After the weekend's Round Six and PG's action, the following have achieved milestones for the Club:
Tom Kierath has passed 2500 runs in Second Grade.
Xavier Frawley’s 4-17 against Mosman was his best return in Third Grade and best for the Club.
Henry Clark’s 4-8 against Mosman was his best return in Fourth Grade and best for the Club.
Liam Whitaker’s 7-43 against Mosman was his best return in Fifth Grade and best for the Club.
This week we bring you a "You might remember / In the sheds..." mash-up in conjunction with launch of our virtual Hall of Fame at the Blue and Gold Lunch.
Today (Fri 20th Nov), at the Blue and Gold lunch, IAN FISHER was one of the first four legendary Club players/members to be inducted into the Club’s ‘Hall of Fame’.
His story is worth recalling and retelling.
Ian Fisher
As an Engineering undergraduate in 1957, Ian Fisher attended University’s pre-season cricket training. He turned up armed with an imposing record in junior cricket in Grafton, and abundant natural athletic ability. The University selectors were unimpressed. Not only was he not graded, he was told that he would not be required by the club.
And so, for over a decade, his cricket career blossomed elsewhere—in the country and at the Glebe and Sydney clubs (where he captained First Grade for three seasons). He came to be respected in the Grade competition as a combative, aggressive left handed batsman who could flay the best attacks. Then, when University was searching for a First Grade captain for the 1969-70 season, the approach was made to him to come back as a graduate captain. So this player, unwanted earlier, had now been given the most influential onfield position in the Club. As captain, he immediately brought a renewed sense of purpose and direction to University cricket, always leading from the front.
In addition to leading First Grade forcefully, he took an abiding interest in the other Grades and influenced other captains with his infectious optimism. At one stage, Ian Foulsham, Rob Thomas and Bruce Druery led 2nds, 3rds and 4ths with the same sense of purpose and the lower grades were blessed with captains of the highest calibre and integrity: Peter Gannon, John Malicki and John Spence.
In successive seasons on uncovered pitches—and in circumstances where he had to hold together a fragile batting line-up, Fisher hit 851, 713, 537 and 539 runs. He became (for a time) the Club’s greatest run-scorer in First Grade, and for his three clubs, he scored 6731 First Grade runs at 31.16, with 13 centuries. His hundreds for University often came when they were most needed—his 120 against a strong St George attack in 1972 was made while the ten other batsmen dribbled out only 94 runs. Against Randwick in 1973, on a soft and grassy pitch, his 119 not out included 97 after lunch in even time. And his 100 not out in 1974, against a Northern District attack that included three State players, was made in even time—his second fifty was plundered from only 17 balls of destructive mayhem at the SCG No2 ground. “When one looks for an outstanding player at University”, John Benaud wrote that season, “invariably it is Fisher. Ever since he transferred from Sydney he has been an inspiration.”
Yet the New South Wales selectors never called on him, despite the fact that these were lean years for New South Wales cricket, and this seemed a mystifying denial of his talent and potential. It was ironic, then, that he served as a New South Wales selector for five years (1979-84) after his retirement from playing, contributing forcefully to the strengthening of the State side.
The umpires seemed to regard his talents more highly, and in 1970-71, he was runner-up in the Sydney Morning Herald player of the year competition—voted on by the umpires. In the next season, he finished third.
Whether as a captain or an administrator, Fisher was often opinionated but always worth listening to. He had a strength of purpose, certainty of conviction and indefatigable enthusiasm that endeared him to many. As a batsman, he often eschewed style for substance. When overs contained eight balls, his method was to “block six, hit the other two for four.” The results were often devastatingly successful. One leg-spinner, a New South Wales Colts player, never recovered from the mauling he received at University Oval one Saturday as Fisher pulled and cut anything short and drove the increasingly overpitched deliveries towards the distant boundaries on his way to 136.
