Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Sydney Cricket Ground – Part 1 – with Geoff Armstrong
5 Playsin 2 hours
Consistently named one of the most beautiful sport venues in the world, the Sydney Cricket Ground is a beloved gem of Australia's habour city. Yet how many of us know its full history, stretching back to the mid-nineteenth century? How did the Ground transform from a piece of recreational military land to one of the splendours of Australian sport?
DONATE: You can buy Tom Ford a coffee! Every donation helps with production and inspires Tom to keep the podcast going. You can donate from a little as $5. Visit: buymeacoffee.com/GoldenAgeOfCricket
ABOUT GEOFF ARMSTRONG: Geoff is one of Australia’s leading sport writers and historians. His first book was A Century of Summers, the centenary history of the Sheffield Shield, released in 1992. Two years later, he co-authored The People’s Game, a history of Australia in international one-day cricket. He has co-written or edited several cricket titles on famous cricketers, including Steve Waugh, David Boon, Bob Simpson, Mike Whitney, Ian Healy and Ricky Ponting. His latest publication reflects the splendour of the SCG: a stunning two-volume account of the ground, titled, A Thing of Beauty: The Founding of the Sydney Cricket Ground. Copies are available in Australia via the Stoke Hill Press website (stokehillpress.com), Roger Page Cricket Books and by order from most specialist bookshops. In the UK, the books can be purchased from the cricket bookseller JW McKenzie (mckenzie-cricket.co.uk).
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.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG)
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to this episode of the Golden Age of Cricket podcast. My name is Tom Ford. Few sporting arenas command the traditionalist's attention quite like the Sydney Cricket Ground.
00:00:18
Speaker
With its beautifully curated field, untouched Victorian grandstands and statues and monuments to past heroes, it's no wonder the annual Test Match at the ground continues to be a highlight on the cricket calendar.
00:00:30
Speaker
Yet how many of us know the ground's early history? How smoothly did the ground metamorphose from recreational military fields to a grand architectural delight befitting the biggest names of the Golden Age?
Meet Jeff Armstrong, Cricket Writer
00:00:44
Speaker
My guest today will help explain the SCG's arrival into the last decade of the 19th century. Jeff Armstrong is one of Australia's leading sport writers and historians.
00:00:55
Speaker
His first book was A Century of Summers, The Centenary History of the Sheffield Shield, released in 1992. Two years later, he co-authored The People's Game, a history of Australia in international one-day cricket.
00:01:09
Speaker
He has co-written or edited several cricket titles on famous cricketers, including Steve Waugh, David Boone, Bob Simpson, Mike Whitney, Ian Healy and Ricky Ponting.
Exploring the SCG's Historical Significance
00:01:19
Speaker
His latest publication reflects the splendour of the SCG, a stunning two-volume account of the ground titled A Thing of Beauty, The Founding of the Sydney Cricket Ground.
00:01:30
Speaker
I'm thrilled Geoff is joining the podcast to discuss the evolution of the ground leading into the golden age of cricket. Geoff, hello and welcome. Hi Tom, it's really cool to be here.
00:01:40
Speaker
Thanks for joining. So Jeff, what is your personal relationship with the Sydney cricket ground? And do you have a earliest or favorite memory from the ground?
00:01:51
Speaker
I feel like it's been part of my life forever. Just as a cricket fan, yeah I remember my first cricket book was the ABC cricket book from 1968. And then, ah then I got cricket, the Australian way, and there are all these photos of the grounds in those books.
00:02:07
Speaker
ah The first time went to the ground was 1969. I went to a rugby league match of the day. And then ah in early 71, my uncle took me out to the career ground to watch Barry Richards bat in the Sheffield-Shield game between New South Wales and South Australia.
00:02:24
Speaker
ah The fifth Ashes test was being played in Melbourne at the same time. And it's funny, I have a very vivid memory. I can picture it happening today of Barry Richards being dropped by John Beno when he was about 60.
00:02:38
Speaker
And the only problem with that memory is that it actually happened the day before and I was watching ah critic because I looked at the scorecard yes and Barry Richards at the start of play was 110 not out. And I went definitely went to the last day. I'd see John Benno drop that catch on the ABC's coverage on the Sunday after the previous Sunday afternoon. But it's just funny how the...
