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Monty Noble – Part 1 – with Peter Lloyd
705 Plays1 year ago
To mark his 150th birthday (28 January 2023), we launch the podcast with a double episode on the life and career of Montague Alfred Noble (1873–1940), middle-order batsman, early exponent of swerve bowling, and Australia’s twelfth Test captain. For this episode, biographer Peter Lloyd joins host Tom Ford to discusses the challenges he faced writing the first full-length account of Noble’s life, his early cricket career, the various controversies surrounding Noble’s bowling action, and how exactly we should address him (Monty? Alf? Mary-Ann? MAN?).
SUPPORT the Podcast by buying Tom a coffee here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/GoldenAgeOfCricket
In Part 2, Peter discusses Noble’s qualities as a captain, his relationship with cricket crowds, the SCG Grandstand named in his honour and his legacy today. Furthermore, we dissect Noble’s Test, First Class and Grade statistics in detail.
Peter’s self-published Limited Edition book Monty Noble: Cricketing Nobility (2022) was much sought after. Good luck finding a copy!
ABOUT PETER LLOYD:
After a long and wide-ranging career as an academic and consultant in public health, drew on his life-long passion for cricket literature and turned to writing. In 2020 and 2021, in collaboration with Peter Schofield, he produced two self-published pictorial narratives on Victor Trumper and Don Bradman, with the former awarded runner-up in The Australian Cricket Society Book of the Year. Turning to the 'Golden Age’, in 2021 Peter self-published a biography of the NSW left-handed opening batsman Warren Bardsley, which was subsequently announced last August as the ACS Book of the Year.
CREDITS:
Presenter & Producer: Tom Ford
All music used in podcast comes from the University of California Santa Barbara’s remarkable collection of wax cylinder’s from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are free to download and use. You can donate to the upkeep of these recordings via their website.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Golden Age of Cricket'
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Golden Age of Cricket, a podcast which delves back into the annals of history and discusses some of the most memorable characters and moments from the so-called Golden Age of Cricket, the 25 years immediately preceding the First World War. My name is Tom Ford,
00:00:27
Speaker
My guest today is Peter Lloyd, who after a long and wide-ranging career as an academic and consultant in public health, drew on his lifelong passion for cricket literature and turned to writing.
Spotlight on Cricket Literature and Biographies
00:00:39
Speaker
In 2020 and 2021, in collaboration with Peter Schofield, he produced two self-published pictorial narratives on Victor Trumper and Don Bradman, with the former awarded runner-up in the Australian Cricket Society Book of the Year.
00:00:56
Speaker
Turning to the Golden Age, in 2021 Peter self-published a biography of the New South Wales left-handed opening batsman Warren Bardsley, which was subsequently announced last August as the ACS Book of the Year. A companion self-published volume on Montague Alfred Noble has just been released and it is the subject of today's podcast. Peter, welcome.
00:01:20
Speaker
Thank you very much, Tom. It's a pleasure to be here and to be a guinea pig, so to speak, in your podcast series. I'm fairly sure that they are going to be well received. If I could just editorialise for a minute before we get started on the questions and discussions.
Nostalgia and the Golden Age of Cricket
00:01:37
Speaker
The golden age of cricket, as you allude, is the first golden age at any rate because several golden ages exist in terms of the way that
00:01:47
Speaker
folk over the years have eulogised certain periods, but I think the true aficionados would believe that the period of 1892 pre-war, pre-Great War, was definitely the first and probably the most magnanimous. So I would just like to flavour that by talking about or quoting from Benny Green, a very well-known and well-written English cricket historian who about 35 years ago wrote
00:02:17
Speaker
a terrific history, a concise history, very broad-based, and he finishes it by talking about the Golden Age. And I'm paraphrasing here, but he said, it's not an endearing fact about human nature in its relation to cricket, that the backward look is always with us, that the Golden Age and all of its romantic notions are behind us and always will be.
Exploring Monty Noble's Life and Legacy
00:02:41
Speaker
Benny was adamant
00:02:42
Speaker
that the deeds of the giants of the past, the Ranges and the Jesuits and the Trumpers, et cetera, are worthy of note and are far from dimmed by the passage of time. So well done you, Tom, on helping to ensure that the special exploits of the golden ages are remembered. So I'm sorry, but I can't help but editorise. It's part of my personality. So let's fire away.
00:03:06
Speaker
Well, thank you for being the guinea pig, as you say, Peter, and thank you for that editorial. And I'm hoping over the course of this podcast, whether it's three episodes or 30 episodes, that the actual nature of the Golden Age and the question
00:03:23
Speaker
as to whether it truly was a golden age is discussed and explored. So that is largely part of the reason of having this podcast is for people to discuss it and dissect it. So thank you for being the guinea pig. But we're here today to discuss, of course, Monty Noble.
00:03:43
Speaker
Peter, after the completion of your excellent biography on Bardsley, you swiftly moved on to writing Monty Noble, cricketing nobility. When did you decide to write a biography on Monty?
00:03:57
Speaker
As you alluded to earlier, Peter Schofield and I did two pictorial narratives on Victor Trumper and Don Bradman, and they were well received. We had a lot of support in that exercise from Colin Clowes of the New South Wales Cricket Association of Cricket New South Wales, as it's called now, librarian statistician of note, although he suggests that that's not quite his goal, but quite his brief, but he's an excellent
00:04:26
Speaker
numbers man and he gave us terrific support in terms of saving our bacon on a couple of occasions when we alluded to certain events which were incorrect and had innings interspersed incorrectly so Colin had become a I've become quite a close friend of Colin's previously I'd written a short bio on him for the Victorian Australian Cricket Society magazine annual magazine pavilion and
00:04:55
Speaker
I have to say that if anyone has any significant collections of books on Australian crickets since, well, for the past 25 years, and you look through the acknowledgements pages in those books, you'll find that Colin's name is uppermost. Colin is a terrific guy, a dynamo, even though he's
00:05:15
Speaker
well into his 80s now. He's astute and very insightful. He's also more than just a statistician. He's a believer in the worth of giving appropriate balance to a discussion. So he's quite good in terms of editing beyond numbers, which I found of great value. In fact, he was the
00:05:42
Speaker
pre-emptor as to why I wrote the biography on Warren Bardsley. He'd been telling me as he was working with me and Peter Schofield on the Bradman and Trumper book how he'd be delighted if something similar were to be done on Warren. Peter Schofield wasn't interested in taking any further part in another book, which he felt may
00:06:06
Speaker
be simply a cap and paste job on what we'd put together previously because of all the imagery we used. I believe that there was an opportunity though to write a more definitive and comprehensive biography on Warren. And I did so because Warren was Colin's favourite author, favourite cricketer. So I was sort of paying Colin a favour in doing that.
