Almanac Cricket – On My Way to Adelaide

I grew up on a farm in central Victoria, was sent to boarding school and lived a childhood so far away from Facebook and the rest of the world, as it existed at the time, that could not be imagined today. The Age newspaper and the ABC were our window into the world. After HSC it was down to the big smoke for first year Uni.

 

When I arrived in Parkville, I realised that there were all these blokes from the best schools from out in the eastern suburbs, driving brand new 180B’s, a car that my dad had just bought from a legacy from Dad’s auntie, who my mother looked after in her declining years. Funny how the women do the work that really matters.

 

I knew I was out of my class with these public school sorts but there was a reservoir of country blokes that snuck into dentistry with me that became my great friends but there was a bias involved. They all came from west of Melbourne: one from Castlemaine and a couple from Horsham (one, Ross, was a refugee to Seaford).

 

After passing first year, we decided that we would go to the Adelaide Test match on Australia day weekend. This was the most exciting thing I had ever done. I had to join some sort of youth hostellie thing. Ross and I were travelling across in his Holden station wagon, middle sixties model, spray painted brown,  so fortified with a spare gear box in the boot, we left his parent’s place in Seaford for our adventure early one Sunday morning.

 

The first call was at the Whiteheart hotel in Horsham where friends awaited us. After a few days of soaking up the beer we made our way slowly to Adelaide but I have a little aside that will show how insular, I was at this time. I was introduced to Potato Gems. Never seen such a thing in the store at Heathcote but it was available at a store in country South Australia.

 

I could pull the gear box out of a Holden, but Potato Gems????

 

We stayed at the catholic Uni college just up from the Adelaide Cricket Ground and went home via Mildura. And the cricket, well that isn’t important. The blokes you bond with are what you treasure. Who cares who dropped Botham when England were five for twenty odd?

 

The Adelaide Test match continues to be a central part of my summer. I’m a rich bastard now and I can live it up at the Adelaide test match. Member of the SACCA, no less and every year I buy a companion card the use of which I will enlighten you all on later as I get closer to the Adelaide Oval

 

The Tigers Almanac 2019 is out soon.
Order copies HERE.

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