00:02:59
Speaker
the the memory blurs, if you like. But um for me, i have the memory of walking across Moorpark to get to the ground and with all, and it was all, there was a lot of people going to the cricket, even though it was a Monday.
00:03:12
Speaker
And I felt like I was part of an exclusive club. And then you approach the ground and yeah we we sat in the Sheridan stand, but you walk in behind the Sheridan stand. I can remember, i can remember stopping at the Victor Trump of Plark And then we went up and the the two things I
SCG Management and Historical Development
00:03:31
Speaker
vividly remember when I arrived at the ground, one was you walk used to walk up and the hill was there and the scoreboard was behind the hill.
00:03:39
Speaker
And that that was a wonderful thing. And then you get and you look then you look out over the ground and it was so green. The field was green. The hill was green. The grandstand roofs of the Bob stand and the Sheridan and the Brewongle and the ladies and members, everything was so green. And it was, ah felt like I was in Disneyland. It was just wonderful. I'll never forget that first game. It was a wonderful experience.
00:04:03
Speaker
Fantastic. And so vivid a memory. I mean, it's amazing how these early sporting memories stay with us. I remember speaking to my father, asking him a similar question in relation to the Adelaide Oval. My family's from South Australia and he remembers so much. I think it was the 1961, 60, 61 West Indies tour. and But he remembers more about what was happening in the crowd and the the type of ice cream he had rather than what actually happened on the cricket field. i mean, such is the young boy's memory, I suppose.
00:04:32
Speaker
So, Geoff, why did you or how did you come to write this two-volume history of the Sydney cricket ground in the 19th century? And why specifically does the second volume end 1898?
00:04:45
Speaker
in eighty ninety eight Well, originally I was going to publish the book. I've been doing work for the SCG for several years now. i published a book on the s SCG Sculptures Project. I published that in 2013. I've been doing the Members' Diary. This is my 10th year this year.
00:05:03
Speaker
i went to a meeting in 2018 where the concept of writing ah the history of the trustees was discussed. And I was invited to publish the book.
00:05:16
Speaker
which I was very excited about, even though I knew it had a very limited audience, because I was told from day one that this was a book about the administration of the ground and not the the great moments on the ground so much.
00:05:27
Speaker
But as things turned out, I became the author as well. Again, I was told, it was emphasised, we're interested in the trustees and and Philip Sheridan and the ground committee.
00:05:39
Speaker
and ah And they stressed, we want you to explore every detail. And it it is such a rich history and such an extraordinary story of how this ground became the pride of Sydney.
00:05:53
Speaker
what What happened when the ground was first handed to the trustees in 1876, that was not unusual for parks, libraries, galleries, national parks to be handed to trustees. And often those trustees who were yeah some of the elite of Sydney would hand the actual work off to a committee. And and in that this sense, this is what occurred at the career ground and a ground committee was formed.
00:06:20
Speaker
And for the next 22 years to 1898, the ground committee worked with the managing trustee, who was Philip Sheridan, to to manage the ground. And the story of the ground committee's demise in eighteen nine ah in the Asher summer of 1897-98 is a really interesting story in itself, because it's a time when the ah the politicians, the Premier and the Secretary for Lands wanted a greater control with how the um the ground was managed.
00:06:51
Speaker
The ground committee was disbanded at the beginning of 1898, and that then became a natural part for this part of the story, the founding of the ground. It was a natural place for the story to end.
00:07:04
Speaker
But the fact that it expanded out of two volumes just reflects the fact that it's a very, very, very rich story. Well, and the two-volume account is very handsome looking, I must say, if anyone's interested. ah two volumes in hardback, very um very rewarding for the for the reader, I would say. If if I could put my publishing hat on for one moment, yes it's always difficult with books of this kind to project them.
00:07:31
Speaker
in a different way. And of course, in book publishing, there's no such thing as a new idea. But what we came up with with this book was to model them on George Giffen's with Batten Ball, the the first great Australian cricket book. And so the books have no dust jacket. They have gold foil on the cover. They look very, very handsome. And they're not as bad as my copy of Giffen's book, but hopefully one day they will be.
00:07:56
Speaker
And I know many of my listeners would have a copy, a much cherished and thumbed copy of Giffen's with bat and ball. So, Geoff, before we get into the actual history of the ground and the various names associated with the ground, um what material is available to a would-be historian of the Sydney cricket ground? And how easily is that material accessed?
