SUCC Events: Blue and Gold Lunch

The infamous long lunch that is the 'Blue & Gold Cricket Luncheon' is just over 1 week away and we would love for you to join us at what will be an engaging and entertaining function.

Adam Spencer returns to host the lunch with his usual witty repartee. He will host his traditional Panel of Experts which this year includes panel stalwart Greg Mail, as well as SUCC favourites, Ed Cowan and Ryan Carters. Three of the most intelligent and well spoken cricketers in Australia, this should be an entertaining panel worth the price of admission on its own.

Having announced the team of Living Legends' at last year's lunch, we move into a new phase of recognition with the inaugural inductees into the SUCC Hall of Fame set to be announced during the function. Join us to see who will be the first recognised for their contribution to the club.

The lunch is the yearly opportunity to catch up with all the old cricketing mates in the glamorous surrounds of The Ivy Ballroom, George Street.

Tickets can be purchased as either an individual ($160) or as a corporate table ($1,750) with discounts on offer for 'Blue and Gold Club' members. To become a Blue and Gold Club member, please contact Rod Tubbs at Sydney Uni Sport and Fitness on r.tubbs@sport.usyd.edu.au 

The full promotional flyer can be downloaded here.

The booking form is available from our website here.

For the rest of this week, we are offering a special 10 for the price of 9 offer. Anyone that purchases a full table this week will have their ticket covered by the Club.

Get in quick, book your table, and join us for what is always a sensational event.

SUCC Feature: Milestone Monday

With only a handful of overs bowled on Saturday, we need to look to higher levels of the game for our milestones this week.  We begin with Ryan Carters, who has now played two consecutive first-class matches that were abandoned due to dangerous playing conditions.  In each of those games, only one wicket had fallen, and in each case he was that wicket.  Someone might tell us that this kind of thing happens all the time in first-class cricket in Zimbabwe - until then, we're claiming this as unique.

Five SUCC players - Nick Larkin, Will Somerville, Jonte Pattison, Tim Ley and Nigel Cowell - have been named in the NSW Futures League team to play Western Australia at Blacktown, starting today - which is the highest level of representation the club has had in any match in this competition.

SUCC News: From the bookshelf...

Scarcely a day passes now without a sombre centenary of some kind, as one hundred years have passed since the terrible battles of the Great War were fought.  A minor tangent on the history of the 1914-18 War is its impact on cricket, which was affected as every other aspect of everyday life was affected.  About 10% of the Australian population served in the War, and of those about 10% were killed – very few families escaped the toll.  A large number of prominent cricketers enlisted to fight, and some of these are the subject of a new book by former Manly player, Paul Stephenson.  “A Cricket Club At War”, which was scheduled to be launched at Chatswood Oval during the lunch break in the First Grade match on Saturday 7 November, tells the story of the 52 Gordon cricketers who fought in the war.  Stephenson has drawn on the players’ war service records, some personal diaries and information supplied by their families.  The war service records, incidentally, comprise one of the most significant biographical archives in the country and provide a mine of intriguing material.  Among the cricketers Stephenson considers is Johnny Taylor, who was only 19 when the War broke out, and played for University when he returned from his service in the AIF.  Taylor went on to play 20 Tests between 1920 and 1926 (as well as playing Rugby Union for Australia) and his story alone should attract anyone with an interest in the history of University cricket.  You can buy the book here.

This next one has very little to do with cricket.  But its author, Adam Spencer, is a long-standing supporter of the Club, who has been awarded a Sydney University Gold for his service to University sport.  Now that he no longer has to get up even before he goes to bed in order to present ABC breakfast radio, Adam has found time to produce another book, “The World of Numbers” – a combination of numerical trivia and mathematics that will both amuse and inform the general reader.  You can get one for each of your uncles for Christmas (and one for yourself) here.

Round Five: 2nd Grade Team

The second grade side to take on Northern Districts at Uni No. 1 Oval from 10:30am tomorrow is as follows:

Tom Kierath (c)
Mark Faraday
Ben Larkin
Steve Hobson
David Miller
James Larkin
Joseph Kershaw
Tom Decent (wk)
Dugald Holloway
Jim Ryan
Josh Toyer

Good luck lads and fingers crossed this weather holds off long enough to get some play in.