00:06:28
Speaker
And as I'm working through the Barzi biography, coming to the end of the story, which occurred during the height of the pandemic. So I basically immersed myself in Warren's story over a period of about eight or nine months. And it was draining physically and psychologically, but at the same time, it was a savior for me, like many people who were restricted in what they could do. So.
00:06:53
Speaker
When I finished, I almost immediately realised that I needed to continue on, so I then had the thought of what subject would I next build upon. I had three choices, Monty Noble, Charlie McCartney and Sid Gregory.
00:07:11
Speaker
Common Clouds was keen for me to work on Sid Gregory because over the years he'd collected and created a big catalogue of information and images statistics on Sid and believed that he warranted significant attention, which I agree to agree as well. But I then was confronted by the fact that another friend, a good friend, a cricket friend, said to me that he had
00:07:40
Speaker
close relationships with a couple of people who came from the extended noble clan and he believed that there was a family history which could be valuable in setting the scene and having some broad-based understandings of how
00:07:57
Speaker
the noble tree evolved into from England into Australia so that sort of I guess determined that I chose Monty as the next subject.
Peter's Writing Process and Inspirations
00:08:10
Speaker
Colin was still a little reluctant at that time but by the time I was into chapter three and he'd been reading the early versions, chapters don't have a lot to do with cricket but Colin was
00:08:22
Speaker
He'd fallen into tandem with me, so that made a big difference to my prospects of creating a book of value. Because cricket's not just a game of the dramatics on the field, it's also a game of numbers. And for the true aficionados, I think the blend of accuracy and colorful descriptions is a very important part of a successful book. I did find though, with the Bardsley book,
00:08:50
Speaker
I was lucky enough again to have access to some correspondence between Warren's younger brother Ray, or Mick as he was known, and a very good friend of mine as well, a social historian from Sydney, Max Solling. And Max and Mick Bardsley had spent
00:09:08
Speaker
quite a few sessions, mostly over the phone, but often by letter, talking about the era when Mick was playing, which sort of coincided with Warren a few years later. And that really, I think, the family intimacy made all the difference. So I was looking for a similar sort of buoyancy or generation of ideas from the noble family genealogists who
00:09:35
Speaker
About 20 years ago, early 2000s, talked about aspects of the ancestral tree and the fact that there were eight brothers, eight siblings of the first Australian noble-based family from the mid-1900s.
00:09:59
Speaker
and, you know, 1800s, I should say. So that was certainly a reason, a rationale as to why I pursued multi-noble as a subject. So I began in March 2022, which was about two months after the Baozi book was released. And I felt that I was sort of in a,
00:10:26
Speaker
a routine. I think most writers get to a point where they begin to feel comfortable in their way of working. In my case, that means often spending a solid several hours in a morning writing
00:10:44
Speaker
perhaps two or three thousand words and then leaving it till the next day, editing it and beginning again and I've found for me that works. It doesn't mean that that's going to be the end product but over time
00:10:59
Speaker
I've worked a style of writing into what I think is a fairly constructive way of managing for me. People have asked me, how do you write a cricket book? And my bottom line is, well, you just start and then you proceed. And then as time goes by, you'll think, oh, that wasn't quite good enough because now I'm writing in a better format or a better style. You might need to go back and edit.
00:11:24
Speaker
The worst part about writing is you've become so wedded to your words on the page that culling is a devastating fact. However, if you're an editor, that's your job. And I have edited quite a few other folk in the cricket writing sphere. So I know that it can make a big difference and it can help.
00:11:46
Speaker
but doing it yourself I haven't really been edited by anybody up till now so it's probably harder to do it yourself because it's hard to give up something you think you say oh that's a lovely phrase or a lovely sentence but really it doesn't warrant being there it's just duplicating what's been said so this is all about the writing format so let's get on to the content of Monty if you wish
00:12:12
Speaker
Now, without preempting anything and just touching on something you mentioned in your answer, are biographies of Sid Gregory and Charlie McCartney in the pipeline or are you keeping that close to your heart? No, no. My next project is probably going to be a short monograph on Tom McKibben. There are a couple of people, David Anstus, who's been very helpful for me and very obliging and providing lots of images for
00:12:41
Speaker
both the Bardsley and Noble book, has a small selection of Tom McKibben material. Plus, he's also a very good friend of Angus McKibben, an ancestor of Tom's, who's still in the Bathurst area where Tom originated from. And we're going to, as a trio,
00:13:01
Speaker
provide sufficient, I think, for a serious monograph, not a deluxe version like the Noble and Barsley books, but something that hasn't been done on Tom. Tom's got lots of skeletons in the closet, so to speak, and I think we can tease those out without being too incriminating. But there's definitely interesting stories there around him and his
00:13:24
Speaker
cricket on the field and his lifestyle off the field, which I think will probably come out sometime later this year. And then perhaps after that, Sid Gregory. Few biographies, certainly of any great length or weight, existed on Monty prior to yours. Why do you think it took an Ashes winning captain so long to receive his due? Good question.
00:13:49
Speaker
Warren Bosley was rather a dour figure, although he did have a congenial inner circle manner, noble by contrast, I think was perceived widely as being a person from a well-to-do middle-class background, someone who had certain social advantages that allowed him to devote time to a sport, which he showed early promise. Three well-known Australian cricket historians and authors, should I name them? Yes. Max Bunill, Rick Sessons and Richard Cashman.
00:14:18
Speaker
told me separately once I'd begun the Monte biography that at one time or another that all contemplated writing his life story. However, they had balked at the task in part because they weren't sure that there was enough about him to write an entertaining account, despite the fact that his pedigree on the field was impressive. There appeared for them not to be any major skeletons in his closet.
Challenges and Autonomy in Self-Publishing
00:14:44
Speaker
And despite his prodigious exploits as a batsman bowler and captain,
00:14:48
Speaker
they didn't think there was enough to warrant the effort involved in a major piece of research. Other more interesting subjects apparently caught their attention. So how lucky was I? And I must say, in a, in a gentle fashion, how short sighted they were, because if my book's anything to go by, Emma Noble's life was full of dramatic moments, intriguing features, and a rattling of chains and assorted demons. I think the three
00:15:15
Speaker
historians who declined the opportunity to rigorously investigate Monty may have been duped into thinking that there was little more to uncover after reading Ray Robinson's brief essay on the 12th Australian cricket captain in his 1975 book.