00:08:21
Speaker
there Part one, I'm very fortunate because of my relationship with the people at the ground that I was given opat and open access to the archive. um that So I had access to letter letter books, minute books, various folders of documents, in some cases boxes with with gate receipts, all sorts of interesting, albeit...
00:08:46
Speaker
but often vaguely filed boxes. So that material was fantastic. You add to that the material at the State Library, the New South Wales, the people there are ah truly wonderful. And of course, Trove is the greatest resource in the world.
00:09:01
Speaker
um So I had access to all that material. There are some very good people at the career ground who are currently cataloging what they have. I'm not sure they know everything about what they have because i I found during the research that Often I'd be looking for a specific letter or a a minute, just something I needed and I couldn't find it. i so I'm still convinced it's there somewhere. um There's no open access to that material, though I have found that they're very, very welcoming people at the career ground and they will try and help you as best they can.
00:09:37
Speaker
i I can't speak too highly of the people at the career ground. The the people who look who work there, there's so many good people there. Good to know from, well, my own point of view, but I'm sure listeners as well who are looking to delve into the treasures at the Sydney Cricket Ground. So your recently published two volumes obviously covers the 19th century. For the sake of this podcast, we're going to focus More on the second volume, obviously, because that covers the so-called golden age of cricket. But before we get there, I'm going to set you the impossible task of trying to sum up the first 50 or 60 years of the ground um and how this seemingly ah sort of casual plot of land eventually over those
00:10:26
Speaker
five or six decades came to become the glorious Sydney cricket ground as it was finally named in 1894. it's The story of sport in Sydney is really interesting because the city of Sydney suffered from a real scarcity of playing fields.
00:10:43
Speaker
There just weren't that many sporting fields there. And in terms of an enclosed sporting field,
00:10:53
Speaker
until the cricket ground came into the the trustees in the 1870s, it was really just the Albert Ground at Redfin. But the career ground story starts in 1848, when the British soldiers who had been stationed in barracks in George Street in the city were moved out to the Victoria Barracks in Paddington, which is about four kilometres from Sydney Cove.
00:11:19
Speaker
And they didn't want to move that far out of town. And it was a long, long way back in those days. And the ground out there, it was a mixture of sand and swamp. but ah out there they went.
00:11:31
Speaker
In 1851, the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Bloomfield, ah wrote to the colonial secretary, Edward Dease Thompson, seeking a grant of land of the Sydney common immediately south of the barracks. And and that request was duly met. And from 1851 to 1854, the soldiers then went about building a garden and clear ground on that land.
00:11:56
Speaker
ah the soldier The first game played was in February 1854, and the ground was kept in very fine condition by the soldiers until the British soldiers left Sydney in 1870.
00:12:09
Speaker
through ah Through the 1870s, the ground fell into some state of disrepair. And then in 1875, as the various cricket clubs that were forming in Sydney tried to get their hands on the ground, and the New South Wales Cricket Association wanted to get its hands on the ground as well, because they were having problems dealing with the the private enterprise that ran the Albert Ground.
00:12:34
Speaker
At the end of 1875, three trustees, two of whom were representatives of the Cricket Association, were appointed to run the ground. And from that point on, the Sydney Cricket Ground was born.
00:12:46
Speaker
And through 1876 and it was essentially one long working bee, as they, under the tutelage of Philip Sheridan and Ned Gregory, the the groundsman, they developed the ground into the finest cricket ground in Sydney. Now, to say it was the finest cricket ground in Sydney in 1877 is no big deal. Sydney did not have a fine cricket ground. But once ah the government approved that the cricket ground would come into being, the Albert Ground was doomed. And by 1878-79,
00:13:22
Speaker
ah them all the major matches in Sydney were now played at what was called the Association Cricket Ground. Very good. Excellent summation. You did that even more swiftly than I thought you were going to. So very nicely done. um To get 1894 when the game the ground became the Sydney Career Ground, the next critical moment in the history, I mean, they built a pavilion immediately. They built a grandstand in 1881.
00:13:51
Speaker
But Sheridan, went after Richard Driver, who had been the president of the Cricket Association and was the other Cricket Association trustee, when he died in 1880, Sheridan really became the ruling figure at the ground.
