Career
He played club football for the North Sydney Bears, Western Suburbs Magpies and representative football for the New South Wales state and Australian national sides. He is considered one of the nation"s finest football players of the 20th century. Born in Sydney, Australia Courtney was one of six brothers who all played for North Sydney.
Rugby union Courtney played rugby union for North Sydney and for Street George.
He was one of the group of New South Wales rugby football players who played against Baskerville"s All Golds on their seminal trip to the United Kingdom in 1907 which started rugby league in Australia and New Zealand. Rugby league Tedda Courtney had a remarkably long first grade career that lasted for 16 seasons.
Courtney joined Newtown in 1908 in the professional code, moved to Wests in 1909 and the North Sydney in 1910. He found his club home back at Wests in 1911 where he played the next thirteen seasons, amassing over 300 games across all grades.
He was selected on the inaugural Kangaroo tour of 1908-1909 appearing in all three Tests and in a total of thirty-one games on tour on which he was the top-scoring forward with 10 tries.
He made a second Kangaroo tour in 1911-1912 in which he made twenty five match appearances. He played in three other Test series against Great Britain at home in 1910 and 1914 and against New Zealand in 1909, he also represented Australasia. He is listed on the Australian Players register as Kangaroo Number.37.
Courtney retired at the end of 1924 and returned to the district of his football beginnings - North Sydney.
He coached the lower grades for some years and coached first grade in 1930. Courtney"s coaching services were obtained by the newly formed Canterbury-Bankstown DRLFC for their first season in 1935.