SUCC Feature: In the sheds... The Keepers' Union

As cricketers we all share a deep love/hate relationship with this great game and for this we naturally bond as mates. The mateship is further strengthened between cricketers who share a common art, whether it is batting, bowling, wicket-keeping or in most cases, circuiting. SUCC exemplifies this mateship between groups. There is a beautiful bromance between opening batsmen at the club. The rarity of fast bowlers means they are social outcasts and so they gather for emotional support. Those with strong salads also tend to gravitate together. However there is no doubt in my unbiased view that the most prestigious group is the Keeper’s Union. The union has been home to some colourful individuals, all with good rigs and this piece will attempt to highlight their stories, both past and present.

The union gathers each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon somewhere on Uni No. 2. The specific location varies but necessities include a fence, proximity to practice wickets and soft grass for unnecessary diving. We always need to be far enough from the nets to allow time to evade the incoming bombs hit from the bowling of Liam Whitaker (formerly Stu McLean).

A typical training session will involve catching cricket balls off the face of a bat, shadow batting with tennis balls on the practice wickets, close knicks off a cone/stump and partaking in a slips cordon session. Josh Richards will regularly throw in a new theory on catching. For most of us we flatly refuse to conform but the teenage union members are unwilling participants – largely out of fear of union rejection I assume. One of JR’s worst theories was catching balls to his left hand side with only his right hand. Not only is it unrealistic, but have you seen his fingers? They are all the same width, same length, like Cuban cigars. No danger. Nevertheless, each session we are always striving to execute our Gary Whitaker disciplines #howgood but it is what happens between catching that makes the session and contributes to the unique culture of the union.

Circuit consultancy is a regular topic, discussing the weekends post game activities, swings and misses and what we could’ve done better. When Morgs was at the club, he took us to new lows; plastic bags and cheap vodka, say no more. But now we have the columnist Tom ‘not so’ Decent and early season form would suggest he will make some off-field headlines of his own.

What about the little nuisances of the keepers union, what we love and what we hate. We love standing up to the stumps unnecessarily, particularly to those disgruntled medium-fast bowlers who we know will be personally insulted by the ploy – Tim Ley (pre 2012), Ben Joy and Charlie Cull come to mind. But admittedly we should try to catch it when we’re up there, sorry Cully. We also love jagging a legside stumping; the prized dismissal that must be celebrated with exaggerated enthusiasm unless it is from Ash Cowan’s bowling and then its par for the course.

What we hate – dirty sheets! Morgs gave this term a literal meaning but for the rest of us we detest any number other than 0 that follows the lower case ‘b’ on the scorecard. What grinds us further is if the byes were from a dusty legside delivery bound for fine leg that was given ‘byes’ because it caught a millimetre of the cut grass. We also hate half volley throws, especially from point. We are more forgiving if its in the tactical interest of the team but in the 5th over when conventional swing is the ticket then half volley throws are a no no and we will treat your pathetic throw with the disdain it deserves.  

Some notable mentions for former union members…. Daniel ‘bus driver’ Ward is a true SUCC great and stalwart of the union. As a junior union member under his guidance I learnt not only what it meant to be a part of the union and but also how to threaten others with organised Lebanese crime. He stamped his authority on the tennis ball drills, trying to pin the shadow batter with bouncers and beamers from the face of the racquet and when meant to be shadow batting, blatantly trying to hit the ball and allocating unrealistic runs to himself until he’d compiled a double century.

Brief mentions to current members Furby and his broken bean, reformed hawk BTJ, reluctant keeper Hugh Kermond, Shawry hunting flavour overseas, Penrith recruits Ben/Jarrod (same person?) and wanna-be keepers Popey, Hilly and his new rig and Islam.

Keep an eye out for the keepers union at your next training session; the group within the club you wish you were a part of.

Yours in union,

'Alpha wicky' 

David John Simpson, 1961-2015

David Simpson, a Sydney University cricketer of the early 1980s, lost his fight against a malignant brain tumour early on the morning of 2 November.

David attended Trinity Grammar School, where he earned a reputation as an outstanding sportsman.  He was full back in the 1st XV in his final year at school, 1978, and was in the 1st XI for three years, from 1976 to 1978, playing alongside a number of future Sydney University cricketers (including John and David Loxton, Phil Logan, John Hurley and Max Bonnell).  For several years, he and John Hurley were virtually inseparable, as they played Rugby and cricket alongside each other on most weekends throughout their school days.  After achieving an excellent result in his Higher School Certificate, David entered Sydney University in 1979 to study Economics and Law.  In 1980-81, he made his first appearance for Sydney University Cricket Club and it was a dynamic start: in his first season, he claimed 58 wickets at 11.50.  He spent most of the season in Fifth Grade, where he twice took seven wickets in an innings, his best effort being 7-34 against Mosman.  He was a member of the Fifth grade side that won that season’s Final, although his bowling was restricted after he broke a finger while batting.