00:14:06
Speaker
He was insistent and on all revenue from the ground being reinvested in the ground. They took out a series of debentures to pay for the grandstand that was built in 1881. But then by 1883, the Cricket Association was upset by that and they and the trustees ah basically fell out. And the cricket ground was then run by that ground committee and by Sheridan himself with the trustees overseeing the whole operation, ah but it became an and independent body.
00:14:39
Speaker
And they then spen they have now spent the last, what is it, 130 years blowing with the New South Wales Cricket Association.
00:14:50
Speaker
Don't stop, don't stop, keep on a brand thing. Don't stop, don't stop, what are you dancing? Oh my, where am I? Oh please love me.
00:15:00
Speaker
Now, you've mentioned a name there, which leads to my next question. So you mentioned Ned Gregory, who was the groundsman for many, many years. And I was hoping you could just talk about the Gregory family and their association with, well, the association ground, what eventually became the Sydney Cricket Ground. Because for listeners of the podcast and anyone who's familiar with the golden age of cricket will, of course, know Sid Gregory.
00:15:27
Speaker
who will probably come up a few times in this podcast, eventually rose to captain Australia in the triangular tournament of 1912. Give us a bit of background about the Gregory family and their relationship with the ground.
00:15:43
Speaker
Tom, you've struck a bit of a nerve here. Right.
The Gregory Family's Cricket Legacy
00:15:48
Speaker
And you'll probably have to cut me off because I'll go on for too long. But I strongly believe, I can't stress how strongly I believe that the entire Gregory family should be in the Australian cricket hall of fame. Right. i I, I actually put this to one of the members of the committee that judge the hall of fame. And he said to me that they didn't want to set a precedent by electing a family, inducting a family. are Any of the members in the family? oh no ni just Wow. and And I said to him, well, that's,
00:16:20
Speaker
It's not a precedent because the Gregory family is unique in the story of Australian cricket. And it would be actually very, very fitting if I can mount a campaign starting here. Okay. If if the Gregories could be inducted next summer on the 150th anniversary of the first test match, where of course two members of the Gregory family played in that test match, one of whom was the Australian captain.
00:16:43
Speaker
But if you were to elect the Gregory family into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame, in one fell swoop, and I've got to track get my notes here, you would elect the Australian captain in the first ever Test match and the captain for that pioneering tour of Britain and America in 1878. You'd elect one of the best players of the 1860s and 70s, who was also a member of that first Test 11 and was the curator of the Sydney Cricket Ground from 1870, well, actually from to You'd also elect the first cricketer to score a test double century in Australia and the first cricketer from any country to play 50 tests, that being Sid.
00:17:20
Speaker
hu You'd elect the greatest all-rounder of the nineteen twenty s in Jack. Yes. And you'd elect arguably Australia's finest female cricketer of the 19th century in Nelly.
00:17:34
Speaker
Their achievements go on. Five members of not just Dave and Ned, but three of their brothers also played first-class crickets. Sid's brother Charles scored a triple century against Queensland. Three of Nelly's sisters were outstanding female cricketers in the 1800s.
00:17:50
Speaker
And to me, it's a no brainer. I just don't understand why the people don't see the Gregory family apart from everybody else. ah And you mentioned Sid.
00:18:02
Speaker
ah Now this is, I'm a great fan of Sid. Sid was the, as we said, the first cricketer to play 50 tests. He went on eight English tours, first in 1890, the eighth in 1912 when he was captain. Which I think is i think is a record. I think Blackham went on eight as well. Right.
00:18:22
Speaker
ah But if I can quote J.C. Davis, who in 1910 wrote that there has never been a more popular cricketer in Sydney than Sid Gregory. H.H. Massey thrilled the crowds and Victor Trump had delighted them, but neither of those brilliant players with themselves wound themselves more tightly into the hearts of the crowd than Sid Gregory.
00:18:42
Speaker
Even when he died in 1929, he'd still played more test matches than any other cricketer. and Jack Worrell, the Victorian cricket writer, describes Sid as, for skill and dash, Sid Gregory was in Victor Trumper's class as dashing brilliant and resourceful in his methods as any batsman could possibly be.
