Transcript
Speaker: So, Jeff, this might be an appropriate time of the podcast to slightly deviate away from cricket, to talk about the association ground, the pre-SCG title of the ground, talk about how it would become a multi-sporting venue. So, although cricket was the primary sport ah played there going well back into the 19th century, it had to accommodate other sports to, I think the phrase you used in your book was, to pay the bills.
Speaker: During the 1880s and the 1890s, what other sports were um played at the association ground and how did it affect cricket being played there?
Speaker: The original hope for the cricket association was that the ground would be purely a cricket ground. The original deed of grant allowed for other recreations to take place on the ground, provided they did not interfere with cricket.
Speaker: Sheridan and the members of the ground committee discovered very early on that the cost of developing and maintaining a major sporting ground is is extreme. it costs a lot of money. just cleaning the ground.
Speaker: um yeah it's is It's very, very interesting just to maintain a ground. They learned that very early. That lesson is still being learned by ground administrators around the world today.
Speaker: And what they didn't allow rugby or football of any code on the ground until 1881, But from 1881, during the winter, they looked to have ah football and cycling and running pedestrianism events on the ground, also school carnivals.
Speaker: They hired the ground out to business people for matches. They were looking basically to pay the rent, and this frustrated the cricketers, even though the cricketers had the ah the call on the ground in summer because of the way the Duda Grant was was structured.
Speaker: But gradually as sports like, especially rugby, football and cycling became crowd pleasers and drew big crowds, the trustees or Sheridan and the ground committee working for the trustees looked for opportunities to stage events in summer.
Speaker: And as cricket became less popular, in the late 1880s, it was hard for cricket to say to Sheridan, well, we want to play a game of a club cricket there on Saturday, that which will draw three people when they could hold a cycling event that might attract six or 8,000 people.
Speaker: So this became an ongoing battle. it It became the subject of ah court cases, a famous court case in 1903-04, as to what the trustees could actually do.
Speaker: But yeah, during the 1880s, lacrosse was played at the ground. There was that baseball series I alerted to earlier when Spalding's team came to the ah to Australia. There were also fireworks displays.
Speaker: which are caused some carnage one day when a stall went up in smoke. They staged concerts at the ground, public schools, gatherings. After the Amateur Athletics Association was formed in, I think, about 1888, the carnivals were held. And...
Speaker: That's how the ground evolved. And then in the 1890s, or actually following the English rugby tour in 1888 and a tour by the Maoris a year later, when rugby became a significant spectator sport, the ground essentially became a rugby ground and ah in winter and a cricket ground in summer.
Speaker: And then as cycling became hugely popular in the 1890s, it became a cycling ground as as well. to the point that some angry cricketers referred to the ground as the Sydney cycling ground.
Speaker: Well, and it is um to this day still a multi-sporting venue. i mean, perhaps for my Northern Hemisphere listeners, ah every second week in winter, of course, it hosts Australian rules football. The Sydney Swans play there and train there. And and there are still...
Speaker: ah other events held there. Like there's a, recently there was, I think, a a concert for Andrea Bocelli, which left some damage on the ground and then the footballers were tripping over and et cetera. So it's it's funny how nothing has really changed in 140 years or so.
Speaker: now that's true. I i mean, there's there was one... I think about 1897, there was about four different sports and um a carnival to celebrate Queen Victoria's Jubilee, all held in the space of four days. ah And the thing we have to stress in all of this, it comes back to the fact that Sydney had so few grounds that all these events had to take place at the Sydney Creek Ground because there was nowhere else that could hold such an event. If a cycling carnival was going to draw a big crowd, it had to be at the or the association ground or later the SCG because there was nowhere else.
Speaker: Cycling entrepreneurs tried to build a stadium at Ashfield in Sydney's west, but it went broke very, very quickly. The only alternative was the agricultural ground, which opened in 1882, which was run by the Royal Agricultural Society and it was immediately known known later as the Sydney show ground. And it was based immediately south of the SCG.
Speaker: Yeah!