00:15:30
Speaker
on top down under. There are some gross falsehoods in Robinson's account that have been rusted on, become established facts, reinforced in all likelihood, as I see it, by Jack Pollard, who was often less than careful with the truth. Robinson did glean information on events and personalities from relatives, including Monty's youngest child, Rodney, and her distant nephew, Charles, but their accounts were either ignored
00:15:59
Speaker
by the author or erroneous to begin with. I should note that Rodney was just 19 years old when his dad died and although Monty was a doting father he was often at the SCG or away on business ventures interstate or following cricket both in Australia and overseas as a journalist.
00:16:21
Speaker
really his mum Nellie, Ellen Elizabeth Nellie, was the most present person in his life by a long shot. In an early paragraph on Boots, the title of Robinson's essay on Monty in his On Top Down Under,
00:16:40
Speaker
Boots was being a nickname of Monty's which was used on occasions by those in his inner city circuit, cricket circle. Robinson wrote that Noble was a first generation Australian, youngest of eight sons of a couple from Egan in Surrey. The ship in which they migrated to Sydney had a cow aboard to supply milk for Maria Noble's first baby.
00:17:03
Speaker
Montague Alfred was born on the 28th of January 1873 at home in Dickson Street, the thoroughfare now redolent of Chop Suey. He was delivered with musical honours,
00:17:14
Speaker
Hearing a military band passing, Maria prophesied that my son will be famous. The father, Joseph, a grocer, became a hotel manager, and Maria lent a hand serving in the bar. Her hand was staid by such concern for customer sobriety that she would serve no man more than two drinks.
00:17:35
Speaker
Now, in that quite brief paragraph, there are five errors of fact and a total skirting of extremely significant family matters. And as an historian, I think it's very important to call out such misconceptions and set the record straight, no matter how appealing a good yarn might be. And Robinson was a very good provider of yarns. Maria Collins, as she was then,
00:18:00
Speaker
was just 11 years of age when she sailed to Australia, not with her husband, but rather with her father Isaac, her stepmother Sophia, a full brother Charles and three step-siblings in 1841 aboard a boat, the Buzrah Merchant, which was a vessel that had had a very checkered past.
00:18:22
Speaker
There's an interesting story there which I cover in the biography. The Collins family did come from Surrey where Isaac was a master baker.
00:18:34
Speaker
Joseph Noble, on the other hand, came from Lancashire. He arrived in Australia from America, where he'd been prospecting unsuccessfully for gold, among other ventures, in 1851 or 1852, that is about 10 years after Maria. The couple met soon after Joseph arrived in Sydney. Joseph had a sister who was a neighbour of the Collins family in the Rocks Districts of Sydney.
00:18:59
Speaker
However, they didn't marry until 1859 with their first child Henry being born in 1860. Joseph was an innkeeper before becoming a grocer and a builder of some dubious repute. He was also an in vitro alcoholic who abused his wife mercilessly and occasioned bodily harm to his older sons.
00:19:21
Speaker
So Monty was the last born, as Robinson alludes. He was born in Mill Street Haymarket, a thoroughfare which no longer exists, which housed then the Castle Main Brewery.
00:19:34
Speaker
By the time Monty was 10 or 11, he had moved house with his mother on at least six occasions, in premises that were far from salubrious. His upbringing was far from a comfortable middle class space. So that fundamental basis for the story, I believe sets a train in motion that Robinson doesn't allude to in his reasonably well portrayed
00:20:04
Speaker
approach to modest cricketing career, but a biography demands much more than just focus on a sporting attribute. What spurs someone to self-publish a cricket book and how do you manage the pressures of, say, conception, design, production and distribution?
00:20:27
Speaker
I think self-publishing has quite a few minuses, but one big plus, you have control. And you can decide what the content of the book is going to contain, what the book is going to look like, how much imagery you want to put into it, the quality of the paper. And in the case of the four books that I've written, two with Peter Schofield and the two on my own, there was a big emphasis on making these
00:20:55
Speaker
deluxe limited edition books that would be real collector's items. And I recall when the Victor Trumper, Victoria first was released Gideon Haig in the Australian magazine newspaper with his weekly column at the end of the year nominated that book as his favorite book. It came on, as you said, later to be awarded the runner up gong in the ACS Book of the Year award.
00:21:25
Speaker
Haig was very complimentary about the book. He felt that both Peter and I had put a lot of genuine effort into making something out of the box. However, he did mention that certainly not a commercial venture. And none of those books have made any money. They're not for profit. They're labors of love. The writing of the book, all four books, was mostly me. Peter was very generous in terms of his collections.
00:21:54
Speaker
And we talked about how best to complement text with imagery. And we came to a consensus. And we were very lucky. I had worked with a graphic designer on a previous book about Australian sporting magazines a couple of years earlier, which was not the same format. It was a more conventional book with a few images. But I knew that this chap in Adelaide, David Bradbury,
00:22:22
Speaker
had a lot of creative ideas. So with Peter and my agitations and consultations with David, we designed a format that was, I think, perfect for concisely discussing pieces of memorabilia in the first two books. There had been a pictorial narrative on Trump written by
00:22:49
Speaker
The name just escapes me for a second. The Australian, Ashley Mallett, which came out about 1980 and actually had access to an awful lot of material, imagery from libraries and from individual sources. But the book was a mismatch of text, some of which wasn't accurate, and ill placement of imagery.
00:23:15
Speaker
Plus, it was a very basic stock standard black and white parade of materials. It didn't do justice to Trump at all. So I think we saw that as a very basic baseline. We were going to work on the
00:23:30
Speaker
something beyond that that would be regarded as of an excellent quality. However, that's one side of the self-publishing gain. The other side, the more difficult side perhaps, is the packaging and materially making the product to a point where it can be packaged and shipped
00:23:58
Speaker
comfortably across the world in that case, and two distributors who are willing to take the risk of buying a book, even though at a discount price and making a profit. So I think most self-publishers, the biggest burden for them, Barry for them, is finding distributors. But fortunately, both Peter and I had good long time links with
00:24:20
Speaker
distributors both in book dealers both in England and Australia so we were fortunate in that respect. Our business model was one where we required pre-subscribers to pay upfront. We didn't have funds to provide payment to the printers and the graphic designer and the book binders so we needed to have some people at least
00:24:46
Speaker
Take a risk, perhaps. After the first book came along, we had less problems at all. Most people now who have bought those four books have wanted each of the successive volumes. In fact, they want them only if they can have the same number. So is a chap who likes numbers 13 and 87? They're his in advance. So self-publishing can be very rewarding, but it can also be very draining.
00:25:16
Speaker
It's worth doing. Obviously I still want to do it, so for me it's a big outlet and I enjoy it.