00:19:01
Speaker
Sid scored 201 in that famous Ashes test, the first Ashes test in 1894-95. He scored it at the s SCG where he was born in 1870, which I find most fantastic part of the story. His father was the groundsman who lived in the curator's cottage, and that's where some of his children were born, including Sid.
00:19:22
Speaker
On the Saturday when Sid reached his double century, there was a collection and Sid was handed £123 in recognition of his wonderful achievement. He used that money to build a sports shop in King Street, in the King Street Arcade in the city.
00:19:40
Speaker
The irony of that sports shop was when he was on the 1902 Ashes tour, the famous tour, when he came home, the sports shop was had closed. that His business partners had sent it broke.
00:19:51
Speaker
And Sid found himself in the bankruptcy court ah in 1903, which is interesting because in that hearing, they revealed exactly how much money he'd made. on his previous English tours, which demonstrated sort of what we know that the cricketers made plenty of money on those higl English tours. Yes.
00:20:10
Speaker
But not on all of them. In fact, Sid, I think of the 1893 tour revealed that he didn't make a cent. Yes. But one interesting aspect of that from Sid Gregory's point of view, and know I'm rambling, Tom, but it's a subject that's close to my heart. I can tell.
00:20:24
Speaker
Sid was the New South Wales captain after after Tom Garrett in 1898. He was appointed captain, and he served as New South Wales captain until 1902. New South Wales won two Sheffield Shields in that time.
00:20:37
Speaker
And when you think of some of the great players who were in that side, the fact that Sid was captain is a real rapper for him. Because he didn't play first-class cricket in 1902-03, handed the captaincy to Monty Noble, and then Monty Noble, who himself was a great captain, then went on to ah Captain Australia for many years.
00:20:57
Speaker
Sid never got that opportunity. He may well have been captain... of Australia if he hadn't had those financial difficulties before m MA Noble. And I know ah one of your finest participants in your podcast, Mr. Peter Lloyd, yeah not too long ago suggested that Sid was the worst captain Australia had ever had. Next time I see Peter, I'm going to have to argue with him.
00:21:20
Speaker
I know Sid had his troubles on 1912, but I'm not sure they were all his fault. Well, I know he's listening now, Peter. So consider this an invite for you both to come on the podcast and you can have a stoush about Sid Gregory. Can we have two hours? Sid Gregory was also great cover fieldsman.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yes. yeah yeah ah One of the great stories I like about Sid is that he dropped Reg Foster when Foster was 54 in that first test in Sydney in 1903 when Foster scored 287.
00:21:52
Speaker
And apparently, as the story goes, Lem Braun said to Reg Foster at two, you're the luckiest cricketer alive being dropped by Sid Gregory. Sid was that good. you he really should Sid did or should really be in the Hall of Fame, all that Gregorys should.
00:22:05
Speaker
And their connection with the SCG going right back to eight the eighty eight seventy And what Ned Gregory did, but building the pitch, building great scoreboards, Ned Gregory's an extraordinary figure in the s SCG story.
00:22:20
Speaker
No, you build a very commanding argument, Jeff, and I can't disagree with you at all. It is a shame. So if anyone is listening who has the power to influence... Whoever they may be. Yes. um Question without notice. I love that story too about Sid Gregory being born at at the grounds. Is there any sort of monument to that? Do we know exactly where the little cottage was or the...
00:22:48
Speaker
the hut that Ned was using is that the, the, the curator's cottage was in the members precinct. Essentially, I think, uh, about where the Allen Davidson gates are now, okay sort of at the back of the members stand.
00:23:03
Speaker
Um, there was two cottages, the, uh, uh, Jack Jim, uh, Jim Fogarty, who was the long time gatekeeper. keeper He had a cottage at the other corner of the ground behind what,
00:23:15
Speaker
what we now know as a Sheridan stand. Yes. In terms of monuments to the Gregories, not really. Actually, the road outside the ground that goes up to Anzac Parade is actually Gregory Avenue.
00:23:27
Speaker
m But I don't think there's, at the same time as Driver Avenue outside the ground became Driver Avenue in recognition of Richard Driver, Gregory Avenue was named at the same time.
00:23:37
Speaker
But I'm not even sure if there's a signpost there. any more it be It would be wonderful if there was, you know, if a grandstand or a sculpture or something was named after the Gregories, but it is also true that there's this you can't name things after everyone.