Speaker: Well, let's expand on that idea of cycling because if anyone has seen one of those magnificent panoramic photos of the Sydney cricket ground from like the 1890s, there is something very odd which catches your eye and that is a beige ring around the sporting field which is not there today, obviously. And for a long time, I didn't know what this was until I started reading about it. And yes, it's a cycling track. And I think there are even ah newspaper reports of how this affected the cricketers. Often the ball would land on the cricket track, et cetera, et cetera. Can you just expand on why it was at the SCG, but also the logistics of having a track there? Like how long was it there for? Was it permanent? When did they remove it? All that sort of thing.
Speaker: As I said, cycling grew in popularity enormously in the first half of the 1890s. And in part was that because it became a form of transport. It was increasingly a part of life to have a bike. If you're a middle class, could afford a bike. If you're middle class, you could go to the sporting events at the Sydney Career Ground. In 1895, the great American cyclist, Arthur Zimmerman,
Speaker: came to Australia and he drew a record crowd, I think of 29,000 to, to the SCG. It was more than it had been at the, for SOT arts test matches the previous year.
Speaker: It was a huge event in Sydney over two Saturdays. And it clearly demonstrated the popularity of cycling after Zimmerman rode on the grass track at the SCG. And he rode during the cricket season in November.
Speaker: Zimmerman was then taken to the agricultural ground next door and he helped advise the people there on how to build a cycling track. because the agricultural ground saw cycling as a way of becoming a genuine competitor with the SCG. Right. And they then built their track and held a big carnival at the agricultural ground early in 1896. Sheridan saw that and realized that if he wanted his ground, the SCG, to remain the number one ground in Sydney,
Speaker: He needed cycling back. And the only way he could get cycling back was to build ah a banked asphalt track around the ground. And that is what he did.
Speaker: And the grout the cycling track opened in 1896 and didn't affect the ground too much in the sense that they extended the ground by ah three or four metres at the southern and northern end.
Speaker: And the old SCG had a drain around it. And the edge of the boundary was the the so the edge of the drain closest to the field. So by building the cycling track over the drain, it meant they didn't lose too much of the playing field.
Speaker: Is this why, sorry to jump in Jeff, there's I think some great photos of around this time, it's either Trumper and Duff or it might even be McLaren, Stoddart. You see the back of them entering the ground and they're they're having to climb up some steps.
Speaker: exactly right. Yeah. Because the the the it was a bank cycling track and the yeah the higher and edge of the track, the edge closer to the crowd, ah was the the level of the top of the picket fence.
Speaker: o ah The rule, quite incongruously, was... the inner, the edge of the cycling track closer to the square was the boundary in terms of hitting a four, but you could be caught on the cycling track. So a fieldsman could run up the cycling cat track and take a catch. So a five, as it was in those days, had to clear the cycling track, right such as the incongruous rules that they came up with.
Speaker: um It's an interesting thing because it's one of several things, ah building things that were done at the ground in that time. And this was a time when the ground um became recognized as genuinely beautiful beautiful. Beautiful was an adjective that was used to describe it often in this period. But at the same time, Fred Spother said of the SCG in 1902, it is the finest ground in the world. And if they do away with the bicycle bicycle track, it will be finer still.
Speaker: Very, ah very appropriate. and when And when did they do away with the bicycle track? they It didn't survive the war. right So cycling was huge in Sydney until the the the Great War, until 1914. But then, and it's just a reflection of society, the motor car took over.
Speaker: Motorized bike racing became more popular. And in 1920, with ah English Rugby League tour coming to Australia that year, and then an Ashes tour at the end of the year,
Speaker: they made the decision to get rid of the cycling track to increase the capacity of the ground. Famously in 1920, the cycling track had been taken down, ah but they got 69,000 for a yeah ah rugby league game there and they they needed the extra space.
Speaker: But some of the cycling track was a huge success for a while. light Lights were put in in 1897. And certainly around the period 1903-04 when the great American cyclist Major Taylor came to Sydney, there's no question that cycling was the biggest show in town.
