ANDREW BELL APPOINTED THE 17th CHIEF JUSTICE OF NSW

ANDREW BELL APPOINTED THE 17th CHIEF JUSTICE OF NSW

(Image courtesy of St Paul’s College)

It is with great pride that the Club acknowledges Andrew Bell who will become the 17th Chief Justice of NSW when the current Chief Justice, Thomas Bathurst, steps down on 5 March. 

Andrew played for the Club and then the Veterans’ XI during the 1980s and 1990s and has always taken a strong and practical interest in the Club. 

  

He was educated at Sydney Grammar School before going up to the University, resident at St Paul’s College, having captained the SGS 1st XI in 1983. 

His academic career at Sydney University was filled with honours: BA, LLB Hons. Two University Medals. When he studied at Oxford University during his Rhodes Scholarship, he won the Vinerian Scholarship in the BCL and was also awarded a doctorate focusing on private international law. 

Since returning to Australia, Andrew has practiced as a barrister, is still an Adjunct Professor at Sydney University and was appointed as President of the NSW Court of Appeal in 2019. 

  

Francis Forbes was NSW’s first Chief Justice in 1823 and Andrew follows, 199 years later. 

He is only the second Chief Justice of NSW to have represented the Sydney University Cricket Club.  HV (Bert) Evatt, who played for the Club before the Great War, was Chief Justice from 1960 until 1962. 

  

The Club joins in saluting one of our most distinguished former players. 

By James Rodgers

Daniel Gauci selected for NSW U17 Combined Squad!

Daniel Gauci selected for NSW U17 Combined Squad!

Congratulations to Daniel Gauci who has been selected to represent NSW Combined U17 Squad at the National Championships!

The tournament will be held in Mackay, QLD from April 7 to 14 👏

Amy Ridley - Goalball

Amy Ridley - Goalball

      AMY RIDLEY CARRIES THE LEGACY … THROUGH GOALBALL!

 There was no ticker-tape parade to welcome back our highly successful Olympians and Paralympians.  Covid saw to that!  However, there was a LIGHT SHOW - https://www.nsw.gov.au/whats-happening/celebrate-tokyo-2020 which was streamed live on Sunday, 5 September, 2021.  As photos and videos of their activities were beamed in Aussie Green and Gold on the Opera House, there suddenly appeared “Amy Ridley Women’s Goalball”

Ridley is a name strongly associated with the Sydney University Cricket Club.  So, is there some connection between Amy Ridley and the legendary Ridleys who played with, and who contributed in so many other ways to, the SUCC?

I learnt that Goalball - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goalball is a game invented by Austrians and Germans as a sport for visually impaired returning soldiers after World War II.  I then found a 2 minute YouTube video -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bZ51jzmbAQ and became fascinated by the sport, and quickly realised why I had never heard about it. It is the only sport played in the Paralympic Games that has no other ‘equivalent’ Olympic sport.  Then, I found the connection with the Ridleys of the SUCC – Amy is indeed the daughter of Andrew, the niece of Nicholas, and the granddaughter of Damon.

However, Amy Ridley is blind.

Nevertheless, Amy has shown extraordinary resilience throughout her life. Year after year she was the top student at Turramurra High School and she is now studying Law and Economics at Macquarie University. She is an exceptional athlete who, in 2017, discovered her ideal sport, goalball. She has been greatly encouraged by her mother, Meredith, and her brothers, and, in a special way, by her father, Andrew.

 Amy, the youngest of the Australian Women’s Goalball team in Tokyo, represented NSW as a junior at the Australian Goalball Championships, and the Pacific School Games, and was a member of the Australian Team that won the silver medal at the Youth World Championships in 2019.   At the Tokyo Paralympics the team lost their first two matches, but narrowly beat Canada 4-3 in the next round.  This was the first Australian Paralympic win since Atlanta 1996!  Following their decisive win against the World Champion Russians, they made the quarter finals for the first time ever, but were beaten by Turkey, the subsequent Paralympian Champions.

 

Amy Ridley playing at the 2019 IBSA Goalball Youth World Championships in Penrith, Australia

When she returned to Australia, Amy said “The best part of the Paralympics was being among so many disabled athletes,  and admiring and being inspired by how much they were achieving.”