00:23:51
Speaker
Yes. But the the Gregory story and it's their connection with the Cougar Grand is unique. Indeed it is. um Now, before we leave the pre-Golden Age period, we can't not ask you about possibly the most famous or infamous incident to occur at the ground, which was the so-called Lord Harris Riot of 1879, still talked about in some
The Lord Harris Riot and Its Impact on SCG
00:24:20
Speaker
quarters. um This riot is was um later said by
00:24:26
Speaker
Banjo Patterson, one of Australia's most famous poets, he said, it made the body line controversy of later years look like a goodwill gesture. What's your understanding of what caused the riot?
00:24:38
Speaker
Well, Banjo would know. He was there. Mm-hmm. He was actually, so I can't call the hill because it was just an embankment on the Eastern side in those days, but he was there. I think he was 15 years old. ah His story of the, of the ride is wonderful. There are, there has been some great stuff written. Intriguingly, I think,
00:24:57
Speaker
The Lord Harris riot occurred on the same weekend that Ned Kelly was holding up the town of Gerildery in southern New South Wales. And if you read the papers, there is no question what the biggest story was and what caused the greater shame for the city of Sydney. it it was... ah It was a riot that was chiefly caused, I think, by what the papers called the betting element.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yes. ah Sport had explod had boomed. That was the term used. Sport had boomed in the 1870s and with it had come the bookmakers. And there are numerous stories in the 1870s of bookmakers making money and trying to make money out of out of cricket.
00:25:40
Speaker
And there are stories about some of the English players in the 1876-1877 tour getting in trouble because they were betting on matches. And there was numerous reports of Joe Thompson, who was the king of the Flemington Ring in Melbourne,
00:25:57
Speaker
who was in Sydney at the time of the the New South Wales match against Lord Harris's 11. And he was operating with impunity in the members' pavilion. And as the story goes, Lord Harris objected to this, but Richard Driver couldn't complain too loudly because he'd taken six to four about the home team. Mm-hmm.
00:26:17
Speaker
But the riot took place on the Saturday. Billy Murdoch had scored 82 not out in New South Wales' first innings and went out in the second innings and was on 10 when he was given run out by umpire Jules Coulthard, who was a Victorian cricketer and footballer of some ability.
00:26:35
Speaker
Yes. who had Who was the Englishman's umpire. They had brought him north to be their umpire. Mm-hmm. And Murdoch was controversially given out by Coulthard. Depending on who you talk to, it was the worst decision in the world or absolutely right, as these things often are.
00:26:51
Speaker
But Murdoch reputedly had backed himself to score 100 runs in the game, and he'd been given out, run out, eight runs short. So he wasn't very happy. And um there was a lot of um a lot of complaints from the crowd, and most of it, or much of a large proportion of it, from the people in the members' pavilion.
00:27:10
Speaker
ah and lord ah Dave Gregory, the New South Wales captain, came out out of the field and ah Lord Harris went to meet him because dave harris the lord sorry Dave Gregory had been sent out by the team asking for a change of umpire.
00:27:31
Speaker
And as one story told, it one fifteen year young boy ran out from the hill to try and hear the conversation between Gregory and Lord Harris and thousands followed him.
00:27:43
Speaker
And this then created a situation where it was estimated there were 3000 people on the field. Some of the English players were attacked. Coulthard was the subject of much abuse and he and his fellow umpire Edmund Barton, who was a future Australian prime minister, took the players off the field. Eventually they decided to restart, but when the crowd were told that Coulthard was still going to umpire, they invaded the field again.
00:28:09
Speaker
ah The episode caused great ah shame for New South Wales. Lord Harris went back to England and made it very hard for the Australian team of 1880 to get matches.
00:28:22
Speaker
But what the other thing that the the episode had, Philip Sheridan wasn't there. He was a mining agent. He was actually in Gundagai in southern New South Wales, looking after one of his mines that he was connected with. So that when he came back, he had rare authority.
00:28:41
Speaker
to change the way the ground operated. And he banned he banned ah betting from the members' pavilion. They increased scrutiny on membership applications, and it actually changed the way that the guy at the ground was managed. And Sheridan, where everyone else associated with the game from the New South Wales cricket point of view was tarnished, Sheridan was the one person who came out of it in a better light because he wasn't there.