Speaker: um it would It would have been, I think, an absolutely fantastic night out to go the night cycling in Sydney. Absolutely. And it is one of those peculiarities of its history, but it should be proud of that peculiarity. And so for anyone listening, next time you see a photo from this period, the golden age of cricket, and you see that ring around the sporting field, that is why it was a ah cycling track. What's interesting about Sheridan's decision and the ground committee to build the cycling track is that, as I say, history, we could always learn from history, but there was a repeat of that in 1978 when the trustees decided to build floodlights.
Speaker: The motivation being that they didn't want Kerry Packer to play his World Series cricket elsewhere. So they made the decision to build the floodlights, even though they realized that that would diminish the beauty of the ground.
Speaker: Yes. And I think we're in ah a similar, we're approaching a similar position now in the 21st century where the trustees or the the people who run the ground have resisted the idea of a drop in pitch because they would lose the character of the ground.
Speaker: But as you mentioned earlier, the Sydney Swans now play there in the winter, getting 40,000 people every week. T20 cricket doesn't need a cricket pitch of character. They just need a pitch.
Speaker: So the arguments against a drop in pitch are becoming harder and harder for the administrators to resist. And if the day comes when there's a possibility that the Swans or T20 cricket would go elsewhere, the cricket ground going to have to think very, very seriously about a drop in pitch as they had to think very seriously about floodlights and as they had to think very seriously about an Ashfield bike track in 1896. Yeah.
Speaker: Yes, and shows how ah administrators do need to stay on top of society's demands. It's an interesting discussion and we're going to return to it perhaps at the end of this podcast when we talk about the future of the Sydney cricket ground, which I anticipate you will have some interesting thoughts, Jeff. so at this point in time, we're talking about the history. of Of course, the ground is known as the association ground, but it transitions...
Speaker: to the Sydney Cricket Ground at some time between October and December of 1893. The exact date, indeed the exact reason for that, is not exactly known. Why do you believe this happened? Was it to align it with the other two test playing grounds, that being the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Adelaide Oval, or was it more incidental than that?
Speaker: No, I'm not sure if that was about... and and like ah a specific alignment, though it was a natural move. The first the public knew of it was when a s SCG flag was flown over the members' pavilion in March 1894.
Speaker: But there are minute entries from late in 1893. Richard Teese, one of the members of the ground committee, was instructed to when he on a trip to England to get a trophy inscribed, as being a rugby a trophy for rugby, as being donated by the trustees of the Sydney cricket ground.
Speaker: Right. And Sydney Fowlin was instructed to order fla ah towels for the um the dressing room in the members' pavilion, with carried the name, the Sydney Creek Ground. These decisions were made ah before that flag flew in March 1894. So you're absolutely you're absolutely right about we don't know when that specific decision was made. It's not minuteed as such.
Speaker: There are several reasons why it could have been made. I think the most important was just Sheridan and the ground committee and the trustees asserting their independence from the New South Wales Cricket Association.
Speaker: ah Interestingly, there was a state election coming up later in 1894, and it was likely that George Reid would become Premier and Joseph Carruthers would become the secretary for lands and Sheridan and his fellow trustees always had an eye on politics because they realized that in a sense, the government was their masters because they were trustees for the ground. And they knew that Reed and Carruthers both had strong links with the cricket association.
Speaker: Another interesting aspect to it is that electric cricket was introduced in Sydney in 1893-94, which means that rather than the the local competition being amongst private clubs, it would now be ah ah amongst teams representing the local districts.
Speaker: What that meant was that those local district team would play at their local parks, which was now possible because local parks were finally being built, all be in say at Rushcutters Bay and Birchgrove Oval and Wentworth Park were all built on reclaimed land. But that then offered the possibility that in the future that one of these suburban parks might grow into a major operation.
Speaker: And I think that by calling the the association ground, changing its name to the Sydney career ground, that was just about trying to preserve the ground status as the number one ground in Sydney. In a sense, they might have been just taking the ground the name before anyone else could do that.