Andrew Ridley, a dynamic left-hand batsman, followed his father, former 1st Grade captain, Damon Ridley, into 1st Grade in 1989-90.  Andrew eventually scored 2160 runs in 1st Grade and 5679 runs for the Club in all grades. His younger brother, Nicholas, scored 5229 runs for the Club.  Damon, Andrew and Nicholas between them scored 13,344 runs for Sydney University, a record without parallel. Nicholas’ academic record at Sydney University was simply remarkable. 23 High Distinctions, first class honours, the University Medal.

Andrew captained the Australian Universities of 1991, graduated with 1st Class Honours in Organic Chemistry and was awarded the Bradman scholarship for 1993 and studied at Exeter College Oxford. While at Oxford, he played twenty 1st class games, scoring 857 runs including a majestic 155 at Lords for Oxford University against the University of Cambridge.

Returning to Sydney, Andrew captained SUCC’s 2nd Grade and was Club Captain when the Club won its historic first Club Championship in 1999-2000, an achievement which gave him enduring satisfaction.

Since retirement from playing, Andrew has gained cricket and AFL coaching certificates, then he started coaching goalball.  He is now the Australian Men’s Head Coach, with the mission to develop the men’s squad for the 2032 Brisbane Paralympics.  Andrew admits: “a lot of my coaching references cricket.”  And to exemplify, he explains that he gets his players to ‘listen’ to the ball from the time it is released. This is the same skill which Andrew honed-in ‘watching’ the ball from the bowler’s hand. “Stability, balance and alignment” are skills preached in cricket which Andrew has used in his coaching of the visually impaired.  

He explains further: “The visually impaired talent pool isn't big to start with, and then it is split between the likes of Blind Cricket, Blind Tennis, Blind Football and the other Paralympic Sports.  Goalball takes a certain type of person who is happy to play reverse dodgeball with a 1.25Kg ball that is hurled at you from around 10 metres away at 60Kph.  When Amy throws a ball at me at 20Kph, which is about half pace for her, it hurts!”

“These other visually impaired sports have obvious connections with mainstream sports who are more and more realising the value of being seen to be inclusive.  Couple this with the fact that Australia’s employment rate for people with disability is just 47%, which is in line with the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander employment rate of 46%, and with goalball being unfunded, then you can see how easily talented sports people can be drawn to the sports backed by the likes of Cricket Australia and Tennis Australia.  

 “Paralympics Australia funding is limited to high performing teams, hence the Australian Men's Goalball program in particular is stuck in the vicious cycle of lack of funding inhibiting any ability to prove that they are worthy of being funded.  Having said that, I think I can make a difference with my coaching and with a new generation of players who will start to develop over the next couple of years - that is why I put my hand up to be Australian Men's Head Coach.“ 

 For players, by far the main cost is in travelling to national camps and to competitions, and traditionally the expenses of coaches, physios and support staff costs are met by the players, so costs for each player are over $10,000 annually – not including trips to ophthalmologists, and surgeries (for example, Amy on average requires at least two eye operations per year). 

Perhaps because he was extensively involved with the SUCC, he realised that to have success, sporting teams need support in many ways, including strong management, scholarships to players, and an adequate funding base, so Andrew is actively seeking sponsorship for all aspects of the Australian Men’s Goalball Team.   “Visually impaired people have to climb their own personal mountains of hardship, so besides assisting my goalballers through coaching and mentoring, I am trying to help them become successful individuals, and as proud to pull on an Australian goalball shirt as Australian cricketers are proud to pull on the ‘baggy green’ ”.

Andrew is a fine example of a servant leader who puts his players and their welfare well ahead of his own.

Amy Ridley is an inspirational young woman who deserves any success that will undoubtedly attend her.

The Ridley legacy of excellence is in the safest of hands.

James Rodgers

 

 

A Singular Honour (Part 13)

A Singular Honour (Part 13)

By James Rodgers

(1 of 2 Medical Student Tales)

GL Saunders (SUCC 1 st Grade cap no179) is a minor footnote in SUCC’s sweeping history. He appears once and then virtually disappears, for ever.

He played his one game in 1st Grade in January 1919, one of 23 players who took the field with

University’s 1st Grade during the 1918-19 season; one of six who played their only game in 1 st Grade in that season. On 6 January 1919 (exactly 103 years ago today as I write), the world was still dizzy with elation following the Armistice in November 1918 which signalled the end of the dismal days of fighting in the Great War. Seventeen University cricketers never returned; six of the seventeen were still students when they enlisted.