Simmo was an opening bowler, with a fluid, athletic action, who was capable of generating slippery pace when his rhythm was right.  He was also a capable left-handed batsman in the lower order, who frequently played strokes that suggested that he might have developed this aspect of his game further with more opportunities.  Altogether, he played for the Club between 1980-81 and 1983-84, earning selection as high as Third Grade and scoring 283 runs at 14.89 and taking 128 wickets at 16.12.  In 1981-82, he played in the Intervarsity matches against University of Queensland and Adelaide University, which were then games of a very high standard, and he performed strongly, taking seven wickets in the two matches.  There’s little doubt that he could have performed well in higher grades had he applied himself to that goal, but he had made the choice to concentrate on his studies, with increasingly impressive results.

After he graduated with Honours in Law, David’s time with the club ended when he took a place at Cambridge University, where he obtained the degree of Masters of Law.  Upon his return to Sydney he was recruited by the firm then known as Allen Allen & Hemsley, which was at that time the leading firm of solicitors in Sydney.  David specialised in mergers and acquisitions, and was promoted rapidly to senior associate, and then to partner.  After practising in Sydney, and later in Indonesia, he was appointed Managing Partner of the Allens Singapore office in 1997.  In Singapore, he was recruited by the English firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and became Managing Partner of the Freshfields office in Singapore.

The stellar success of David’s legal career was interrupted in 2004, when he was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour.  He was treated with radical surgery, conducted in the United States, and faced this challenge with immense courage and incredible good humour.  As he recovered, he decided against a return to full-time legal work, but soon he was in high demand as a corporate adviser and company director.  He acted as Company Secretary of Magellan Financial Group, and was a director of various companies including Rubicon Asset Management and Boulder Steel. 

A couple of months ago, tests revealed that a new tumour had appeared.  David was treated in St Vincent’s Hospital, where he undertook further surgery and chemotherapy, but the cancer was advanced and aggressive.  He spent his last weeks surrounded by the love and support of friends and family.  Most people who knew David remember him not for the range of his talents and accomplishments – significant as they were – but for his qualities as a friend. 

The Club extends its condolences to David’s family, especially his three children.  A funeral service will be held at St Mark’s Church, Darling Point, at 1pm on Friday 6 November.

SUCC Feature: Five things we learned... Round Four

Batsmen break records, but bowlers win matches

Another Sydney batting record was obliterated in the last round, when St George’s Ashton May and Damian Bourke shared an unbroken partnership of 370 for the fourth wicket against Sydney.  This was the highest fourth-wicket stand in the history of the First Grade competition.  Extraordinarily, May broke his own record – back in 2009-10, he shared an unbroken partnership of 366 with Steve Cazzulino against Northern District.  But that’s not the most remarkable thing about the game – which is that May and Bourke finished up on the losing side.  Sydney chased down their target of 391 thanks to a nicely-paced century from its experienced captain, Dan Smith. 

Cricket is a game of numbers, but the most important one in the game is ten – the number of wickets in an innings.  In exactly half the First Grade matches in Round Four, the team batting first failed to defend a total above 300 (and Bankstown fell just 19 short of Fairfield’s 314).  Blacktown posted a total of 8-371 at Mark Taylor Oval, only to watch the home team cruise to victory with an hour to spare, Daniel Hughes carving out a rapid double-century.  North Sydney felt comfortable declaring at 8 for 309 at Old Kings, but Parramatta passed that total for the loss of just one wicket, with Brenton Cherry and William Affleck piling up 291 runs before the first wicket fell.  At Petersham Oval, Randwick-Petersham couldn’t defend 6-345 against Gordon.

After four matches, North Sydney has scored 32.4 runs for every wicket it has lost, so that its average total is 324.  But it has won only one of its matches, because its bowlers pay a horrendous 48.2 runs for each wicket they take.  Blacktown’s batsmen average 31.7 runs per wicket and University of NSW a whopping 39.5 – and each side has won one game out of four.   On the dead, dull wickets that are so common in Sydney early in the season, bowlers generally need to be resourceful, skilful and persistent to present a consistent threat.  But unless you have bowlers with the talent and craft to work batsmen out on these surfaces, your best hope of winning games is to send the other side in and back your batsmen to chase whatever target gets set.