00:29:11
Speaker
it's a fascinating chapter in the yeah grounds history and I don't think we can possibly overstate the fact that George Coulthard was Victorian as well and how much that probably riled the crowd because this is colonial Australia Australia is not yet a country so New South Wales versus Victorians was you know a big thing back then so Fred Spotheth said exactly that. yeah he He said there was not the slightest animosity against Lord Harris or any of his team. The whole disturbance was based on the fact that the offender was a Victorian. Yes, yes. One other aspect, which again comes back to where Sydney sawed itself in in the world, was ah one of the yeah the English professionals, George Ulan, described the crowd as sons of convicts.
00:30:04
Speaker
And apparently that comment spread like wildfire and there were many Sydneysiders who weren't happy that one of the English cricket cricket team described them in that way.
00:30:22
Speaker
So, Jeff, let's now talk about the so-called golden age as we arrive in the
Cricket in Sydney During the 1890s
00:30:28
Speaker
1890s. I'm hoping you might be able to paint a picture of cricket in Sydney at this time. You've already done a wonderful job, say, of the mid-1990s.
00:30:37
Speaker
eighteen hundreds moving into the 1860s and 70s. I just want to quote, and this is from your book, but Sid Gregory, who we've already talked about, made this comment after returning from the Australian's Ashes tour of 1890. He said, cricket in England is much better than it is in Australia.
00:30:58
Speaker
There, every boy in the street knows cricket as well as the Sydney boys do boating. Was cricket fledgling in Sydney at this time? not sure if fledgling is the right word because it's been played in the in the colony for a long, long time, but it was certainly struggling.
00:31:14
Speaker
And the success of the Australian teams of the early 1880s had put the game on a pedestal, but ch the constant tours of English teams to Australia, I think it was six teams in seven years, culminating in two teams coming out to at the same summer in 1887, 1888.
00:31:35
Speaker
At the same time, the introduction of the five-and-a-half-day working week gave people more recreation time to watch and participate in sport, but it happened at a time when their options grew.
00:31:48
Speaker
The harbour became more attractive for sailors and swimmers alike. At the end of 1888, Albert Spalding, the American baseball entrepreneur, a team of the best players from America to Australia as part of their world tour.
00:32:05
Speaker
And while baseball didn't really catch on in Sydney so much, it did catch on in Melbourne and Adelaide. So there there were more options. And I think that's what Sieg Gregory is alluding to.
00:32:16
Speaker
It's interesting that I don't think the cricketers of the second half of the 1880s had the same, made the same impression on young people as Murdoch and Spofford, for example, had earlier in the decade.
00:32:27
Speaker
i think... Turner, for one, great bowler. But ah I think the reason we think of Spoffeth as being ahead of Turner today goes actually right back to the fact that Turner emerged at a time when cricket was on a downward trend. which and So I don't think any cricketer in Australia had quite the same impact that Grace had in England in terms of building the game and establishing it as well.
00:32:52
Speaker
the cultural necessity that cricket became in England. And of course there's a great irony in that because the Australian players were accused of being money hungry. I think you could probably say the same thing of grace to some degree.
00:33:05
Speaker
We certainly can. And that's a beautiful segue to the next question. So the first, well, not the first, one of the defining series of the late 19th century was when Lord Sheffield and his team, captained by
W.G. Grace's Influence on Australian Cricket
00:33:19
Speaker
W.G. Grace, came to Australia in eighteen ninety one ninety two which was Grace's second venture to Australia, the first one being in the early 1870s. And, of course, he had transformed from the young superstar to a rather ageing and now quite overweight superstar. But it was billed as this huge a return of the great English cricketer.
00:33:44
Speaker
That series or that tour saw three matches at the Sydney Cricket Ground. There was one test and then... two tour matches against the colony of New South Wales played at the ground.
00:33:57
Speaker
What can you tell us about that tour and specifically Grace's involvement with the association ground? I feel like there's been a a bit of a trend among cricket historians lately to diminish the importance of this tour slightly.
00:34:14
Speaker
um I don't agree with that. I think it's one of the most important tours for Australian cricket because the game was at such a low ebb.