George Lord Saunders (MB, ChM 1921) was a Medical student who fielded on the rain-affected first day while Glebe piled up 3 for 128. He wasn’t needed to bowl although University’s captain, Les Best, summoned seven others to the bowling crease. On the second day, the Australian Test player, Warren Bardsley, dominated and carried his bat for 138 out of 253. ‘Tim’ Yates recorded his best 1 st Grade figures with 5 for 35. Saunders had been one of two changes in the University side forced on the University selectors by the vacation. Jack Clemenger and University’s leading bowler, Ted Trennery, were both on holidays and Saunders and TP Flattery were called into the side. Flattery was a graduate of Waverley College and a future barrister and lecturer in Roman Law at the University.

Left hander Jim Bogle, a 25 year old Medical student, opened when University went in to bat. He top scored with 34 and Saunders, batting at number 11, was left 0 not out when the innings came to a sorry end. When University followed on, there was another collapse which left them 5 for 53. Curiously, Bogle didn’t bat again. His fellow Med student, Saunders, wasn’t required. The 1918-19 1 st Grade side finished a creditable seventh in the competition with six wins and six losses and two remarkable ties. In round 3, both Balmain and University had scored 327. In round 10, Waverley was 9 for 138 chasing 148. A series of nervous singles and wild swipes into the outfield concluded when University’s Jimmy Sullivan caught a ‘skier’ as Balmain’s Sheppard tried to hit University’s Charlie Lawes out of the ground. The University side was held together mainly by the batting of Jim Bogle who had an ‘annus mirabilis’ which he never repeated. In 1 st Grade, he scored an extraordinary 1090 runs at 83.8 with six centuries.

The next in aggregate was Les Donovan’s 433. Bogle’s 1090 was the first occasion when a University 1 st Grader had scored over 1000 for the season and it was to be the only time when Bogle himself ever approached anything like it. It took another 88 years before Greg Mail’s 1225 runs in 2006-07 broke this record. Since then, Damien Mortimer, Nick Larkin and Greg Mail, twice more, have surpassed Bogle’s old record and Greg Mail’s 1242 in 2009-10 is the current 1 st Grade record for SUCC. When Bogle, on the strength of his consistent and outstanding run-scoring, was selected for NSW a few weeks later in January 1919, he scored 145 on debut as NSW chased down 387 to defeat Victoria. He was not often available for NSW because of his medical studies but when he was called up again in the next season for the game against South Australia in Adelaide, he was dropped first ball and then ground out an extraordinary200.

The remarkable thing about Bogle’s 1090 was how much it stood out in his Grade career. In the other six seasons in which he played 1 st Grsde (for Glebe and University), he averaged a moderate 25.

The two unlikely teammates, George Saunders and Jim Bogle, were a year apart in the Faculty of Medicine. While Bogle was creating records almost every week on the cricket fields, Saunders returned to his studies and never played 1 st Grade again. And that’s where he disappears from sight. We know that his father, George, and mother, Grace, were married in 1893 and lived around Newcastle. We know that George had two brothers, Frank who served in the Flying Corps in the Great War and Charles. And that his sister Aimee lived until 1972.

But many questions remain unanswered.

Where did George go to school?

What sort of cricketer was he?

What sort of character was he?

What did he do after graduating in 1921?

If any of our readers have any ideas, I would be most grateful to hear from you about the Medical student who played one 1 st Grade game and who never scored a run or took a wicket.

A Singular Honour (Part 12)

A Singular Honour (Part 12)

By James Rodgers

Bernard Russell FRENCH, DSO, OBE

Bernard Russell French was born into Sydney Patrician classes. His father, Sir John Russell French, 1847-1921, was General Manager of the Bank of NSW. BR French was educated at Sydney Grammar School and, from 1904, at the University of Sydney while resident at St Paul’s College, studying Arts and Law(BA 1907, LLB 1910). At school, he had been a 150 yard runner but he had failed to gain a position in the school 1 st XI which was exceptionally strong. He batted and bowled steadily in the school’s 2nd XI and passed in Latin, French, Algebra and Trigonometry in the Senior Examinations of 1903. During the Great War, he enlisted in London while he was holidaying there in 1914 and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Munster Fusiliers and was twice mentioned in despatches and twice decorated (DSO, Silver Medal of the Crown of Italy). An account of his time at Gallipoli, Salonika, Palestine and France is preserved in a series of detailed letters that he wrote to his father (“My dear Father”).