Speaker: ah It certainly put the cricket associations nose out of joint. They were still complaining about it 20 years later because because it was done without any consultation, which I think reflects on the yeah strain relationship between the two bodies.
Speaker: Yes. But, you know, it's it's it's almost like that, um you know, there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. I just feel like the people probably embraced saying SCG rather than association ground. It doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well as s SCG.
Speaker: I. Whenever they start any Bolshevik stuff, I make a motion that we treat them rough. All those in favor say aye.
Speaker: Aye, aye.
Speaker: Jeff, let's talk about the architecture and the stands which existed at the ground at this point in time. The etymology of the grandstand, which was built in the 1880s, which became known as the Broongal stand, is quite confusing, I have to say.
Speaker: How and why was this stand named? this This is one of my favourite stories in the history of the Sydney Cricket Ground. Credit needs to go to the great cricket writer and historian Philip Derryman, who first found out the reason why it was called the Brewongle Stent. For many, many, many years, it was believed to relate back to the local Indigenous people who...
Speaker: ah It was their land and that was a word from their language, but that is not actually true. What happened was, well, then the grandstand was built in 1881. It was just called the Grandstand, capital G, capital S. That's its name.
Speaker: And then in 1894 or before that, there was a tea room in the bowels of the grandstand, which no one had been able to make work. And in 1894, two sisters who lived at Double Bay applied to become, with little catering experience, applied to take over the tea room and they got the job.
Speaker: And when they were there at the beginning of eight of the 1894-95 season decorating their new tea room, they said to Sydney Fowler and the ground secretary, could we call the two room the brongle tea room Tea Room?
Speaker: And he he just said, yeah, that'll be fine. And the reason for that, they ah the the sisters lived with their family in a home at Double Bay in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
Speaker: And the house they lived in was called Brewongle. It was the family home. The families actually had previously lived in the Western Plains near Bathurst. ah about eleven kilo Their property was about 11 kilometres from the village of Brewongle.
Speaker: And the so the home at Double Bay was named Brewongal after their original, where they originally came from. They then named their tea room, the Brewongal Tea Room. The business was a success. They made it work. I think part, one of the reasons they made it work is that they were there at the right time. The 1894, 95 series was so popular. Football was increasing in popularity as well. Cycling was going really, really well. So there were more opportunities to sell scones and tea and whatever.
Speaker: At some point, a sign is put up on the railing outside of the tea room up at the front railing of the grandstand. It's a big sign that says, Brwongle in big letters, Tea Room in much smaller letters, and an arrow pointing down to the tea rooms below.
Speaker: I think in time, what basically happened was that people assumed that the stand was called the Brewongle stand. Yes. Because the grandstand is such a plain name. And it became sort of part of the vernacular, I'll meet you at the Brewongle.
Speaker: Yes. And so by 1951, when a gentleman named Keith Sharp became the career ground secretary, he actually announced that the stand is officially known as the Brewongle stand. Yes.
Speaker: And because of that Indigenous link, and the link to the Indigenous is that it's actually named after the Indigenous people of the Hawkesbury region. That's where the name Borongal comes from. They're the original name of the Borongal village in western New South Wales. yes So there is an Indigenous link.
Speaker: But so that was so locked in when they knocked the original Borongal stand down in 1977 and replaced it with a new stand. There was no question the new stand was going to be called the Borongal stand.
Speaker: And of course, it's still there today. It'll probably get knocked down in the not too distant future. And I'm sure the new grandstand will be known as a brog will stand as well. Yeah, it's an incredible story. And in one hand, I'm all for like honouring those who have contributed significantly to the stadium or to the sporting field and honouring, you know, Monty Noble and Victor Trumper who have got stands for. But I also don't want them to take ah take away all these quirky traditions which have existed for whatever reason.