Devlin Malone is one to watch

Devlin Malone sounds like the name of a minor character in a Sean O’Casey play – the guy who appears halfway through the second Act to take Kathleen O’Houlihan to the dance, and announces that there’s trouble on the road to Donnegal.  But perhaps it isn’t surprising that he’s actually a leg-spinner, because for several years the southern suburbs of Sydney have harboured several wrist spinners with distinctively Irish names – William Joseph O’Reilly and Kerry O’Keeffe being only a couple who spring to mind.  The 17 year old produced the most impressive performance of his short career when he claimed 16 wickets in the Second Grade match against Sydney University – a decisive spell of 6-31 on a wet pitch in the first innings, followed by a record-breaking 10-115 in the second.  At stumps on day one Malone had taken 2-8 in the University second innings, and he was listed for promotion to First Grade on the second day, when left-arm spinner Riley Ayre was due to perform 12th man duties for the Cricket Australia XI against New Zealand.  When the tour match was abandoned, Malone stayed in Seconds, and set about creating a bit of Sutherland history.  His 10-115 made him the first Sutherland bowler in any grade to take all ten wickets in an innings, and he also became the first bowler to take 16 wickets in a match for the club.  In his short grade career, Malone has been a consistently effective wicket-taker: last season, when he was troubled by stress fractures in his back, he still managed 19 wickets in six Second Grade games, and took 3-12 against Northern District on his First Grade debut (all three wickets coming in one over).  He bowls relatively quickly for a leg-spinner, but still spins the ball hard and has plenty of variety, with a wrong ‘un that’s difficult to spot.  Sutherland has a long history of producing gifted young spinners who never really kick on in the game (the theory is that their commitment declines when they discover some combination of girls, the beach and alcohol).  But you sense that Malone will be around for a while.

All things must pass

It took Malone’s outstanding performance to bring a halt to the remarkable unbeaten streak of Sydney University’s Second Grade team.  University won its first three matches this season, won 16 and drew two in 2014-15, and was last defeated on 21 December 2013, by Gordon at Chatswood Oval.  It didn’t help that University was sent in to bat on a wet pitch, but no-one is using that as an excuse – over the two days, Sutherland well and truly earned its result.  An unbeaten run of 22 months and 31 matches is an extraordinary accomplishment – as is the team’s four successive premierships.  It couldn’t last forever, and now the opportunity to begin the next streak begins on Saturday.

Dan Hughes is the big wicket

Sydney University produced a high-quality team effort to beat Northern District in the final of the Sydney Thunder Twenty/20 Conference at the SCG on Sunday, but without doubt the biggest single moment of the match came when Ben Joy removed Daniel Hughes, caught by keeper Ryan Carters for 22.  Hughes’ form this season has been phenomenal; his four innings in the First Grade competition have been 78 not out against Randwick-Petersham, 66 against Bankstown, 146 against Sutherland and 200 (from only 228 balls, 24 of which went to the boundary) against Blacktown.  That’s 490 runs in four digs for three times out.  Even though Tim Ley and Nigel Cowell knocked the top off the Northern District innings on Sunday, the Rangers were always a threat as long as Hughes was batting.  Somehow, the left-hander has played only two Sheffield Shield matches for New South Wales, but he’s making an unarguable case to add to that tally later this season.

It’s possible to play until you’re 107

Which is, as far as we can work it out, more or less how old Geoff Spotswood is now.  This season he’s captain of Bankstown’s Fifth Grade side, and he’s gradually creeping up towards 10,000 runs for the club, to go with his 434 wickets.  He’s been at Bankstown for as long as most of his team-mates have been alive, but in fact he broke into grade cricket in 1972, with the Western Suburbs club.  He was an opening bowler back then, not exactly express, but he was strong and hostile and could find awkward bounce from a slightly open-chested action.  He joined Bankstown in 1977-78, by which time his batting had developed to such an extent that he could be regarded as a genuine all-rounder, scoring runs in the middle order as well as using the new ball.  After playing a decent amount of First Grade with Bankstown he settled into the role of Second Grade captain for a time, scoring a massive 867 runs in that grade in 1986-87 (which remains a club record).   There was a stint at Hawkesbury somewhere along the way, too.  His record in cricket is impressive enough, but he also played at a time when it was relatively common for cricketers to play a winter sport to a decent standard, and he played Rugby League as a prop for both Western Suburbs and the Bulldogs. Playing front row in the 1980s was not a task for the faint-hearted: it was a well-established convention that every game had a “softening up period” in which the forwards on each side had a licence to beat the daylights out of each other.  Spotswood’s ability to emerge unscathed from these running brawls made him, for several years, the player least likely to be sledged in grade cricket – you simply don’t annoy a man who has just been exchanging blows with Les Boyd.  As it happens, Spotswood has always played his cricket hard, but in a great spirit, and Bankstown is lucky to have him helping to shape its next generation of players.