Almanac Cricket: It must all be true, it was in the paper

 

Beau Webster wasn’t the only one to emerge from the Sydney Test with an average somewhere between Bradman’s and the rest of the world.

 

Sure, the debutant with the solid form and apparently matching temperament has, for now, an average of 96.

 

But I can report that I was part of a team that entered the SCG on Day 1 with an average of 76.75. We maintained it throughout – and walked away certain in the knowledge that it can only increase in coming seasons. It was measured – of course – in years.

 

The team was a collection of very fine judges, three dear friends, sports journos from a time (now almost half a century ago) when a kid like me could leave school and get a three-year cadetship at a daily newspaper.

 

The crew was led, as ever, by John ‘The Boss’ Hourigan, now in his 88th year, long-time sports editor at The Canberra Times and as astute a writer on racing as the Lillyes, Whittakers and Presnells of Sydney or the Carlyons and Hilliers of Melbourne.

 

Barry Rollings, 77, footy scribe since Moses played fullback for Jerusalem and the most assiduous detail checker since Pontius was a pilot; all-rounder Geoff Thomson, 78, writer on cricket, racing, hockey and any other sport you’d care to assign him; and yours truly, cadet, ‘Young Pipes’, now 64, made up the quartet of veterans from what we always proclaimed ‘the premier department’.

 

The day’s cricket was absorbing, with the analysis from the colleagues adding considerable value for those around our spot in the Churchill Stand, high above Scott Boland’s arm, as the people’s champ worked his magic again.

 

The reminiscences were even better.

 

There was our friendly ‘war’ with Ian Harrison, a racing and rugby-league writer who came to us from the UK via South Africa, allowing us to give him heaps on two fronts with his only comeback being the oft-issued directive to ‘Show us your number, convict!’ We won this particular war when fellow cadet Shamus McNamara and I deposited Harro into a metal rubbish bin, neatly trapping him by his underarms and knees, and leaving him at the corner of the sports desk, giving the bustling news editor and pipe-puffing chief sub a little something to smile at as they passed after news conference. The rest of us on the sportsdesk, of course, had our heads low over the typewriters, furiously knocking up raceform or anything else that had suddenly assumed an importance that left us utterly ignorant of our departmental colleague’s plight.

 

Baz and I reviewed some of Canberra’s proud footy history, which included the ACT’s magnificent victory over the VFL in 1980 (and Allen Aylett’s graceless speech afterwards), and various exploits of the kindly Kevin ‘Cowboy’ Neale, who came to Canberra in 1978 only to have his fancied Ainslie side beaten in the grand final by Eastlake, under a 25-year-old first-year captain-coach in Keith Miller.

 

Baz and I had written up Neale’s against-all-odds successful tribunal appearance in the week before an important rep game (‘Cowboy allowed to ride again’) over which the tribunal considered legal action against us, and had a million or so stories of the champ who would lead Ainslie to flags in 1979, 1980, 1982 and 1983, two of them undefeated for the whole season.

 

My favourite Cowboy yarn was the time he’d been asked who had been his toughest opponent in his storied career with St Kilda. Without a moment’s hesitation, the answer was John Nicholls, Cowboy recalling a day when the ball was between the pair of them, but somewhat closer to Kevin. He gently described how he thought he was a shoo-in for the possession – until he caught Nicholls’s light-blue laser eyes. Cowboy then recounted his words to Big Nick, along the lines of: ‘I’ve found it, John. It’s just over here. Would you like another turn with it?’

 

But Thommo has the footy story to top us all.

 

Not only was he a faithful reporter of the game, among all the other sports he covered, but he was a more than handy player in the day, unlike the rest of us.

 

Indeed, he played at Queanbeyan and Belconnen and is of a vintage that saw him line up against one Alex Jesaulenko, then tearing the house down at Eastlake on his way to Princes Park, the Team of the Century and the Hall of Fame. Thommo, ever modest, doesn’t venture the story but, when asked, will quietly confirm that, yes, he held the champ to four goals.

 

But our star was The Boss.

 

This was the bloke who held the sportsdesk together from various extra-departmental forays; who stood up for our budget, always thoroughly evidenced; and who handled the irate administrators, the offended connections and the million demanding associations who all commanded, in their tunnel vision, back-page splashes.

 

Loyal and tough, the Boss was there when the newsdesk didn’t know what to do with me. This teenager had seemed promising on paper, and had good journalistic bloodlines, but was proving a floundering greenhorn on general news two weeks in.

 

Into the sports department I went, supposedly on a three-month rotation, but staying far longer, and, thanks to The Boss, never looking back, getting a handle on the caper, in which I ended up staying three decades and got to work in just about every position at the Times and also in the sports sections of The Sydney Morning Herald and the late and much lamented Sydney Sun.

 

Did I say tough in describing The Boss?

 

The most recent example came as we left the cricket.

 

The stairs in the Churchill Stand are steep and not especially even. The Boss, now only 12 and a bit years from his century, got a nudge in the back and took a spill, bouncing his chest off a railing in the process.

 

‘I think I’ve cracked a rib,’ he said matter-of-factly.

 

OK, we said, how about we get you checked out?

 

 

The author, left, Baz, Thommo and The Boss at the SCG. [Source: Author]

 

 

‘No, it’ll just have to heal.’ he said, giving a pretty fair Robert Dipierdomenico impression.

 

OK, Boss. We walk back to the car, drive to Mosman, walk to the pub, have dinner, and the smiling Boss insists on driving Baz back to his digs at Manly.

 

The next day he relays that he happened to turn awkwardly overnight, and took himself off to emergency the next morning.

 

He was admitted, with four broken ribs, he said almost cheerfully, moving straight on to check that Thommo and I had made it back to Canberra alright.

 

Incomparable.

 

 

 

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Comments

  1. Barry Rollings says

    Thanks for the write-up Pipes. And most importantly (do I sound like Sportsbet) the great company and great reminisces.

    Baz.

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