Monty Noble's Impactful Cricket Career
00:25:38
Speaker
Now, for many modern cricket fans, the name M.A. Noble is one of a handful adorning a grandstand at the historic Sydney Cricket Ground, but I fear many know little or nothing about him. From my own experience, when I think of the pantheon of golden age cricketers, I think of Trumpa, Grace, Ranji, Jessup, etc. But not often Monty Noble. Why do you think that is?
00:26:05
Speaker
Monty or Al for boots to his cricketing peers was far from a demonstrative personality like those renowned cricketers that you mentioned and indeed others of the period Armstrong, Jackson, Fry, McLaren, Duff, Hill for example. He was a charismatic leader and a highly respected and yes adored teammate however he was never overly flamboyant
00:26:27
Speaker
He didn't generally engage with the crowd. In fact, he frequently spoke of the absolute necessity of mentally blocking out all distractions, including the noise and disturbance of the barracks, and cajoled his teammates into doing the same.
00:26:43
Speaker
And throughout my biography, I do focus on Noble as a persuasive force who often took the lead in negotiating player conditions and in dealing with what he saw as autocratic and authoritarian cricket authorities. But I've concluded that he wasn't fundamentally a natural and confident person on occasions when he was among people he didn't know well or who held views that were extremely contrary to his own.
00:27:09
Speaker
He could comfortably argue a case before a jury of peers, but he preferred to set an example more by his actions. Nevertheless, he was forceful enough to raise the shackles of others, notably the influential New South Wales and Australian Board of Control power broker Billy McElhone. In the field, of course, he was often praised by contemporary analysts for the brevity of his directions and for his insistence on discipline and formality.
00:27:37
Speaker
He marshalled his forces meticulously and altered his fields with a minimum fuss. He insisted that all his fields continually observe his body mannerisms, arched eyebrows and the like. Monty was the first international captain to plan unique approaches to opposition batsmen.
00:27:57
Speaker
reduce of the in-out field was revolutionary in the 1903-04 series in his first stint as Australian captain against Palm Warner's English side. The more thoughtful among the opposition players acknowledged
00:28:12
Speaker
Monte's superiority to their own skipper in the subtle art of captaincy. So what I'm suggesting basically is that Noble was cut from a different cloth to many of the stellar performers of the Golden Age. He was cerebral and considered rather than overly showy. The fact that he was an all-rounder and he also had a bearing on the manner in which he's been perceived. Perhaps this is muted or watered down a comprehensive appreciation of his various qualities.
00:28:41
Speaker
One of the things about your book which struck me was just how little Monty wrote about his own life. His cricket books, which he wrote predominantly in retirement, focus on later ashes tours and cricketers. What challenge did this present you as his biographer in understanding exactly who he was?
00:29:06
Speaker
I think all biographers worth their salt strive to uncover the essence of their subjects and describe their beliefs and their values and recount their personality traits and foibles. Sometimes those assessments must be based on the balance of probabilities. You're right, Monty rarely wrote about himself, but he often spoke about his views and what he saw as important. For example, reward for effort and fair payment for absence from professional employment and touring without the encumbrances of loved ones.
00:29:35
Speaker
He held very conservative political values and took a dim view of intemperate behaviour, likely stemming from his childhood memories of growing up in a fractured family. Interestingly, in respect of the intemperance matter, Noble, who championed the initial selection of Reggie Duff to the Australian 11 in 1901-02, was a no-show at Duff's funeral just ten years later, when Reggie's rampant alcoholism proved his downfall in 1911.
00:30:05
Speaker
Context is all. So the issue of racial prejudice, for example, needs to be judged according to conventions of the time. And the jury is out on whether Monty should be considered a racist, a matter which crops up in the book on several occasions.
Controversies and Personal Insights into Monty Noble
00:30:20
Speaker
Several cricketing peers, Les Poiterman, for example, and Warren Bardsley, suggested that Noble's dislike of what he perceived as racial weaknesses, lack of concentration, inconsistent performances, lack of attention to detail,
00:30:34
Speaker
were at the core of his professional disdain of the Aboriginal fast bowler Jack Marsh. Bardsley was quite forthright much later in stating that Noble's failure to mentor Marsh to help him develop as a bowler cost Australian cricket dearly in the first decade of the 20th century. Noble on the other hand constantly defended his non-selection of Marsh in the face of criticism and his decision as captain to frequently assign Marsh 12th man duties
00:31:02
Speaker
based solely on form, he suggested, or rather lack thereof, and Marsh's propensity to waver in his action to the point that he was called on several occasions. Monty made no bones about his preference for consistent medium paces, Arthur Macbeth and Alex Kermode. Macbeth in particular was one who troubled Noble at the crease, while Marsh, although he did dismiss Noble on occasions, was often on the receiving end
00:31:30
Speaker
of a noble batting masterclass. So to sum up, I think there's ample material available to develop an appreciation of who Monty Noble truly was. The inner person shines through on many occasions in the biography. But if I could just take a few minutes to read a passage from the biography to illustrate this point. At the end of the 1923-24 grade season, Monty's 30th with Paddington,
00:31:56
Speaker
and his penultimate annual outing. He'd play in five matches in the following season. Paddington Club honoured him with a commemorative banquet at the local town hall to applaud his 10,000 runs and 6,600 first grade wickets in the Sydney competition. So from pages 517, 18 of the book, I'm sure some of your listeners will have purchased a copy. And for those who haven't,
00:32:25
Speaker
This will be an insight for them. And I sort of, maybe I'm summarizing a little bit, but you'll get the gist. This celebratory function was arranged by E.M. Green, the honorary secretary of the club, and Jack Pope, honorary treasurer, a long time pal and even bride's groom of Monty later. Over 100 people attended with representatives coming from
00:32:51
Speaker
every period in the history of the club and from all the mainland states other than Western Australia. Reading several columns by those who were witnesses to the occasion, it appears that everybody who was there had a turn at the podium. Two brief excerpts of accounts I think suffice to provide a sense of the evening.
00:33:11
Speaker
The first is from John Portis, an 1893 foundation member of the club, who, in searching for an appropriate passage to describe the striking quality of Noble's character and his person, chose to quote from the famous valedictory poem in Memoriam, often linked with S. Maunder, but in reality, really, the 1861 panegyric of William Jeffrey Prowse.
00:33:34
Speaker
on the great man of Kent, Alfred Min. Portis understood man's, M.A.N.'s affinity to cricket's ancient history and lore and his devotion to England. And this quote from the poem, when the great old Kent 11, full of pluck and hope began, the great battle with all England, single-handed man to man,
00:33:56
Speaker
how the Hopmen watched their hero, massive, muscular and tall, as he mingled with the players like a king among them all. To some old canton enthusiasts, it would almost seem a sin to doubt their country's triumph when led on by Alfred Min.
