1.9.2010

James Rodgers Speech at Sydney University Cricket Club Tribute Dinner – 8 July 2010

Firstly, may I express my grateful thanks to all of you: to Geoff de Mesquita, A.J Grant, Stuart McLean and Will Hay, in particular who have prepared this evening so well and to Pete Murray for his gracious words.
It occurs to me that my career has really been a triumph for longevity over ability.  I’ve had small touches of natural talent but huge amounts of passion and enthusiasm which have sustained me through all these years.
Now, I know an ability just to bowl straight is not always as highly regarded as it should be, but I’ve always thought that some virtues in cricket are seriously overrated – like the ability to bowl with flight, or drift, or bounce, or variety, or turn.  I have never turned the ball even in the years when I was trying to!  So it’s given me much greater pleasure to defeat generations of batsmen by doing nothing more than appearing to spin the ball and then watching a succession of hapless young batsmen simply miss straight ones or hit them tamely to the carefully set field.  Even in this last season, the eternal puzzlement and disbelief were still apparent.
There was the young Parramatta batsman who went up hesitantly to his prepubescent mate between overs to proclaim gravely, “I don’t think he’s turning it.” Before his partner could reply to that startling revelation, Nick Burke sauntered past him on this way to first slip: “Mate, you’ve just worked out all his tricks in one sentence.”
I thought Greg Mail had paid me quite a compliment after the 20/20 game against Easts here last season.  He said to me as 1st Grade came off the field that if the groundsman was going to prepare another wicket like that for the next game, I’d be the first one picked. I was thinking: “Wow, at 56 ... selected in 1st grade ...”, but Maily brought me back to reality: “Because you’re the master of bowling on a shit heap.”
I’ve also come to regard developing an array of shots as a batsman as seriously overrated just as is using the full face of the bat.  The off glide or the cultured edge to 3rd man was quite sufficient for me.  And I’m proud to say that my last scoring shot in Grade cricket was a deliberately angled edge for 3 just out of reach of 1st slip at Hawkesbury in February this year.
Even owning a bat is hopelessly overrated just as bats are now ridiculously overpriced. So I was initially humbled when Stu MacGill presented me with one of the bats that he’d used in Test Cricket a few years ago.  I went home thinking how special I was ... One of my team mates next Saturday, showing no respect again for the elderly, brought me back to earth, “That sort of gift is wasted on you, mate.”
Speaking of batting, I’m disappointed that Peter Armitage is an apology for tonight ...  He is the only other Uni player of any length of career whose number of runs scored is fewer than his number of wickets taken.  Although it should be emphasised that when Armo and I played together he usually batted 11 and I at 10 causing Bruce Collins to state once, that Armo and I both batted as if we learned from the same Frenchman – a bit harsh on Armo I thought, who at least usually used to describe an arc in the air with his bat while attempting to hit the ball just before it crashed into his stumps.
A team mate at a tense moment in the 1978 2nd Grade Grand Final as I was waiting to bat confided to me, “You know, you look every inch a batsman ... until you start to take strike.”
Also vastly overrated is the ability to rip in long flat throws from the boundary to the keeper’s gloves.  I’m pleased that in the modern game, we’re encouraged to go for the relay throw.  It’s just that the relayer of my throws had to stand about 20 metres away from me to make sure it got to him on the full.
The modern day obsession with a finely chiselled body and rippling muscles, developed in the gym during hours that should be more productively spent, is something I never really came to terms with.  This has caused me the only major disappointment of my career.  I was not asked to pose for the 2003 ‘Men of Uni Cricket’ Calendar.  At least for all his impressive physique, I played higher than AJ has done when I was his age.
The roping of boundaries is another modern puzzle.  I much preferred getting hit for 6 on to the hill at No 1 rather than a gentle chip that plopped between the rope and the fence.  I much prefer to remember being hit into the bushes at St Paul’s or onto the roofs of buildings around No 2 and or, on one memorable occasion, being hit for a six that went through a glass window in the Vet building.  The ball eventually returned with shards of glass which made any further attempt to try to turn it quite painful and useless.
There are some things I won’t miss:
I won’t miss having to travel to the far flung regions of what is amusingly known as the Sydney Region.
Driving out to Hawkesbury has always been something to avoid.  So my last trip there was in a car with AJ Grant, James Walsh and Ben Joy.  Walshy had forgotten/lost his entire kit; Benny had forgotten his clothes; AJ had forgotten how to get there.
When we had been blissfully on the road for a hour, I realised we were heading in completely the wrong direction. What happened then was something out of ‘Mad Max’.  AJ went up one way streets, mounted kerbs, drove on footpaths, startled pedestrians, kept the speedo at 130 all the way.  We got from just outside Campbelltown to Hawkesbury in 25 minutes avoiding a fine for arriving late, and narrowly avoiding jail for reckless driving.
This contrasts greatly with my first game in 3rd Grade for the Club at Bankstown in December 1972.  Austin Punch, the Captain, arranged to pick me up at the corner of Miller and Falcon Streets North Sydney at 11:45am. It was a 1pm start and in those days, getting there 30 minutes before the game meant you were early.  11:45 went by ... 11:50 ... 12 ... 12:15 ... 12:20.  I’d begun to think how do I catch a bus from here to Bankstown? In 40 minutes? At 12:21, Austin pulls up in his green VW. I said, “Good to see you” ... “Shush, I’m listening to the Goon Show”.  At 12:30, the Goon Show having finished, we begin conversation somewhere in the city. Austin asks me. “Where exactly are we playing today?” “I think it’s Bankstown Oval.” “How do we get there?”
“I think we go down the Hume Highway.” Actually, I had no idea.