00:34:25
Speaker
And there were many reasons why the tour became so important and and certainly Grace is at the centre of that. Because Grace by the early 1890s is one of the greatest sports people in the world.
00:34:39
Speaker
And Australia hadn't seen too many greatest people in the world at that time, not just in sport, in entertainment as well. When John L. Sullivan came out to Australia, the great boxer, he came out to do a pantomime series. He wasn't here to fight. So the fact that Grace came out was a really important moment in the history of cricket. It is true that he was overweight, It's true that he was lampooned by the tabloid press while he was out here.
00:35:10
Speaker
But it is also true that he played in a wonderful innings at the MCG early in the tour. Yes. And that whenever he was dismissed, the descriptions of the crowd's reaction when he was dismissed just demonstrates how much of a crowd draw he was that summer.
00:35:30
Speaker
Allied to that was the fact that the tour was led by Lord Sheffield, who was seen as a philanthropist, of a very generous and man who not only donated the money to start the Sheffield Shield, but was not tarnished by the accusation of cricketers and cricket people being money hungry that had hurt the game in the 1880s.
00:35:55
Speaker
So that was important. What was also important was that Australia won. yes And Australia had not won very much at all during the second half of the 1880s. In fact, I think that the win at Lords in 1888 was only the second test win in England by an Australian team.
00:36:15
Speaker
They then lost the next two tests by an innings. Their record wasn't good, but the performance of the Australian team in 1891-92, especially in Sydney, when Lyons and Alec Bannerman had their great partnership and then Turner and Giffen bowled the home team to victory. It it was a famous day.
00:36:35
Speaker
And so for me, the golden age of cricket, I know you you've had discussions in the podcast about exactly when it starts and finished. But for me, perhaps because I'm biased because I'm a SCG historian, but I believe the golden age of cricket began that large, the summer of Lord Sheffield's tour in 1891, 92.
00:36:55
Speaker
It's a very good argument and perhaps we're obviously going to talk about the great 94-95 series soon and has been talked about many times on this podcast. But hearing you talk about the 91-92 tour almost makes me think that maybe the 94-95 Ashes series couldn't have been possible without that 91-92 series. The fact that they did so much to rebuild the crowd's appetite for cricket, um you know, largely helped by Grace's involvement. You know, he was clearly a shamacher. think he got paid something like more than every other cricketer on tour combined. I think he got 3,000 pounds plus his wife and two children's passage to Australia, plus expenses for wine and cigars. Yeah, right. He was going okay.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yes. um But maybe we need to give him credit for helping to rebuild the public's trust in these tours happening. Oh, I think we do. Yes. One ah other interesting aspect of that tour was the role of Sydney Fairland, the cricket ground secretary, because when Lord Sheffield announced the tour early in 1891, he appointed a man named Frank Illingworth to be his agent in Australia.
00:38:15
Speaker
But when the team landed in Adelaide, Frank Illingworth at that time announced that he was withdrawing as an agent. And Fairland had been dealing with Illingworth and being frustrated by the lack of communication he got from Illingworth.
00:38:30
Speaker
Ben Wardle, who was the secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club, was appointed to try and organise the South Australian and Victorian legs of the tour. But the organisation of the matches in New South Wales was left to Fairland.
00:38:43
Speaker
who took on that job with real energy and did it a magnificent job but was never paid for it and in fact he was left out of pocket when the blo the guy from the penrith career club who organized a game out of penrith uh didn't hand over the money and left everyone out of pocket But the SCG archives are really interesting for that fact because Fairland's communications with with Grace, with Lord Sheffield, and also with Alfred Shaw, who was on the tour as a manager as well, ah
00:39:16
Speaker
he becomes increasingly desperate as he realizes that he's not going to get rewarded for his work. And I would go as far as to say that had Phelan not done all of that organization, the Sydney leg of the tour could have fallen over and the tour might not have been anything close to what it ended up being. We might not have had that famous test in Sydney when Lyons and Bannerman and Giffen and Turner were wonderful. We might not have had the great umpiring controversy that added to the drama of the tour in the second, well, actually in both of the games against New South Wales, but especially in the second game. Fairland is ah another mighty figure in the SCG story.
00:40:00
Speaker
It's quite remarkable to read the the letters and minute entries to realise that what he did in that year has just been forgotten.