Over 70 years ago, Sir Neville Cardus wrote of the great England batsman Patsy Hendren, “it is the cross bat shot that is the sign of a cricketer beloved by the multitude… no cricketer is able to make great strokes with the straight bat… the cut and the hook cannot be performed save by a cross bat and no batsman is great if he is not master of these two strokes.” When Fisher was set, bowlers suffered: length and accuracy vanished.
On rare occasions, not even Fisher’s captaincy was equal to the tasks his team faced. Early in the 1972-73 season, University confronted Central Cumberland and Doug Walters. One of the unfortunate bowlers recalled:
Walters had just been dropped from the Australian team on the tour of England, and he was so determined to get back that he was scoring heaps of runs in every game he played. We caught him in that mood, and although I thought we were bowling OK there was nothing we could do about him. Fish got more and more frustrated as the ball kept disappearing around the ground, and finally he decided that none of us could do the job he wanted, so he took the ball himself. Fish bowled off-breaks, I suppose, except they didn’t turn. It took plenty of self-belief for a bowler like that to take on one of the best players of slow bowling in the world. But Walters still murdered him.
It would have been fitting if he had led University’s First Grade into the semi-finals. Twice he came close, claiming fifth place, but—Fisher apart—the team’s batting was seldom strong enough to capitalise on the good work done by a talented and varied attack.
A genial raconteur, he usually indulged in bewildering hyperbole to add spice to his entertaining stories: “I had scored only 50 runs by Christmas in 1969”, or “No batsman except Walters scored 100 on No1 Oval against us for nine seasons”. But when the Club was threatened with demotion from the Grade competition in 1997, Fisher was at his uncompromising best. When the Club most needed him, he returned to play a dominant part in its retention in the Grade competition and then in the resurgence of the Club’s achievements. He led the Club’s operations vigorously, and with a practised eye for players’ talents, as Chairman of Selectors. He took on the coaching of the Club’s first Green Shield sides and taught his 15 year old charges how to play cricket effectively, how to be mentally strong and scrupulously fair. They had to earn his praise but, once given, it was never grudging.
In 1999, he was elected the Club’s eleventh Life Member and, in 2004, he became the Club’s twenty-first President. Ian Fisher will be remembered for the runs he scored, the catches he took and the visionary decisions that he made. Perhaps, even more, he will be honoured for his unstinting service, his unswerving loyalty and his continuing energy in the service of the Club.
Ian Ellis Fisher was born on 25 May 1939 in Albury. His record in First Grade for University was:
Seasons Inns NO HS Runs Av W Runs Av
1969-78 155 19 136 4406 32.39 15 493 32.86
The Club congratulates and thanks Ian, as well as his fellow inductees, Tom Garrett, Alan Crompton OAM and Mick O'Sullivan on such a momentous achievement.
A 'Gold' is an award made by the Blues Committee of Sydney University Sport & Fitness to recognise services rendered, over a period of at least seven years, to a member club or to SUSF itself. On 8 October, the Blues Committee has awarded three new cricket Golds – to Les Carrington, Phil Logan and the late Michael O’Sullivan.
Les Carrington has been involved with the club for forty years, having first joined in 1975. He was never a player, but has assisted the club in a variety of off-field roles, including scoring (for a variety of teams, but regularly for Second Grade), acting as club statistician, editing the club’s newsletter and compiling the Annual Report. He has also acted as Treasurer of the SUCC Foundation. He was elected a Vice President in 1978, won the JC Morris Trophy in 2009-10, and became a Life Member in 2014. According to James Rodgers, SUCC’s immediate past Chairman, “Les is a meticulous scorer; generous with his time; unfailingly committed; humble; held in high esteem by all who have benefitted from knowing him. It is because of such people as Les that the SUSF Clubs achieve greatness. SUCC owes him an enormous debt of gratitude.”