Speaker: I mean, as you explained, it's such an almost ridiculous reason that that is still called the Brongle. But... there would be an uproar if they changed it, I'm sure. And for me, look, writing about Alice and May Lee, the the Mrs. Lee, as they were known in the press, I just really enjoyed doing that. But again, I've got to stress, Phil Derriman did the original research.
Speaker: ah Phil's done a lot of work on the Sydney career ground. And for someone like me, his shoulders were invaluable. So a constant theme on this podcast, Geoff, is the discussion of the great eighteen ninety four ninety five Ashes series. I think we've already mentioned it on this podcast. It went to three two England finally clinching victory.
Speaker: But specifically the first test, the Sydney test, which took place in December 1894, yeah You've already mentioned it's the test match that Sid Gregory scored his double century. think it was the first test ever ah team won having been forced to follow on. um There's so much to talk about and to unpack. But specifically for this podcast, i was hoping you could talk about Ned Gregory, who we've already spoken about, the groundsman, and the adoption of a particular soil for the pitch which he used for this test match.
Speaker: the The story of soil at the SCG is a fascinating one. um The ground originally is built on what is was essentially sand and swamp. It was actually a great achievement to build a career ground on that sort of material.
Speaker: the pi The early pictures, the early square at the association ground was not very reliable. And matches were often played using two or even four pitches with the batting so i getting a each batting side getting a fresh pitch to bat on. There was a very controversial incident in 1881 when Sheridan instructed Gregory to water the pitch, which was against the laws of the game. And Gregory refused and Sheridan wanted to sack him.
Speaker: ah But the reality was that they had a lot of trouble with pitches and it got worse as the eighteen eighty s went on. And after a series of low scoring games, some of the the scores you see in test matches played in Sydney in 1886, 1887, 1887, 1888. The scores aren't great.
Speaker: They wrote to Melbourne and organized for sacks of um ah Mary Creek soil, the soil that was used at the MCG to be sent to Sydney. And that soil improved the Sydney Square enormously.
Speaker: But Sheridan and Gregory still weren't happy. And they kept looking. And Gregory actually... had lived for a while in the Illawarra. Dave Gregory was born at Wollongong where his father was a school teacher in, I think, 1845.
Speaker: So Gregory and Sheridan went down to the south coast of New South Wales, first to Kiama and then closer to Sydney of Bulleye. And that's where they found the motherlode.
Speaker: And they found this bullae soil, they brought it to Sydney to try it out, and they found it was just an extraordinary soil that dried remarkably quickly and they could make the best cricket pitches in the world using it.
Speaker: And they were reluctant to not use Merri Creek because the improvement under Merri Creek had been fantastic. but for the first um ashes test in 1894, 1895. It's interesting. Most of the press reports say that Ned Gregg would use bull eye soil for that pitch.
Speaker: And, um, it's a famous game as, as you will know, we all will know that Australia's scored a huge amount of runs, forced England to follow on. And then it stumps on day five, I think, or day six.
Speaker: I think it was the fifth day's play. I think there was a rest. So it sort of. Win a day to go. Australia were two for 70 odd at stumps, not needing many to win, but it rained overnight. They got caught on a wet pitch, lost their last eight wickets for 36.
Speaker: And because the pitch was, that was played on a bull-eye-saw pitch, that that then put a seed of doubt in Sheridan and Gregory's mind to the point that for the fourth test, they went back to Murray Creek soil, which is a crazy ah a crazy decision in one sense because they played the inter-colonial game that preceded the fourth test on a bull-eye-soil pitch, which then got them in a situation where they had two pitches side by side a bull eye soil pitch and a Mary Creek soil pitch, and they could compare the two.
Speaker: And when it rained again and caused all sorts of carnage, England lost, I think were bowled out twice in one day. The bull eye soil pitch had dried out. The Mary Creek pitch was still a sticky.
