Sport
10 October, 2025
Marmalade duo to help launch Mount Isa cricket season
Checkers and Jim Brady are in the mining city to fly the flag for the Mount Isa Cricket Association.
The Mount Isa cricket season is launching its season this weekend with the help of two of social media’s biggest stars.
Marmalade’s Jim Brady and Joel “Checkers” Eyles are in town to help promote the sport, and will also take to the field at Captain Cook Oval tomorrow.
“We’re playing for Cavs,” said Checkers, who will also appear alongside Brady at McDonald’s this afternoon, as well as a junior training session this evening.
“I’ve never actually been here before – I’ve been to Brisbane and I’ve been to the NT and this is sort of middle ground.”
For people who don’t know anything about Marmalade, and those aged over 40 probably won’t, they have become a massive brand on social media, particularly TikTok, with hundreds of thousands of followers.
“We just make videos online, mostly about sports, mostly about cricket and football (Aussie Rules),” Checkers said.
“It’s mostly about the lower levels and the elite levels … the Div 12 ressies is our footy league and that’s the lowest level of football you can play.
“We’ve also played some awfully low levels of cricket, so I don’t know how we’re going to go playing in the Mount Isa league but sometimes that’s the comedy of it.”
Brady, who is the more accomplished cricketer of the pair, said he was looking forward to playing in the Cavaliers’ colours.
“I’m excited. I’ve played for a lot of cricket clubs in the last couple of years and this will be right up there,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ll be getting down on my knees to dive and save any boundaries but it looks like a fast outfield so we’ll be testing the boys out there.”
The South Australian duo said they were comfortable with their newfound fame, admitting that most of their fans were either teenagers or knockabout blokes from local sporting clubs.
“I think the good thing is a lot of the stuff we do is in local sports communities, so most people we meet are just knockabout people as well,” Checkers said.
“So they have the same passions and the same interests. We're not really thrust into a red carpet stardom. It's more we're just thrust around the country into the same communities that we've already been in for years and years.”
James Nas is the local McDonalds franchise owner and he’s also a big sports fan, having joined the Mount Isa Cricket Association committee.
With his help, he was able to bring out the Marmalade team to Mount Isa, having previously known them through former connections in Adelaide.
Nas said he expected the community to flock to Checkers and Brady over the next couple of days.
“This afternoon at Maccas we’ve got a bit of an activation while the boys are here. We’re trying to engage with one of our larger customer bases, which is our teenage school kids,” he said.
“We’ve got some Maccas Mount Isa Marmalade co-branded footys to give away.
“The boys will then make an appearance at junior cricket training tonight and then play in the Lightning cricket tournament tomorrow.”
Nas said there was a lot of excitement about this year’s senior cricket season, with a fourth team joining the ranks, to be known as the Strikers.
“We’ve been working pretty hard to get that fourth club up and about. We just saw a big group of cricketers playing each Sunday and just went out there and started saying g'day to them and said ‘do you want to play in this Lightning Cup?’ he said.
“So we’re going to have two games of cricket every Saturday in Mount Isa, which is good. Hopefully that keeps interest up because it means we won’t have every third weekend off.”
Maccas will also put on free cheeseburgers at lunchtime tomorrow.
Action at Captain Cook Oval starts at 8am with a grand final rematch between Cavs and Black Stars.
Members of the public are invited to watch and see Checkers and Brady in action.