Similarly, his time in Southern Arabia and West Africa was the basis for a series of published letters that he wrote to the Editor of The Sydneian, the Sydney Grammar magazine. Resuming civilian life, he lived for another 48 years after the War ended. It is, however, his one match in 1st Grade for SUCC that forms the basis for this story. In January 1909, the University selectors had to contend with the usual difficulties that their sides encountered during University vacation. There were absentees due to the vacation and others who took a rest “earned after successfully getting through exams.” The lower grades were particularly affected. In this round, 2nd Grade narrowly avoided outright defeat. 3 rd Grade lost conclusively on the first day. In 1st Grade, against Waverley, there were five changes from the team that had played the previous match (in Round 5 as University had a bye in Round 6).

OB Williams replaced James Hughes as an opening batsman. William Makin replaced Roy Minnett, the future Test player. Hector Clayton came in for NG Ducker. Eric Fisher replaced the leg spinner George Willcocks who had started the season in 2 nd Grade where he took 12 wickets in the first game and then took 17 wickets in four games in 1 st Grade. And French was selected in place of AL Butler who had played the last of his two 1 st Grade games. Williams began promisingly with 44 but he ran out Eric McElhone, soon to become one of University’s NSW players. The other four replacements managed only 23 runs between them and University tumbled to 178 all out. Batting last, French made 3 before giving Addison, a straight medium fast bowler, his fourth wicket for the innings. Waverley were 0 for 100 by stumps. The Australian player, 38 year old Syd Gregory, who eventually played 58 Tests for Australia, and NSW batsman, Alick Mackenzie, who had played the first of his 48 games for NSW 21 years before this season, had experienced few difficulties.

On the second day, Waverley, now in second place in the 1 st Grade competition, were ruthless against an inexperienced attack. University batted again, 207 runs behind but time prevented any further result. Games on either side of this round show how much University missed its regular players. In Round 5, Willcocks’ 6 for 95 was instrumental in University’s victory against Norths by only 24 runs. In Round 8, Minnett took 6 for 36 as Gordon was dismissed for 102. French had been playing for the Club since 1907-08 and he had scored valuable runs and taken consistent wickets with his medium pacers in 2 nd Grade. He served on the Committee of the Club and played for the Veterans’ XI after graduation. He was not without ability or experience, aged 24 at the time of this match. On the second day, he took the wickets of both veteran openers (although Mackenzie scored 165) and later in the innings, he bowled Lloyd for 0. French bowled steadily, finishing with 3 for 82 in such an imposing total. The main bowlers suffered. Stack 3 for 92, Makin 0 for 61 and Matthews 1 for 98 made little impression.

For the next round against Gordon at the SCG, Ducker, Minnett and Willcocks returned to 1 st Grade and HH Massie, son of the Australian player of the same name, made his debut after a century in 2 nd Grade. French returned to his studies, to St Paul’s and to 2nd Grade where he bowled without significant success.

By September 1914, he had enlisted in London.

In 1928, he married Margot Blomfield. They were to raise two daughters and a son.

On 10 February 1966, he died at Edgeworth, Gloucester.

He remained largely forgotten even by those who had played in his one 1st Grade match and who lived as long or even longer. Eric McElhone, the last of that side to die, aged 94 in 1981, had an exceptionally sharp mind and clear memory. Even he couldn’t remember the medium pacer who had dismissed a Test batsman and a NSW player in his only 1st Grade match.

 

Acknowledgements to Jim Cattlin for his research into the Sydney Grammar School records.

Iris L'Estrange Widow of Dr. Jim L'Estrange

Iris L'Estrange Widow of Dr. Jim L'Estrange

On 23 December, Mrs Iris L'Estrange died aged 99. 

She was the widow of Dr Jim L'Estrange who played for the Club in the 1930s and whose family gave the Jim L'Estrange award which is presented at our annual dinner. Jim and Iris' sons, Michael and Jimmy, played 1st grade in the 1970s. The family has also significantly supported the SUCC Foundation.