Phil Logan joined the club as a player in 1978 and has remained intensely involved for the last 37 years. He played continuously until 1997-98 and has played occasional matches since then, as well as appearing for the University Veterans. He became the fourth player in the club’s history to reach the milestone of 5000 runs and remains the seventh highest run-scorer in the history of the club, with 5781. From 1985 onwards, Phil often served the club as a captain of lower grade teams, especially in Thirds and Fourths, playing an important role in both the administration of the club and the development of younger players. He was a member of the General Committee for several seasons during the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, he has served on the Club’s Board since 2008. Phil won the club’s highest award, the JC Morris Trophy, in 2006-07. He was elected a Vice-President of the Club in 1990 and a Life Member in 2007. In 1989, Phil was appointed Chairman of Selectors, chairing selection meetings, providing impartial guidance on selections and ensuring that club selection policies were implemented. Phil remained in this role from 1989 to 1991, then again from 2005 to 2011, and began a third term in the role this season. Since 2008, Phil has been the Chairman of the Cricket Club Foundation. This is a critical role, which involves raising funds from club supporters and the management of those funds in conjunction with SUSF.
Michael O’Sullivan receives the rare posthumous award of a Gold, to complement the Blue he won in 1974. His service to the club is a matter of wide general knowledge, spanning a lengthy First Grade career (it is unlikely that his tally of First Grade wickets for the Club will ever be surpassed), which included a couple of terms as captain, and devoted service as an administrator after his retirement. The award of a Gold principally recognizes his service off the field, especially his eight-year term as Chairman of the Board from 2005 until his untimely death in 2013. In that capacity, Mick worked tirelessly to build a better, stronger club. His leadership was as every bit as focused, committed and intense as his bowling had been, and the Club’s current strength is due to a large extent to his vision and energy. His exemplary service to the game was acknowledged when he was elected to Life Membership of the Sydney Cricket Association in 2002 (he had been made a Life Member of SUCC in 1996).
These awards will be conferred formally at the Blues Dinner on Saturday night. The full list of Club members (in order of award) who have now received Golds is:
John Malicki (1980)
Damon Ridley (1980)
James Rodgers (1980)
Mark Sewell (1980)
John Spence (1980)
Alan Crompton (1999)
Ian Fisher (2000)
Ted LeCouteur (2001)
Bruce Collins (2002)
Ian Foulsham (2008)
Les Carrington (2015)
Phil Logan (2015)
Michael O’Sullivan (2015)
Our apologies for not bringing you this week's Top Ten on our regularly scheduled Tuesday, the rain has caused some chaos with are statistics this week, so we bring you Top Ten Thursday.
Our Top Ten following completion of Round Five:
BATTING:
BOWLING:
We will be back to our regular Tuesday slot next week.
Rain distorts everything
There’s nothing more futile than a cricketer complaining about the weather, but it’s an enduring frustration of the game that results in a competition can be distorted by rain. In Round Five, only two of the twenty First Grade teams scored any competition points, while four teams (including Sydney University) didn’t have a chance to bowl or face a single delivery. It’s part of the game, however, and since the two winners, Manly and Sydney, were playing at home, they deserve the credit for maintaining grounds that were playable in adverse conditions.
If this is a bubble, it’s a long time bursting
Sydney’s win over Mosman gives it a clear lead in the First Grade competition: five wins from five starts gives Sydney 30 points, with Fairfield on 19 and a chasing pack on 18. If you want, you can construct reasons why this isn’t a true reflection of Sydney’s merit; they’ve had a soft draw, St George exposed the weakness in their bowling, or whatever. But at the moment they’re playing as a team, and with confidence, and they’re finding ways to win games. Daniel Smith is leading his young team expertly, and his personal example with the bat (his last four innings have been 75, 91, 111 not out and 77) has been outstanding. It would be unwise to think that Sydney won’t still be in the mix at the end of the season.