At 12:55pm we pull up and join the other four Uni players there, wandering around looking bewildered.  Austin sprints to the middle, wins the toss, straps on the pads as two more players arrive. “Let’s value our wickets” he tells us.  He hits the first ball over bowler’s head for 4, tries to do the same with the 4th ball and loses his stumps.
At the end of the day, we’re well behind on 1st Innings and headed for the inevitable outright defeat.  Austin takes us to Bankstown Pub after the game, wearing a purple singlet and green shorts, goes up to the bar and is challenged by the barman, “Hey darling, we don’t serve poofs in this pub.”
I also won’t miss playing at Campbelltown at delightfully appointed Raby Oval – which sounds like a particularly virulent canine disease – the scene of my last game in Grade Cricket in the preliminary finals a few months ago – a vast contrast to my first game, 42 years earlier.
Between my first and last games in Grade Cricket, 9 clubs have either gone out of existence or changed their names.  6 of the current clubs weren’t even in existence when I started – Hawkesbury, Penrith, Campbelltown, Fairfield, Blacktown, Uni of NSW.
I played my first game in Grade Cricket for Northern District at age of 15 in 1968 at Trumper Oval named after Victor Trumper one of the most famous and most admired Australian Test Cricketers.  I took one wicket, one catch and scored one not out and was sledged mercilessly by the opposing wicket keeper for wearing my school cap.  I’d actually fielded in 4ths as a sub for Northern District when I was 13 in 1966 and I had worked the scoreboard at Waitara Oval when I was 11.  And now I’ve finished by Captaining 5th Grade at the age of 56.
So I stand here swept away with emotion. On the one hand I don’t really want to retire because I’ve already started to miss it, but I have to ... The signs were there last season.  The things that were once easy are now monumentally difficult.
I will miss overseas Tours, Intervarsities, Premierships, Celebrations, the general knowledge quiz every Saturday with Burkey, going down to No 1 Oval to catch up with the others every Saturday evening, playing with the vast number of delightful eccentrics, seriously disturbed, the theoreticians, the cynics, the whingers, the precious, the fragile, the certifiably mad ... and none of those even start to describe Greg Matthews.
But I’m still immensely proud of playing for this Club with its 150 year traditions, having studied at this University for six years, playing Grade Cricket over two millennia, two centuries, six decades, 42 consecutive seasons.
I read during the week that Craig Bellamy lamented that giving yourself to the game, doesn’t mean that the game will give much back to you. Well, I think, I’ve proved that wrong, because the game, this Club, and everyone associated with it has given me so many memories, so much pleasure, so much fulfilment.  Chris Elder said that playing for Uni taught him how to enjoy the game but playing for ND’s taught him how to win. Well, I’ve been blessed to find both enjoyment and victory, particularly in the last 10 years or so when the Club has celebrated 2 Club Championship, 4 runners-up, two 1st Grade Premiership, two in 2nd Grade, two in 3rd , four in 5ths, four in 6ths.  These are the golden years.
So my grateful thanks to all the current generation of players, and to my early mentors, all of whom are here tonight: Ian Fisher, Ian Foulsham, Rob Thomas, Bruce Collins, Mick O’Sullivan, Damon Ridley.  My many colleagues over the decades have all contributed to wonderful memories. Quite remarkably there are five tonight who began at University on the same day, 38 years ago.
My family has also meant much to me during these years.  Liz, many have said that she must be very patient to allow me to keep playing.  Well, she hasn’t allowed me at all. She’s encouraged me and been with me in all the emotions of the games.  Patrick and Michael.  My sons have put up with me but I was pleased that they both saw my last wicket in Grade Cricket in my last game at St Paul’s Oval.
I’ve walked from one golden Saturday to another for over 40 years.
And now I am to wander the sidelines.  Francis Thompson wrote a haunting poem over 100 years ago about going to see his old team mates.  I’ve adapted it slightly but part of it goes like this.
‘A ghostly batsman is playing to the bowling of a ghost
while I look though my tears on the soundless clapping host
as the run stealers flicker to and fro
to and fro
O my teammates at University, long ago, long ago.’
I will never forget you.
God bless you all.
James Rodgers