Maitland will soon have an online hall of fame to celebrate the city’s high achievers.
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But Maitland City councillor Brian Burke says that could be just the beginning.
Council has approved plans for a Maitland Hall of Fame to be established on the council website, featuring notable citizens who have excelled in the arenas of sport, the arts, academia, business and public service.
Cr Burke said he had wanted a Maitland Hall of Fame to be established since the late 1990s.
He said he wanted to make sure the criteria for hall of famers, particularly from the city’s sporting history, was not limited to people who reached representative level for Australia or achieved national success.
While renowned names such as Les Darcy would undoubtedly be considered for a place in the hall of fame, Cr Burke said it would be important to keep the criteria flexible for candidates.
He said sports people such as Don McIlwain, who won more than 20 singles tennis titles for Maitland but never won a grand slam tournament or played in the Davis Cup, should be an inclusion.
But under conventional sporting hall of fame criteria, he would be ineligible.
A different take, Cr Burke said, could be to include the year 1969 as a feature in the hall of fame, because it was the year that Maitland’s first grade soccer, rugby league and rugby union teams each won a premiership.
“It’s not just about the elite level, the criteria needs to be flexible,” he said.
“We need to put in people who haven’t played for Australia but are significant to Maitland.
“What about the Maitland rugby union team of the century?
“It would be quite exciting to recognise the characters of Maitland.”
Cr Burke said he would also like to see the hall of fame go beyond a website and develop into a museum, complete with an annual induction ceremony.
Flexible criteria, he said, should also be extended to the arts.
“Don’t tell me there can’t be a place for [artist] James Casey,” Cr Burke said. “He has had exhibitions at Maitland Art Gallery but he has never won the Archibald Prize.
“My concern is that we don’t lose the history that we have.”