00:34:14
Speaker
a terrific poem. As J.C. Davis explained in his report, the resemblance between the heroic figure of Min and his modern-day equivalent, Noble, was perceived to be uncanny, even down to the name. The organizing committee of the function appreciated this congruence and used the line, massive muscular and tall, like a king among them all, to decorate the menu cards and the emblems affixed to the walls of the town hall that night.
00:34:41
Speaker
I wish I had a picture of that event. I couldn't find one. The second excerpt is from Noble himself. He started with an anecdote when responding to the many accolades and episodes of Reminiscences. Paddington visit Ipswich in Queensland some years ago in the Easter period. And we had a player, says Monty, who was wearing a skipper's naval cap when he went in last.
00:35:07
Speaker
What do you want that cap for? Cried the non-rucker. You're not at sea now. Your wrong old chap was the reply. I was never more at sea in my life. And he was bowl first ball, added MAN.
00:35:22
Speaker
Grave and gay continued noble. The work done by the Paddington pioneers, including Porters, JC Davis, Dan Hogan, and the late Cash Neal, he praised. The influence of Alec Bannerman, who had worked for the good of the club over several decades, he talked about, if you were late when Alec was captain and you heard of it, he said. One of Alec's sayings was, if you can't be a cricketer, son, look like one.
00:35:48
Speaker
I regret that he's not here tonight. He was ailing and he died soon thereafter.
00:35:53
Speaker
Vernon Ransford, who travelled from Victoria earlier and spoken in high praise of Noble, this player and captain, according to Noble now, is the most wonderful outfielder I have ever seen. We were playing England at the Oval and Frye, who was very aggressive, was batting. Anything he hit over the bowl or mid on was almost certain to reach the boundary. Ransford and Warren Bardsley were our outfields and I've never seen anything better. Verney would return every ball right over the stumps.
00:36:23
Speaker
Albert Sweetman told you, in a jocular way, that he taught me how to play cricket. And you laughed. Well, he did teach me a good deal in my early days, and I am also indebted to my brother Harry. I thought he used to bowl too fast, yet he wasn't a fast bowler, because I was just a little chap then.
00:36:41
Speaker
There's one who has been the greatest work of the Paddington. He is still with us. I refer to Jack Pope. I've been closely associated with him for many years, not only in cricket matters, but in a personal and family sense. I've never known a greater organizer than Popey. So the function went on into the early hours of the morning.
00:37:03
Speaker
I think there's an awful lot there that you can glean about Noble's personality. He was adored, particularly by those who knew him very well, and he was a very generous giver of his emotions to those he felt were within his inner circle. Yes, he didn't write a lot about himself in formal ways, but in face-to-face issues, certainly when you're able to
00:37:28
Speaker
delve into the archives and find written accounts of what he said in person. I think it's very genuine to get a true feeling for him as a person.
00:37:41
Speaker
I also sense reading your biography that a lot of the history surrounding Monty's early life comes from his own descendants who have compiled a family history. And I think you did touch on this earlier. I think it was published in 2001 or thereabouts. Was this a contributing factor in deciding to write his biography?
00:38:05
Speaker
I guess to a degree it was. The biography focused on principally on the eight siblings, the eight brothers of the marriage of Maria and Joseph. The book is over 300 pages in total.
00:38:22
Speaker
and twelve pages are devoted to Monty. The biographers, John and Gwen, were from the Henry Noble clan and Henry gets an awful lot of attention, as does second brother Charles. The biography is a compilation. It hasn't been edited. There are conflicting points of view, which is fair enough. I think that's often up to the reader to mull the truth from various sources. It was very well received by the family. However,
00:38:52
Speaker
in discussions with members of the family who have bought my MA noble biography. They're delighted to have finally had some definitive discussion around pivotal points that were skirted over by the family historians. They were amateur historians. They did engage a genealogist
00:39:11
Speaker
and used a couple of librarians to gain further information. But they were working in a time before Trove, which as any writer or devotee of cricket history would know, or history in general, is the fantastic source of digitisation of Australian newspapers. So I'm not denigrating John and Gwen's work. However, there were a lot of
00:39:37
Speaker
useful leads, but many dead ends. And the dead ends, in fact, were much more interesting than the leads. So it was certainly a factor in my choosing to do the Story on Monty. As I said before, the university that I found from discussions between Warren Bardsley's brother, Mick, and the historian Max Solling were really good. And it's true, I did find some great
00:40:05
Speaker
background information that I could research in more depth. And I have to say that the family history was solid. It was a solid history, but it wasn't ever their intent to publish it beyond the family. So it's quite interesting. My closest contact
00:40:28
Speaker
in the noble clan, who was given many photographs, is Monty's eldest granddaughter, Elizabeth. She knows very little about the wider noble family. In fact, hasn't had a copy of the noble history. She's now got one. And after she received the final version of noble's book, she was overawed with how much information she was unfamiliar with
00:40:58
Speaker
how she had felt certain things were in such a fashion, which she now knows isn't the case. It's quite a rewarding feature of working on a book when there are people around who are so emotionally attached. In Warren Bardsley's case,
00:41:14
Speaker
the death of Warren's nephew in 2018 was the end of the bargely name, which is, you know, I guess that these things happen. But in the multi noble case or the noble family case, they're all over the place. There are hundreds of them. So I'm assuming the book might get passed around from person to person. But yeah, I think
00:41:40
Speaker
So I guess to sum up again, I think the idea that you can refer to material that gives you an insight and a beginning think of thought is useful. Yes. Now, very important question, Peter Lloyd. How should we actually refer to Monty? I know many of his teammates had numerous monikers for him, and you indeed use many of these throughout your book.
00:42:08
Speaker
Well, it was a little complex as the book unfolded. I mean, I knew this was going to be the case when I began, but I attempted to segregate his monikers according to each chapter. So on the cricket field, and within the clubs and the teams he played for and the various cricketing authorities within which he was involved, he was predominantly Alf.
00:42:28
Speaker
Sometimes boots, sometimes. Within the family, he was always elf. Out of interest and in order of birth, for those who reach maturity amongst the siblings, Henry, the eldest brother, born in 1860, was either Henry or Harry on the cricket field. Charles was always Charles. Edward, E-D-W-A-L-D, not Edward, Eldewald, was always Ted.