Speaker: And as a consequence, Sheridan and Ned Gregory said, we're never using Mary Creek again. And from that moment, Sydney sydney became renowned for its bull eye soil pitches. I always feel um sorry for the curators at the Sydney cricket ground because they also have to battle the elements in terms of rain. And sure enough, you know, the great test match of 1894 was rain affected and still is to this day, no matter whether the test match is in December or January or February, March, whenever it is. um I think there's some crazy statistic about ah more test matches have been affected by rain or days lost at Sydney than,
Speaker: Any other test venue the That could be true. I will say that ah I'm of the opinion, and i know a lot of people that agree with me, that first Ashes Test in 1994-95 is the greatest game, wicket game played in Sydney. Yes. For ebbs and flows, for the the atmosphere on the Saturday when Sid Gregory and Blackham were batting.
Speaker: Yes. I can just imagine the drama at the start when three wickets fall quickly and then Giffen made his 100. It's just quite remarkable game. And so many, mean, it's a great team achievement, but many great individual performances. George Giffen, I think, hit 161, his highest test score. Yeah. And then the English bowlers, you know, in that final innings, Peel and was it Johnny Briggs? Yeah. Yeah. You mean we can dissect that as we have on the podcast, which is... In fact, it was interesting doing the research on that game because one of the stories is that Bobby Peel drank himself silly while the rain was falling and was hungover and play was delayed.
Speaker: ah So Peel could stumble onto the field, but there's no suggestion of that in any of the play was not delayed. I did i can't imagine. Peel did not bowl like a man impaired. I think he bowled magnificently.
Speaker: Peel's intoxication isn't mentioned in the SCG Trust minutes anywhere. no it's not. And in in my book, I suggest strongly that he wasn't nearly as hungover as might be but some people might have suggested. Legend, yes. Well, um Australian cricket at this time was one of broken and disjointed organisations, especially between players and administrators.
Speaker: A lot of the confusion stemmed from the separate powers which existed under the the mighty Melbourne Cricket Club and the rising influence of the trustees of the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Speaker: How did Sydney try to arrest some of that power away from the Melbourne Cricket Club and how did this affect the touring English sides at the time?
Speaker: Well, certainly the Melbourne Club was more established, was well established when numb the trustees were appointed in the 1870s. And the first big battle between the two occurred in 1882-83 when the um the Melbourne Career Club managed Ivo Blight's to Australia. And a return match in Sydney was cancelled at late notice, which cost the trustees money.
Speaker: And they were rather indignant at the manner in which they were treated by the Melbourne club, but things came to a real head in 1887, 88.
Speaker: when the trustees backed two English professionals to Australia and the Melbourne Career Club brought out a team led by amateurs George Vernon and Lord Hawke, well, the soon to be known as Lord Hawke. And this created this ridiculous situation where there were two English teams touring at the same time. It was interesting doing the research, going through the minutes, letters, newspaper reports,
Speaker: Over the years, the trustees have been largely blamed for the 2-2 was occurring. I'm not sure that's fair. Ben Wardle, the all-powerful secretary of the Melbourne Career Club was... ah tour His tour wasn't locked into the last minute, and Sheridan was very keen for an English team to come out in that summer because it was the centenary of British settlement in Australia.
Speaker: And so he had been negotiating with Lillie Whiteshaw and Shrewsbury to bring out a professional side while they were in Australia the previous year. Most of the history has been very kind to Wardle in this case, but i i maybe I'm biased, but I will argue that Sheridan certainly wasn't as much at fault as some historians have made out.
Speaker: But what was interesting at the end of that summer, the two bodies, the Melbourne Cricket Club and the Sydney trustees were miles apart, but they very quickly came to realize that they were both at that time, blueing with their own cricket associations.
Speaker: And I think while both bodies had visions of becoming the Lords of Australia, they both realised soon after 1887-1888 that that was never going to happen and that actually they had more in common than they realised.
Speaker: And from probably from as soon as 1888-1889, they started working quite well together to the point that in the 1890s, they brought out – They brought out, the two but worked in partnership to bring out teams, the two Stoddart teams in 1894-95 and 1897-98. And I think they would have continued to work in partnership beyond that if there hadn't been that power struggle in Sydney in 1897-98 that led to the demise of the ground committee.
