Our events
and awards

In addition to hosting well-attended events every year, the Primary Club acknowledges and honours the commitment of disabled sports people with a major awards night, the Sir Roden Cutler Awards Dinner.

Recognition for inspiring others

The Primary Club hosts a number of events throughout the year for our Members and their guests to raise funds so we can continue to support people with disabilities to pursue their sporting and recreational endeavours.

These include our must-attend Test Breakfast events across the country, golf days, the Sir Roden Cutler Awards dinner and our very own Marathon Cricket.

To nominate a worthy candidate for our Sir Roden Cutler Award, please email: charitycommittee@primaryclub.com

First Ball Newsletter 2023

In this edition, we review our cricket festival held at North Sydney Oval, our Baggy Green Dinner at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG), which incorporated our Sir Roden Cutler Awards, and our para-rowers competing in the ‘Golden Duck’.

About the Sir Roden Cutler Award

Sir Roden Cutler was our first patron and a great supporter of the PCA. In 1999, the PCA launched the inaugural Sir Roden Cutler (SRC) Award in recognition of his efforts in improving the lot of people with disabilities. The SRC Award program is aimed at acknowledging, highlighting and rewarding disabled individuals who have excelled in their chosen field of sport or endeavour.

Successful recipients, all with either physical and/or intellectual disabilities, have demonstrated outstanding achievements in either sporting or recreational fields that serve as inspiration to other people with disabilities. Their achievements will have been recognised by their peers and may include awards, prizes, media profiles or other forms of accolades. These amazing people will also have an impressive history of being active in the disability space helping and mentoring others to deal with their disability.

There are three awards within the program. Final recipients are offered funds to be directed to disability charities of their choice.

Sir Roden Cutler was awarded the Victoria Cross for most conspicuous and consistent gallantry during WWII.

"Successful recipients serve as inspiration
to other people with disabilities."

The 2021/2022 Sir Roden Cutler Award

In 2022, the Committee identified FIVE highly qualified candidates, all of whom deserved to be recognised for their various contributions to their sport. All inspired thousands of others to surmount challenges and give life a go!

Each finalist received a Sir Roden Cutler Award Finalist Medal, as well as a $5,000 grant for sporting and recreational facilities for the sports charity of their choice.

This year’s Sir Roden Cutler Award winner: Matthew Brumby

Matthew Brumby was born in Devonport Tasmania and grew up in Ulverstone. He joined the Royal Australian Navy at the age of 16 years and served on HMAS Albatross, HMAS Newcastle, and HMAS Brisbane.

Wanting to advance his career, he attempted the Navy Clearance Diver course. Unfortunately, during the selection course, he sustained an injury to his back and collapsed on the beach. Two days later while dropping his motorbike off to a friend he passed out, awoke in hospital and was advised that a Syrinx had formed inside his spinal cord. He also suffered a couple of fractured ribs, four breaks in his cheek bone, and was paralysed from T6 vertebrae down. Matty was 22 years old at the time.

After being discharged from the Navy, Matty moved to Melbourne and found Paratriathlon. It rapidly became his goal to compete at the highest level and represent his country. He narrowly missed out on selection for the 2016 Rio Paralympics. He switched focus to long course triathlon, doing his first half Ironman 70.3 in Luxembourg, 2016 finishing 3rd.

This qualified him for the 2016 70.3 World championships later that year where he went on to win the HC (Handcycle) category and his First World Title.

In 2018 he applied for the Invictus Games and was selected as a Co-Captain of the Australian Team. There he achieved no fewer than five Gold medals in wheelchair track events and wheelchair rugby.

With this momentum, he set out to compete in the Ironman World Championships in Kona, USA. He went on to complete a time of 11hrs 54minutes and finished in 1st place.

2020 was spent continuing to train to defend his World Title in Kona, but as we all know COVID-19 prevented the event proceeding. Matty used his experience to mentor other adaptive and para-athletes for Triathlon, wheelchair sports, sports leadership and supporting the defence adaptive sports program members based in South Australia as part of the Invictus program collaboration with UniSA.