00:42:54
Speaker
Ted was a first-class cricketer who played for several seasons with a variety of Sydney clubs, went on a tour with Monty to New Zealand and played first-class cricket there. I think he played five games. He was Ted. He was a very good solid middle-order batsman. Then there was Septimus,
00:43:19
Speaker
which was a name that was often applied to the seventh born, but he was known as Arthur. I have a lovely touch in the book. I only give it a footnote, but it is worthy. 92-year-old Donald Scott Orr, who was a descendant of Monty's eldest brother Henry, recalls Alf and Aunty Nellie
00:43:41
Speaker
He recalls Uncle Alf and Aunty Nellie visiting his family when he was six or seven years old at their family home in Sydney's inland western suburb of Five Dock. His memories of Uncle Alf are of his large and imposing physique, his mellifluous voice, his attentive nature to all in the inner circle,
00:44:00
Speaker
including the children, he had time for everyone and was interested in what was happening with their lives. That's, I think, it's lovely to have had Elizabeth's support, Elizabeth Noble's support, she's a signature to the book, but to actually have somebody who
00:44:16
Speaker
had a physical relationship with Monty is also an added bonus. Donald was quite a very intelligent man and when we talked two or three times he was totally on top of matters but he was a little distant from Monty and only could relate to his early versions of things because Monty died when he was about eight.
00:44:45
Speaker
But it was a nice touch to put into the book, I think. So that's the family. But the public knew Monty as Monty, or M-A, or M-A-N, or Mary Ann, which was a composite of his initials, a fact about which his elderly mother was most upset. And this is a true story. When she first heard it being chanted by the crowd at a first class match which she was attending. Ray Robinson makes quite a lot of that in his brief essay.
00:45:15
Speaker
touching a corollary to the MAN noble label. Monty and Nellie suffered the extreme grief of losing their second child and first-born son Morris at the age of seven years in 1923.
00:45:34
Speaker
Morris Ashley Noble was buried at the family plot beside in the cemetery where Monty later was buried after he died in 1940. So the resting place of the two has the two MANs side by side.
00:45:53
Speaker
I'm sure that the initials for Morris were deliberately chosen to replicate Dad. Nellie survived her husband by 23 years, and she died while on a trip to the United States where she was visiting Rodney, who by then was a high-ranking officer in the Australian Royal Air Force, and his family, and she was buried in Washington. Otherwise she would have been buried beside her two MANs.
00:46:37
Speaker
Let's now turn our attention to cricket, Peter, which I'm sure many of our listeners are here for.
Monty's Development and Influences in Cricket
00:46:44
Speaker
Is it fair to say that Monty wasn't a prodigy, rather that he grew into his cricketing ability?
00:46:53
Speaker
I think it's very true to say, Tom, Monty was far from a prodigy, although that label seems to have stuck to a degree following his 152-not out against Andy Stoddard's 1894-95 side when Monty was playing for the 18 Sydney Juniors in December 1894 at the SCG. 21-year-old Monty, not sure he should have been classified as a junior, sort of conjectural, I think, he had toured
00:47:23
Speaker
New Zealand, as I said before, with Brother Ted, which would have been a terrific experience for them, reminiscent of the experience that Warren and Mick Bardsley had later in the life when they were touring together, the shaky aisles and bunking together. But a closer reading of that match in which Monty scored 152, not out, suggests that the tourists thought that Trump
00:47:52
Speaker
who was 16 years of age at the time, was the genuine prodigy, exemplified by his dashing stroke play where he batted for 85 minutes and scored 67 runs. Many local pundits suggested that Monty's knock was sort of littered with fortuitous strokes and heavily sprinkled with luck. State selectors were impressed by Trump and he was selected for the very next Sheffield Shield match in Adelaide in January 1895.
00:48:20
Speaker
Noble had to wait until the following shield clashed in Sydney for his to boo into first-class cricket against Victoria in late January 1895. With limited opportunities he failed to impress in this game and he had to wait until the 1896-97 season for his next opportunity when once again selected for New South Wales
00:48:40
Speaker
the state's southern tour on the back of solid form in grade with bat and ball, no one seemed quite sure whether his promotion to the first-class arena was as a batsman or as an all-rounder. This conundrum was resolved when he bowled in only one of the four Sheffield shield clashes and then only as a fifth and fourth change bowler to rest the front liners. State skipper at the time Tom Garrett knew of Moddy's potential with the ball
00:49:10
Speaker
but he had a formidable arsenal of trundlers at his disposal as New South Wales swept all before them in winning the annual competition without losing a single match. Meanwhile, Monty's batting form saw him finish the season in second place in the aggregate table, 344 runs from six innings behind Jack Lyons of South Australia, 404 runs from seven innings. But Monty had the higher average 68.8 compared with Lyons 57.71.
00:49:39
Speaker
Monty was then first selected for Australia after a sterling 1896-97 season. He played in the second Ashes test at the MCG in January 1998 against Stoddard's latest touring party, which was captained by Archie McLaren. And Noble was considered a batsman who bowled a bit. His national skipper, Victorian Harry Trott, was largely unaware of Monty's talents with the ball.
00:50:09
Speaker
having only seen him bowl on a few occasions across three first-class matches, primarily as a changed bowler and only with limited success. Monty came in with Australia well-placed at five for 434 in this timeless test match. He was very nervous. Let's hear what Clem Hill had to say about his new test comrade in one of his 1933 reflective newspaper articles.
00:50:37
Speaker
Clem says, I can see him now, a long, thin, gawky fellow. He was very serious and took failure to heart very much. He and Trumper had played against the Englishman in 1894. In this first test of his, Tom Richardson pitched a ball outside his off stump and yet it shattered the wicket with Noble's match that perched in the air, presumably with the idea of allowing the ball to pass. Noble was quite dispirited.
00:51:04
Speaker
and went straight to one of the older players, perhaps it was Hugh Trumbull, given their emerging relationship. And he remarked, I suppose after such a silly shot, they'll never pick me for Australia again. Hardly what you'd call a prodigy, but there was more to follow as Hill continues. At that time, few knew Noble as a bowler. During England's first innings, Sid Gregory, compatriot New South Welshman, went along to trot and suggested that Alf be given a try.
00:51:33
Speaker
As Sid said, he's a young fellow who can make the ball swerve a bit. So Noble was throwing the ball, and although he took only one wicket, that of Ted Wainwright, called easily by Ernie Jones at mid off the 21, he impressed us. In the second innings, after England had followed on 205 runs behind, Ranji was going very well, and the Australians seemed to be in a pocket. Noble was brought on, and he got Ranji with a beauty in the second over. And from that time onwards, he became a tower of strength for Australia as a bowler.