Moises Henriques is a better person than I am
Rory Burns slipped into the St George First Grade side this round, because what St George really needs is another left-handed batsman with a first-class average of 40 to keep things ticking over when Kurtis Patterson is on State duty. This tells us that bowling out St George won’t get any easier any time soon. It also tells us that Moises Henriques is a better person than I am – more forgiving, magnanimous and trusting. Because, if this had happened to me, and my jaw was broken in three places, and I spent five weeks eating through a straw, then no matter who (if anyone) was to blame, I’d be perfectly happy if the other guy stayed put on the other side of the world. Instead, it seems that Henriques was keen for Burns, briefly his Surrey team-mate in the 2015 English Twenty20 competition, to rejoin him on the field. Note to St George players: Burns is a talented player – you’ll enjoy having him in your side. But remember – when the ball gets hit into the air, call “mine!” early, and often, and very, very loud.
David Dawson is consistent
David Dawson grafted out 53 against Fairfield last round, which isn’t especially exciting until you consider his form over the whole of the season to date: including the T20 games, his innings have been 40, 54, 48, 87, 79 not out, 1, 86 and 53. A tough critic might suggest that he has a problem converting his starts into big scores (compared with last season, when he turned four of his seven fifties into centuries), but for sheer consistency this is hard to beat. Despite spending several seasons in Tasmania, Dawson is closing in on 5000 First Grade runs for University of NSW. That’s a less remarkable feat than it used to be, but the striking thing is that he’s done it while maintaining an average just above fifty. Incidentally, Dawson’s father, Graham, was an outstanding batsman for Sydney University in the 1960s, and his brother, Andrew, played First Grade for Sydney University as a wicket-keeper in the early 1990s.
There are some green shoots at Wests
Western Suburbs has struggled over the past couple of years. The Ashfield-based club won only one First grade match last season, and parted company with captain-coach Jeff Cook in less than harmonious circumstances. But there are some good people involved in the Club’s management (David Gilbert is President; long-serving batsman Peter Burkhart is on the Board) and they took a conscious decision not to recruit into First Grade but to rebuild the club from the ground up. After four rounds, this policy looked dubious, as the club had managed to win only two games – one in Thirds, and one in Fourths. But in Round Five, Wests took on the reigning Club Champions, Manly, winning in Seconds and winning outright in Thirds. The win in Second Grade was especially satisfying because, in pursuit of 177, Wests lost seven for 108 before a determined partnership of 65 between Peter Holland and Anton Makaroff decided the match. It was a particularly good weekend for Makaroff, who took 4-18 in Wests’ Poidevin-Gray win over Blacktown on Sunday. It’s a bit too early for parties at Pratten Park, but there are some signs that Wests are now heading in the right direction
Nick Larkin’s dominant performance in the Futures League match against Western Australia included his highest score (118) and first century in this competition, and his second innings of 78 (from only 73) gave him scores above fifty in each innings for the first time in this competition.
In the same match, Jonte Pattison (3-74) took his first Futures League wickets. Will Somerville’s haul of four wickets was his best in any Futures League match, and included the extraordinarily economical return of 41-12-31-2 in the second WA innings.
Ryan Kurtz, with 3-31, equalled his best bowling figures in Second Grade against Northern District. In fact, his two spells in his Second Grade career to date have produced identical returns.
If you flick through the Club’s Annual Report for the 1986-87 season, you might notice a grainy, black and white photograph of the Poidevin-Gray Shield team. At first glance, the team it portrays looks like a typical University Under-21 side of the time, liberally stocked with the products of Sydney private schools, playing some decent cricket while they study, together with a sprinkling of promising country cricketers. If you know a little bit about the University cricket of this period, you can look at the photo and guess what will happen to these young men. Most will finish playing cricket not long after they graduate. They’ll become lawyers or accountants, vets or engineers, and on summer afternoons they might glance out of their office windows and remember, fondly, the days when they had nothing more urgent to do than chase a ball around a field. Some of the country boys will go back to the land. It’s a familiar tale.
But look more closely and two things stand out. First, this was a distinctly successful team, unbeaten until it lost to Mosman in a closely-fought final. University teams today reach finals almost out of habit, so it’s worth recalling that in 1987 University had never won the Poidevin-Gray Shield and had reached the final only once, in 1959-60 (when, by coincidence, Mosman also won).
