Stories of those who’ve played just one 1st Grade game for the Club
‘FV McADAM, bowled Mailey 0’
Behind Obscurity.
He was one of those “ordinary men or women whose lives are the actual stuff of history.” (Isaiah Berlin, ‘The Hedgehog and The Fox’, 1953).
He played just one game in 1st Grade.
On the last day of March 1917, on a sultry Saturday afternoon at the University Oval, FV McAdam walked out at number 11 to join AC (‘Tim’) Yates. So little was McAdam known that the scorers, who probably misheard him, wrote his initials as FB instead of FV and he appears forever in the newspapers and season’s statistics as FB McAdam. Before too long, McAdam was bowled by AA Mailey for 0 to give the leg spinner his sixth wicket of the innings and his fiftieth for the Grade season. The scorers had little difficulty recognising Arthur Mailey, already a 1st class player who was to play 1st class cricket from 1912 until 1930 and to take 779 wickets. He was a long-established 1st Grader (1906-1935. 828 wickets) and was soon to be a Test cricketer (1920-26. 99 wickets). The whimsical Mailey who “bowled like a millionaire” often gave tailenders some easy ones to get off the mark. He’d smile as he ran in to bowl and roll down a looping full toss. If this was a Mailey full toss, McAdam simply missed it before it rattled into his stumps. Balmain went on to win the game easily. McAdam didn’t bowl and fielded indifferently.
Ten years later, in December 1927, Mailey, now aged 41, was still playing for NSW. Dr FV McAdam was the manager of the NSW team’s ‘Southern tour’ to Adelaide and Melbourne. He sits rather stiffly in the middle of the front row of the formal team photo. Mailey sits two to his left, leaning forward as if having a quiet word with the camera man. Cricket had once again brought the two of them together. Did they remember their brief meeting in the middle of University Oval a decade before?
After that game, McAdam played no more 1st Grade. In fact, he hardly played much Grade cricket at all. Medical studies, medical practice, a young family, cricket administration, renown as a Contract Bridge expert all combined to reduce the time available to play cricket.
But when McAdam played against Mailey, he was already a curiosity. At 29, he was considerably older than his undergraduate team mates. He’d already taken out two degrees (BA 1911, BSc 1916). He was a Catholic, very unusual in the University sides of the time. And he had already served in the 1st AIF, a lucky survivor of Gallipoli.
In reality, McAdam was simply an enthusiastic but limited cricketer, a left hand batsman more at home in 3rd Grade.
So what was he doing in 1st Grade in March 1917?
The easy answer is that he was just available at the right time. War service had considerably cut into the number of cricketing undergraduates available. From the 1st Grade side that had played the previous game, Eric Leggo and Rex Sturt had enlisted and were in training preparatory to being sent overseas. Leggo was killed in October 1918, just three weeks before the Armistice. Sturt survived, was admitted as a barrister and continued a lengthy 1st Grade career with University, Gordon, Petersham and Paddington. Leggo was a fast bowler. Sturt was an all-rounder. McAdam was neither. But he was a resident at St John’s College, just up the hill from the Oval, and he possibly knew Dentistry student Mick Bardsley, the Club Secretary and 1st Grade captain, who must have been desperate to find eleven players for the last game of the season.
Francis Victor McAdam was born at Wagga on 5 November 1888 but his family moved to Scone where he was first educated before enrolling at the Marist Brothers’ school, St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill, on 11 July 1904. At St Joseph’s he flourished in his studies, earning awards in twelve subjects in 1907. His faith was both intellectual and practical. He was awarded the prize for Christian Doctrine in 1906 by the formidable Archbishop Michael Kelly and he served loyally in the various College sodalities. In the 1907 1st XI, he batted towards the end of the order and in the GPS games scored three quarters of his runs in one extraordinary innings of 30 against Shore School. He enrolled in Arts in 1908 and, while studying at the University, returned to St Joseph’s to help teach Maths and Science. He was also a Demonstrator in Chemistry at the University.
Once War was declared, he interrupted his University studies and his cricket career with Sydney University. He enlisted a few weeks after the end of the 1914-15 season when he had been a reliable batsman (132 runs at 16.5) in the Club’s 3rd Grade, often batting with HV Evatt (295 runs at 32.3). Evatt would also play just one 1st Grade game with the Club. In February 1916, he was Secretary of the Club when the 1st Grade captain contacted him on a Saturday morning with the news that one of the batsmen couldn’t play against Glebe on that day. Evatt promptly selected himself and turned up at 1st Grade wearing grey trousers and canvas shoes. He made 15 and 4 and never appeared in the highest grade again. He was, however, one of the pivotal figures in Australian life during the twentieth century: a brilliant student, a member of Parliament, King’s Counsel, Justice of the High Court of Australia, President of the United Nations’ General Assembly, Deputy Prime Minister, Leader of the ALP and the Federal Opposition Leader in the 1950s before an ill-considered return to the Law as Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court. Even with all these honours, he often referred to himself as a “former 1st Grade cricketer”.
