GOULBURN'S champion sports people were honoured on Wednesday night when over 160 people turned out for the Goulburn Post Sportstar of the Year awards.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Hockey continued its dominance of the awards with Australian Kookaburras squad member Daniel McPherson taking out the Senior Sportstar of the Year award.
McPherson's win gave Goulburn hockey representative their sixth Sportstar award in the last four years.
McPherson, who now lives in Wollongong, was unable to attend the evening, however his father, Rick was on hand to accept the award.
In the Junior Sportstar award Supermotard rider, Troy Herfoss took the cake after he turned in a stunning season on his bike.
Herfoss spent the majority of 2005 racing in America and a few rides in Europe, but he returned to Australia in spectacular fashion last weekend.
He dominated the Ssangyong International event in Sydney, coming back from a crash to claim a victory in the main race.
Touch football and athletics were well represented by the talented Sophie Broadhead, who claimed the Rising Star of the Year award.
Sophie has excelled in both sports throughout 2005 and will continue to plug away leading into Christmas with her set to compete at the National Athletics Titles in Sydney in two weeks. The hardest award of the night for the judges to pick was the Administrator of the Year award. Six quality nominees lined up for the award and they covered the sports of horse racing, hockey, cricket, soccer, rugby league and basketball.
But on the night there could only be one winner, and that was Fred Cooper, the long time president of the Goulburn and District Race Club.
Cooper was shocked with his victory and called it his greatest honour ever, surpassing his win in the prestigious Simon Nivison award at the Racing NSW excellence awards in 2003.
The night was all about Goulburn's sporting elite, but there was some icing on the cake with the attendance of former Goulburn cricketer Trevor Bayliss who went on to play for NSW and is now their coach.
Bayliss made his way down from Sydney for the evening and spoke at length with MC Graeme Northey on stage about his time in cricket with NSW and the challenges of being coach.
Bayliss was joined by Athens Olympians Frances Adcock and Zane Christensen, who are both from the Australian Institute of Sport.
Both spoke about their training program and what they have in mind for the future.
The night was topped off with a stunning performance by Melbourne-based comedian Greg Champion, who had the crowd in stitches with his variety of comical songs about sport.