The other conspicuous feature of the team photograph is the towering figure standing in the centre of the back row. It’s the team’s opening bowler, Russell Merrick Oldham, a Science student from Wollongong – at 195 centimetres tall, and wide across the shoulders, an imposing physical presence. This wasn’t a team that expended a great deal of intellectual energy on nicknames. The manager, St John Frawley, was “Sinj”; Gary Lennon was “Gaz”. In this environment, it was no surprise that Oldham soon became “Big R”.
Oldham had joined the club at the start of the season, unheralded and unannounced. He was raw and unconventional, a large man in ill-fitting gear who bowled inswingers from an uncommonly short approach. Without being very fast, he hit the bat hard. His cricket trousers were bright white and flared at the ends, and soon became known as his “disco cricket slacks”. He was not yet twenty, but his dark hair already had flecks of premature grey. He didn’t fit neatly into any mould, and the club’s selectors had no real idea what to do with him. So they sent him out to Parramatta Hospital, to play City & Suburban cricket with the Veterans – where he opened the bowling wearing sandshoes. The following week he was promoted to Sixth Grade, where he scored 29 not out and took 3-21, earning an immediate promotion. He played only one game in Fifths, opening the batting and scoring 35, then just one in Fourths before he was lifted into Third Grade.
St John Frawley was the manager of the Poidevin-Gray team that season. He remembers that “Skull (Kerry O’Keeffe, the Poidevin-Gray coach) and I ran a training session on the old nets near St John’s, and this absolute hulk wandered down in bare feet and started bowling. We watched a couple of balls, and Skull said, “My God!” and took Russell off to buy him a pair of shoes.”
In the first half of the season, Big R played his best cricket in the Poidevin-Gray team, bowling long, miserly spells and regularly collecting wickets. He bowled almost unchanged through the 60-over innings against Parramatta, taking 5-84, and wrecked Campbelltown with 5-39. In the final, against Mosman, he bowled 17 overs for only 40 runs, effectively containing future England batsman Jason Gallian and Somerset county professional Nick Pringle. Kerry O’Keeffe, praised the “heart, stamina and raw talent” of “our fast bowling lynchpin of the six metre run-up”. In the Poidevin-Gray season, Oldham was scarcely needed to bat, and didn’t score a single run; but when he promoted to open the batting in Third Grade, late in the season, he responded by thumping two successive centuries, against North Sydney and Mosman.
Plainly, the Club had stumbled across an exceptional talent. He was an unusual character, too – heart-warmingly loyal to his friends, but with a disconcerting readiness to threaten violence to anyone who upset them. He was gregarious and popular, and loved belonging to a team, but was also a little dark. “He was quiet, humble and thoughtful, and very warm”, recalls St John Frawley. “And he was a mighty talent. But there was an air of mystery about him. He wasn’t one of those people who’d sit you down and tell you his life story, and no-one was really sure where he came from. He was supposed to be on a BHP scholarship, which was how he could afford to live at St John’s College, but no-one knew for certain. Did he have a kid, or didn’t he? Why did he turn up without shoes? After the PG final, the team went out to King’s Cross, and then we got the first hint that there was this wild side to him.”
Anyway, no-one underestimated him in his second season. He was graded in Seconds, and responded by bowling tightly and efficiently, and whacking a match-winning, unbeaten 60 against Parramatta. On Sunday 15 November 1987, he played in the First Grade Limited Overs side against Northern District at Waitara (in a match which has, retrospectively, been recognized as a full First Grade game). He bowled his ten overs tidily, conceding only 37 runs and capturing the handy wicket of future University captain Brad Patterson. He also batted for a time with Test batsman John Dyson, before he was bowled by the NSW fast-medium bowler Neil Maxwell. In this very distinguished company, he didn’t look out of place.
This might have been the start of a bright First Grade career – instead, it was virtually his last cricket match. When the University term ended, he dropped out of the game, insisting that he needed to work. It was said, and might even have been true, that he needed to support his infant daughter from a failed relationship back in Wollongong. Then he dropped out of University as well. He began to work as a doorman for nightclubs in King’s Cross, and found that the job was perfectly suited to his personality – as the occasion required, he could be genially welcoming, or forcefully dismissive. His friendly nature and capacity for violence were accommodated in equal measure.
