Fifty years and a lifetime in rugby league history ago it may be, but many old-stagers can still remember crowding into homes, clubs, and pubs, to watch one of the sport’s greatest legends being born.

It was the first year of an innovative Wednesday night rugby league ritual that was made for the new-fangled soon-to-be-introduced revolution in sport, colour television; and it was called the Amco Cup.

That first definitive season, an iconic team drawn from miners in Lithgow and Cobar, farmers in Coonabarabran and Canowindra, tradies, teachers, a publican, a HSC student, and all led by a policeman from Bathurst, turned the competition on its head.

The Western Division side was coached by former St George and Australian winger, local football legend and Gilgandra boy, Johnny King, who masterminded a stunning series of upsets, to win the inaugural final at Leichhardt Oval – one of the few grounds then with powerful-enough floodlights for the television broadcasters, Channel 10.

Along the way, the Westerners shocked an international-packed Auckland side, then Canterbury-Bankstown, Manly (on a penalty countback), and finally Penrith in the final. The rags-to-riches story captured sports lovers the world over, with dome-headed Lithgow miner, “TV Ted Ellery”, everyone’s sentimental favourite!

Rugby league journalist and author Ian Heads later recounted the biographical tale in a tome he tagged: “The Night the Music Died”.

Nine of the 23 players who took the field at Leichhardt Oval in the final – most of whom also played in a tough-as-nails, no-holds barred bloodbath against Great Britain in Orange earlier that year – are no longer with us, but their memories live on.

On Saturday, the famous team will be heralded at Cale Oval, Narromine as the 2024 Western Rams Under 16s, Under 18s, and Seniors’ sides, tackle Northern Tigers.

The “heroes” will present retro guernseys and reflect once again on what was achieved over those four compelling wet and wintry months, in a world not so very far away.

The Amco Cup players and families of those no longer here or too unwell to join them will also be acclaimed at a dinner in the RSL Memorial Club after the matches in Narromine are finished.