00:52:04
Speaker
I well remember that delivery, says Clem. It proved the undoing of the English champion. Many times in later years, I had to keep it out of my wicket, too. It was a ball of a good length, which looked to a right-hander. Clem was a left-hander. It looked to a right-hander as if it had pitched on the leg stump. At the last moment, it would swerve to pitch off on the off stump and then would turn back, hitting the middle of the leg stump. Mary Ann, quoted by Clem,
00:52:33
Speaker
as he became known afterwards, captured six wickets in that second innings of England for 49 runs off 17 overs with one maiden. Truly a very auspicious opening to his very fine career in test cricket. However, Hill became even more expansive in his ruminations when he insisted that, unlike Trump, Noble was not a born cricketer. He made himself one. Out of form, he was next door to useless with the bat.
00:53:00
Speaker
but he did not stint himself in the slightest in the manner of training and exercise and practice when he was getting ready for a tour or a season. He made himself a bowler and he practically forced himself to be a batsman. As a captain, he wouldn't stoop to think for a point against an opponent. And I think that says it all.
00:53:19
Speaker
You touch in that answer early on in your answer on Victor Trump and indeed it was one of the great parallels of Monty's life, something you do so eloquently throughout your book was the life and career of Victor Trump. What was Monty's relationship like with Trump and how was Monty affected by the latter's tragically early death?
00:53:47
Speaker
Well, thanks for the compliment. I really wanted to impress upon the readership that there was this very significant relationship. It's a well-known fact that Monty and Victor were close friends from the moment they became acquainted with one another on the cricket field. There's a deal of comment about their link during schoolboy days, but that's a bit of a furphy because Monty left Crown Street Public School the year before Trump enrolled there.
00:54:12
Speaker
What's more certain is that Monty was very influential in encouraging Vic to play for Paddington District Cricket Club in the early years of the Sydney District Competition when residency qualifications were still being ironed out in their infancy, so to speak. From that moment, they were inseparable. They were allies on and off the field, similar in their commitment and devotion to the niceties of cricket out in the middle, if not in the dressing sheds. Vic was notorious for his jumble kit.
00:54:41
Speaker
Take it from Fergie, Bill Ferguson, another novice tourist. Monty, although only a recently knight, had done test cricket himself.
00:54:49
Speaker
was central to Vic being given the nod to Tour England in 1899 as an extra fully paid up member of an expanded squad. How fortunate the decision was given injuries and ailments within the collective. I think that tour was a revelation of the skills of both players individually or often in combination by either winning or saving tests for Australia against a rampant foe and pulling together day in and day out over the course of several months across four tours.
00:55:19
Speaker
Trump, like Bardsley, was distraught when Noble announced his what they believed was premature retirement from international cricket following the 1909 Ashes Tour. Vic's entire representative career, let alone his club cricket, had been moulded in the warmth of his mentor's encouragement. When Trump had died young after years of dogged refusal to capitulate, Noble was incapacitated.
00:55:46
Speaker
Rodney Cavalier captured the distressing personal drama so evocatively in his foreword to Monty's biography. And I quote, Noble's devotion to comrades, and this is a word of much substance for a man steeped in political convention, was a signature of the man, evinced in reports of Monty by the open grave as the body of the sublime and immortal Victor Trumper was lowered.
00:56:10
Speaker
The finality of Vic's death overwhelmed Monty Noble. Literally, he fell apart at the realization Vic was gone forever. One reporter described the site of Monty as pathetic, the word employed in its correct meaning." End of quote. Then in June 1936, 21 years after Vic's death, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio channels across Australia presented a special evening program
00:56:38
Speaker
I knew a man, Victor Trumper. Delivered live from the ABC studios in Sydney, noble, strained tones mesmerized his latter-day audience. He was a practice broadcaster, but the harrowing devastation he'd experienced many years earlier was still audibly raw. They were very close.
00:56:59
Speaker
Now we're going to touch on Monte's statistics a bit later but he of course was very capable with both bat and ball. Is it possible to say which area he excelled or was he a true all-rounder? In my opinion during Noble's career he was at times a complete all-rounder and at other times either a stellar batsman or a bowler without peer
00:57:24
Speaker
in terms of line length and use of atmospherics. Many factors I think are significant here. His state of mind, in particular how motored he was to dominate, his level of fitness, the conditions under which he was required to play, and how a particular match was poised. J.C. Davis, owner and sole editor of the Sydney's leading weekly sporting paper, The Referee, for almost the entire period in which Noble played cricket.
00:57:50
Speaker
and also an executive officer of the Paddington District Picket Club, so a very close affiliate of Monty's, was a long-standing admirer and a person of genuine importance and influence as Monty's career unfolded. He often wrote about the need as he saw it for Noble to be seriously challenged before he drew on his full power of concentration and resolve, pity the poor opposition who came across him when he was totally fixated on victory or dismissive of the possibility of defeat.
00:58:20
Speaker
Davis had great delight in recounting all such occasions where Monte dominated, whether it be in a test arena or in the UK or Australia or at Hampton Park for his club. Taking his test career as a whole low, he became the second fastest Australian cricketer to achieve the double. Thousand runs at 100 wickets in 1905. It had taken him 32 matches, just two more than it did George Giffen in 1896.
00:58:48
Speaker
I think at the end of the day, you'd have to say he was an all-rounder of high skill. But there were moments when he's one of the other attributes dominated. But if you add on his captaincy skills and his fielding ability, he was the complete package.
Monty Noble's Unique Style and Legacy in Sports
00:59:06
Speaker
That's a good point. An allegation which followed Monte's playing career, and perhaps even to this day, is that he had an illegal bowling action. Accusations of throwing began quite early in his career, and following his first tour of England in 1899, the columnist F.S. Ashley Cooper wrote, and I quote,
00:59:28
Speaker
There cannot be any room for doubt in the minds of those who have seen him bowl, on several occasions, that now and again he most certainly threw. He has not been no-balled for throwing. It is true, but there is an old proverb which declares that, look as on, see most of the game. And as one who has seen several of the Australians matches, I have not the slightest hesitation in declaring that noble through.
00:59:55
Speaker
What do you have to say on the throwing allegations that followed him? Certainly this is an issue to consider, Tom. It's a significant issue, one which is you say has bothered interstate and international contemporaries and commentators. Look, I could wax on at length, often my preference to do so, but I have to point out, as Ashley Cooper mentions, that Monty was never called by an umpire, including fearless Dimbola, Dimbula Jim Phillips.