When Private FV McAdam, regimental number 4437, enlisted at Liverpool thirteen days before the first Anzac Day, he stood 165 centimetres tall and weighed 53 kilograms. His attesting officer was Captain John Alexander James, a Cricket and Rugby Blue at Sydney University. He left Australia on RMS Mooltan on 15 March and served at Gallipoli. Late in 1915, he was admitted to hospital at Lemnos , suffering from paratyphoid (usually contracted through contaminated water or food). He was to spend over four months convalescing until he was evacuated back to Australia in March 1916. Through his sickness and his return to Australia, McAdam was spared much of the disintegrating European world and the devastating battles fought over the next three years in the mud of France.
Nothing much was ever said about his time in the AIF. The St Joseph’s College magazine commented cryptically that “we hear he had some funny experience.”
So he resumed his studies, graduated BSc at the end of 1916, got married, and then enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine graduating MB ChM in 1921. He practised firstly at South Sydney Hospital and then as a General Practitioner at Lidcombe. He also resumed his cricket career once again, this time with Central Cumberland in 3rd Grade where his 240 runs at 20 and highest score of 79 were the highlights of his cricket career. He was an inveterate organiser, a generous volunteer, driven to cricket administration. He was elected as a Vice President of his new Club in 1923, President in January 1925, a Delegate to the NSWCA in 1926. And he returned to the playing fields once more but without any distinction. Two seasons (1925-26 and 1926-27) brought him just 134 runs at 7 and 3 wickets. Then, in 1929-30, aged 41, he played one last match in 3rd Grade in which he didn’t bat and bowled two erratic overs for 26. His oldest son, Max, aged 12, had filled in for 3rd Grade for whom he usually acted as scorer, for one game during the previous season.
When he was appointed as Manager of the NSW side, captained by Alan Kippax, in December 1927 he took a professional interest in the two promising youngsters, AA (Archie) Jackson aged 18 and DG (Don) Bradman aged 19. A year later, the lyrical Archie Jackson made a century on debut in Test cricket. Just over five years later, he was dead, stricken by TB, while Bradman was breaking every batting record imaginable. Dr McAdam looked after Bradman who had never travelled outside NSW before and who caught a cold on the train to Adelaide. McAdam nursed him back to health and Bradman, originally named as 12th man, replaced Jackson in the NSW XI when Jackson developed a boil on his knee which did not respond in time to McAdam’s ministrations. So in Adelaide, Bradman batted at number 7 and scored the first of his 117 1st class centuries with a mature innings of 118 on debut. The team, however, faltered, losing both games on tour. Mailey was reaching the end of his distinguished career and, aged 41, bowled expensively as his 9 wickets cost 461 runs. As Manager, McAdam was industrious and thoughtful. His official report to the NSWCA contained a logically argued proposal to limit the hours of play for Sheffield Shield games.
By 1931, he seems to have finished with cricket, standing down after seven seasons as President of Cumberland, and throwing his considerable energies into Local Government as an Alderman on Lidcombe Council. In this role he was instrumental in the decision to construct Lidcombe Oval, completed in 1933, and for many years home to 1st Grade cricket and Rugby League games. By this time, Dr McAdam was considered one of Australia’s foremost authorities on Contract Bridge. He wrote extensively, spoke on Sydney’s Catholic radio station 2SM and captained the NSW Bridge team in matches against Victoria.
The future seemed bright for this kind, genial doctor with a meticulous attention to detail in his myriad administrative tasks but not enslaved by the routine of daily life; a father of five children; a man of significant academic achievement and one who lived the ancient Roman virtue ‘pietas’, a sense of duty, loyalty and responsibility. Such a career ended in tragedy. On the night of 10 September 1934, crossing the road near Phillip Street in Sydney, he was hit and killed by a runaway car whose brakes had failed.
FV McAdam lead a largely ordinary life but he had come into fleeting contact with some of the Australian cricketing greats of his time…Mailey, Kippax, Jackson, Bradman…and was a part of their history.
And on that Saturday in 1917, he played his only 1st Grade game and was bowled for 0.
James Rodgers
