SHE’S the footy fan who’s older than the game itself.

And even at 108, Thelma Spencer still never misses a match.

So what would a trip inside the sheds with her beloved Cronulla Sharks be like?

“Well, I’m a bit modest you know. I’m not sure I want to see any of them without their clothes on,” she said.

Thelma hadn’t been to a live NRL game for “15 or 20 years probably” but on Sunday, she and the family were the special guests of the Sharks and the Knights game at Hunter Stadium.

Her favourite player Paul Gallen (“the one who wears the No 13 jumper, he’s tough”) didn’t play for her team but it didn’t matter.

Without their spiritual captain, the Sharks managed a terrific second half comeback to beat the Knights 30-28, and Thelma was there to celebrate in the sheds afterwards.

Thelma's 108 and loves the sharks very happy for her the boys made her day. A video posted by Paul Gallen (@paulgallen13) on Jun 20, 2015 at 11:17pm PDT

For Thelma, Rugby League is her life.

Friday night footy, well that just rolls into the Saturday games on

Fox, then the live Channel Nine game on Sunday and into Monday night footy after that.

“She just sits up in her chair there with her headphones on as soon as it comes on and never misses a beat. She loves it,” her daughter Tina said.

Thelma, a mad Cronulla Sharks fan who celebrated her birthday last Sunday, was born in 1907.

Just to put a little perspective on it, that means she is a year older than the game of rugby league itself.

media_camera Thelma Spencer (middle) in 1909.

Just don’t go making a fuss about it in front of her.

Her eyesight might be letting her down a little and her hearing not as good as it used to be but with everything else, she’s as bright as a button.

“I don’t feel any older than about 80 you know,” she said from her unit in Valentine, Newcastle.

Just to prove the point, a walking stick arrived at her place that same day — but Thelma doesn’t want a bar of it.

“What do I need that for?” she said. “I can walk perfectly fine. My podiatrist reckons I’ve got the best legs he has ever seen.”

The daughter of a furniture shop owner, Thelma grew up as one of seven kids in Redfern in Sydney.

It was while she was working as a music teacher that she met her future husband Jim.

“I was actually engaged to someone else before breaking it off with him and then I met my husband,” she said.

media_camera Die-hard Sharks fan Thelma Spencer is 108 years old.

“I only knew him for three months before we got married. We didn’t muck around.”

They had two children, Jim who turns 80 next February but is currently laid up in hospital, and Tina, 78, who is in Newcastle looking after her mother in Jim’s absence.

There are four grandchildren and six great grandchildren and Thelma reckons she is hanging around until there is a great-great grandchild.

“But they’ll want to hurry up,” she said. “It’s not looking good.”

She lost husband Jim, who was one of the Rats of Tobruk in World War 11, when he was 58, more than 12 years after he returned home from the war.

“He got blown up over there but he eventually came home and I looked after him for around 12 years until he went,” she said.

When the Sharks were formed in 1967, the love affair with footy began. The whole family became devotees.

“We’d go watch them wherever they played in Sydney,” Tina said.

media_camera Thelma Spencer at home in Newcastle.

“I even married a Sharks fanatic. My husband John, well, he wants to secretly have his ashes scattered over Shark Park when he eventually goes.”

Two or three days a week, you’ll find Thelma at the Belmont 16-Foot Sailing Club playing the pokies. But the weekends, well, that’s footy time or, if it’s the off-season, cricket.

“Oh yes, I love the cricket. Any sport really. I’ve been known to sit up until 3am watching the cricket when it’s on,” she said.

With that, our two-hour interview ends. Friday night footy is about to start between Manly and the Tigers.

And just so you know she is a fair dinkum fan, she leaves us with this: “Manly’s playing. No, I don’t like them.