, - Sydney Snow Trophy, Arthur Morris Trophy, Keith Bates Trophy, George Boyce Trophy, Mrs. J.A. Daly Trophy. Trophies have a habit of being lost or simply not returned and over the years, sometimes through wear and tear, other times through no further space being available they simply fade away. Federal local members and cricket supporters Les Johnson and Robert Tickner at various times donated trophies. Les Johnson was a patron of the SSJCA from 1968 to1977.

A "trophy" of a different nature, and a very practical one at that was presented in 1964 by Arthur Chapman. Arthur ran a Sports store at Rockdale (later to be equally well known as Ian Palmer's) and as a trophy he supplied a complete wicket keeping outfit to "The Best Wicketkeeper" who that year happened to be a 10B (2) player from St. Patrick's. Similar to that generosity, Slazenger Pty Ltd and Stokes McGowan in 1968 donated souvenir miniature bats to century makers and mounted balls (for major wicket takers) and, wicket keeping gloves.

In 1972 a trophy was supplied by the Engadine Sports Store (Mr. Ian Napper and Mr. Les Ritchie) to be awarded to the person adjudged the 'best cricketer of each round'. There was a set of rules that applied and an Association sub-committee made its recommendation to Messrs. Napper and Ritchie who had the final say. This 'competition' applied only to the seven rounds played prior to the Christmas break.

The question must be asked, "Who remembers Bulmers' Country Fried Chicken?" In 1973 Mr. Bulmer donated a trophy which was named the 'Bulmers Trophy' and whilst Mr. Bulmer and his product faded from the scene in time, his trophy continued on until retired earlier this century. However, it was ordinary people like Mr. Bulmer who dug deep and paid for trophies and their contribution can never be forgotten. There were many others like him some of whom no doubt have been missed in compiling this history but as explained earlier the years do take their toll on trophies.

A special mention must be made here of Life Member Ken Whatley. Ken was in the trophy business trading at one stage as 'Ken Whatley - Trophy Component Distributors' and later as 'Personalised Awards'. In this capacity Ken was very generous to the Association and even after retirement he continued to donate trophies to the Association for use as it saw fit. Quite a number of 'SSJCA Trophies' were those donated by Ken.

In the past few years sponsorship has been hard to obtain. Were it not for Harry Solomons (Kingsgrove Sports Centre) and Harry Peters (Marine Product Marketing) sponsorship would amount to virtually nothing. The absence of a member on the Management Committee to undertake the role of Vice President (Planning & Marketing) must surely be impacting on the capacity of the Association to find and win new sponsors. This must eventually mean passing more costs on to Clubs (this means parents) or a reduction in services. The business climate is such that there is great competition for every dollar and junior cricket needs to compete. There are people and organisations who will support cricket, especially junior cricket but it will require time and hard work to gain their assistance. The finding of a 'Bill Lawler' type person to fill the Association vacancy would be a major coup and if this website can inspire someone to come forward then it will have served a very useful purpose.