If you looked closely at the sports results in the Sydney Morning Herald last week, you would have found the latest results from the Pennant Hills Golf Club, and if you looked closely at those, you would have found the name “K Binns” among the leaders.
Which is interesting because, if you looked at the Sydney Morning Herald sports results back in December 1941, you would have seen the name of that very same K Binns, turning out in the Sydney University First Grade cricket side.
Born on 10 March 1923, Kendal Binns is, at 96, the oldest living University First Grader. He made his First Grade debut in 1941-42, becoming our 316th capped player. In one of his earliest matches, against St George at Hurstville, he played a defiant, unbeaten innings against Ray Lindwall, Bill O’Reilly and Arthur Morris to save his side from an outright defeat. Between 1941 and 1944, he scored 587 runs in First Grade. He earned a Blue for cricket in 1942, to match the Blue for Baseball he won in the same year. In December 1942, he contributed useful runs when University achieved a surprise win over a powerful Petersham side including Test batsman Sid Barnes and future professionals Cec Pepper and Bill Alley. Graduating with a degree in Dentistry in 1944, he then served in the Army until 1947. He later played cricket for the University Veterans into the 1960s, and he has been a long-standing and highly successful golfer at Pennant Hills. That club’s program for supporting young players is named the Kendal Binns Junior Foundation.
The only other Sydney University players who approach Kendal’s age are former Club President Greg Scahill (95) and former First Grade captain Bert Alderson, who will turn 95 on Saturday.