01:00:25
Speaker
despite the best efforts of sometimes national teammate, Victorian captain and newspaper columnist, Jack Warhol. Motty was given the full support of all the major protagonists in the three Sheffield Shield states. The Victorians refused to play an aside, captain by Warhol, as a consequence of his defamatory accusations, which he parlayed with Phillips. Davis was adamant, and my position too, benefit of the doubt. Remember, Tom,
01:00:54
Speaker
I was desperate for you to uncover long-lost footage of Monty turning his arm over to include in the biography. Ancient footage of other trundles exists, but nary a glimmer of elf's bowling actions and extenuations extension. So, so hard to look back. And there were times when throwing was a plague and seen as such. This was a period similarly during Don Bradman's era
01:01:23
Speaker
I just have to give benefit of the doubt to Monty. He was a true believer in the correct approach to cricket. If there were any thoughts that he did throw, I don't think it would have been intentional. I think you're right. Until footage does resurface, which may never happen and is probably becoming increasingly so, we may just never have a definitive answer on the matter. It's funny how
01:01:51
Speaker
CB Fry at one stage claimed that Monty was a thrower and then later eulogised him before his bowling. Similarly, Jack Worrell, despite the period when he was intensely interested in, I think there was a degree of, he had been dropped from the Australian side, I think there was a degree of jealousy when he started accusing various players, not just Monty but also Jack Saunders.
01:02:20
Speaker
Later in life, in his dotage, perhaps, Warrall claimed that Monty was one of the greatest bowlers that Australia had ever produced.
01:02:31
Speaker
Monty also played a lot of baseball in Sydney, which might be surprising to some of the listeners. And so did Trump, which might be even more surprising. I would imagine this is possibly where he learned to swerve the ball, as they called it back in Monty's day, to tremendous success. Do you think this could be where the accusations of throwing came about?
01:02:57
Speaker
Perhaps, although it's certainly, and I believe this is really the case, the link with baseball provided Noble with the insights onto how to swerve the ball. Throwing, I think, is an extension beyond the involvement with baseball. Monty was a major baseball exponent on the square at second base, a position not too dissimilar from point in cricket.
01:03:28
Speaker
He was also very prominent in the New South Wales and Australian baseball boardroom. His credentials justified acknowledgement when he was inducted into the Australian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010, a year before he was awarded the same accolade in the New South Wales Cricket Hall of Fame. When that award was first instituted in 2008, Victor Trumper and Charlie McCartney from the Golden Age were part of the initial inductee group. And then in 2009, Warren Bardsley,
01:03:56
Speaker
Monty had to wait until the third year of the program. Should I suggest Go Figure? Just out of interest, Arthur Bailey was gonged in 2015 and Sid Gregory in 2017. I personally had a say in determining who was
01:04:13
Speaker
enrolled in 2018 from the past era. But I can't say what my preference was, although I wasn't disappointed. But back to Monty. He wasn't a pitcher in baseball. He took great delight in winding up and throwing baseballs back to the catcher with a modified round arm action. He had very large hands and broad shoulders, and he could make the ball twang into the catcher's
01:04:38
Speaker
He saw how the better baseball pitchers were able to curve the ball through the air to confuse the batters. And he learned much from expat American Tom Gleason, who captained the Paddington baseball team to great success in the early 1900s when, as you say, Monty and Vic Trample, as well as Ted Noble, were part of the team and a couple of the other Paddington cricket first graders.
01:05:03
Speaker
Of course in baseball the ball doesn't bounce before arriving at this destination. Multi-practice bowling cricket balls were the slightly roundish action and found that he was able on occasions to make the ball curl around both sides of two single stumps positioned in the wicket on a short and a good length before it landed.
01:05:25
Speaker
He found he was able to do that more often when the ball was relatively new and dry, and when the seam was proud. When the wind was in his face, it was also an advantage. He also had the capacity to make the ball bounce steeply off a good length. And in modern pilots, his strong grip and his large hands allowed him to make the ball revolve at a higher rate than most others could achieve.
01:05:50
Speaker
There's another passage from Ray Robinson's essay on Noble, which I think is worth quoting from. This is Ray Robinson talking. With a keen eye and a commendable turn of phrase born of toil and sweat, Robinson nailed Monty's ability with the ball. His appreciation of Mary Ann's novel medium-paced spin swerve creates a remarkable word picture to engage the reader.
01:06:16
Speaker
Noble's ability with the ball is well-matched by the journalists of joint use of momentum. And here is, I'm quoting. The innovator acquired the swerve, that is Noble, acquired the swerve from baseball, which he learned to play when USA sporting goods company AG Spauldings sent out two American demonstration teams, the Chicago White Sox at all American, at all America teams in 1888, 89.
01:06:43
Speaker
Instead of pressing two or three fingers on the ball's seam, like a spinner, Noble held it between his thumb and his strong corn-studded forefinger. On the tourist of tracks, all he needed was some sort of headwind for his spin or swerve to be difficult. This deceitful ball, plus a well-conceived quick one and a penetrating off-cutter from a moist pitch, were reasons why England's Indian batting genius, Ranji,
01:07:11
Speaker
rated him amongst the six best medium paces he ever faced. So baseball was of value to Monty, both in terms of his career interest in the administrative side of it, but also in terms of his fielding abilities and in the way that he saw some opportunities to develop a form of bowling that very few others could emulate.
01:07:36
Speaker
So in your mind, Peter, was Monty the best swerve or swing bowler in cricket during his time on the international stage?
01:07:48
Speaker
Look, he was definitely up there and for a long time, but George Hurst of Yorkshire in England was also a brilliant exponent of the swerve as he matured and bowled a little slower than when he was in his prime. His exploits in what's known as Jessup's match at the Oval in 1902, when he helped England defeat Australia by one wicked legendary. He took the wickets of Trumpet, Duff, Hill, Darling and Gregory, only noble in the top six escaped his lethal spell.
01:08:14
Speaker
either by bowling, the bats went out outright, or having them caught behind. Hurst was still producing the unplayable ball in the 1909 Ashes series when Noble fell to his goal on a couple of occasions.
01:08:27
Speaker
The other devilish exponent of the other swerve during the golden age was Bart King of Philadelphia, who was considered by many to be a better bowler than Sydney Barnes. It was the lateness of King's swerve which set him apart. He became the leading wicket taker in England in the 1908 season when the gentlemen of Philly toured the UK. So I think those three were on a par. Perhaps Noble's durability was beyond the other two.
01:08:58
Speaker
That concludes part one of today's podcast on Wanty Noble, featuring his biographer, Peter Lloyd.
Conclusion and Teasers for Part Two
01:09:05
Speaker
Keep an eye out for part two on the Golden Age of Cricket podcast. I'm Tom Ford. Bye for now.