In the murky world of King’s Cross, Oldham stood out. There were King’s Cross operators who were as strong as he was, and others who were just as intelligent, but few (if any) who could supply his particular combination of brain and muscle. He soon came to the attention of Philip Player, a nightclub owner and self-styled gangster (who was later jailed for conspiracy to murder). Player offered Oldham work, and was soon involving him in the management of the Bonnie and Clyde club in Newtown. He presented Oldham with a gun, his first, and introduced him to the Sydney underworld’s drug distribution networks – which was where he spent most of the next ten years.
On 5 April 1998, Oldham and at least five other men drove to Bankstown to meet with Orhan Yildirim and Mehmet Unsal, who were accused of reneging on some illegal deal. The details of what followed are unpleasant, and the encounter ended with Yildirim and Unsal being shot at close range. The Police prosecutor described it as a “gangland execution”. There was never any evidence that Oldham himself inflicted any of the injuries, but there was no doubt that he was present at the scene of the crime. Charged with murder, he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison.
He was, it turned out, a model prisoner, active in supporting children’s charities, and he was released from Goulburn early, in November 2004. Before his prison term, he had been loosely associated with the Outlaw bikie gang; afterwards, he joined the Bandidos. There’s a story that Rodney Monk of the Bandidos sent a limousine to Goulburn to collect Oldham when he was released. Some accounts insist that Oldham then became a Sergeant-at-Arms in the gang, while others say that he was merely a probationary member. Paperwork not being very high on the list of Bandido priorities, the truth is elusive. Actually, there are very few uncontroversial facts about Big R’s time with the Bandidos: he had entered a world in which verifiable truths are swamped by rumours, allegations and innuendo. It’s said that he was involved in manufacturing ice and amphetamines, and that he acquired a taste for his own handiwork, but it’s impossible to know how true this was – the Bandidos’ core business at the time was cocaine. What did complicate his life significantly was that he began a relationship with the woman who was assigned as his parole officer, which was considered an infraction of the Bandidos’ rules (and how many other organisations, incidentally, need rules about parole officers?). Possibly this was why Oldham fell out with Monk, who held a position high in the gang’s hierarchy, although some stories say that Monk wanted to expel Oldham for other acts of indiscipline and still others claim that Oldham had backed one of Monk’s rivals for a leadership role in the gang. All we know for sure is that on 20 April 2006, Oldham rode to Bar Reggio in East Sydney to speak with Monk. The two men became involved in an argument, and left the restaurant to continue their conversation in a laneway, while Monk’s bodyguard remained, inexplicably, inside. Three shots were fired, and Monk died almost instantly.
For three weeks, Oldham went missing, eluding an intensive Police search. Then on 11 May, just after sunset, he walked into the sea at Balmoral Beach, put his gun to his head, and fired a single shot. In the days that followed, many newspaper reports insisted that this was the act of a man whose mind was addled by ice addiction. It’s more likely that he was thinking with perfect clarity. He knew that he would be discovered soon enough, either by the Bandidos, who would deal with him brutally, or by the Police – in which case, he would go back to prison, where the Bandidos would deal with him brutally. There was no way out.
The unhappy ending to this story seems to cry out for a moral of some sort, and you can make it mean almost anything you like. Wasted talent is a tragedy. Crime doesn’t pay. Drugs harm people. All true enough. But if we need to draw a lesson from all of this, maybe it’s a touch more complicated than that – because what the story really shows is the danger that lies in making lazy assumptions about people. Oldham was a gangster implicated in terrible violence yet still, on other occasions, was a warm, thoughtful and generous person; his character can’t be reduced to a single dimension. You can’t assume that once you know his crimes, you know the man. Any more than you can look at a photograph of a group of young cricketers and assume that you know how the story ends up.
