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GREG SCAHILL 1924-2022
The month after celebrating his 98th birthday, Greg Scahill has died. He was the second oldest of all those who played for the Club. Greg's teammate in the Veterans' XI, Kendal Binns, is 99.
A more comprehensive obituary will follow shortly but we should acknowledge Greg for whom the University and our Club were so significant.
Greg played for the Club during the Second World War when he was studying Engineering and before he enlisted. He then graced the Club's Veterans until the 1970s. His reports on the Vets' unlikely activities and his self-deprecating after dinner speaking were much sought after.
Greg was elected as a Vice President of the Club from 1972; he served as President from 1973 until 1976; he was elected as a Life Member in 1977 and he was a Life Member of the SUCC Foundation.
The Club's deepest sympathy is extended to Greg's surviving family, his son John and his daughter Louise.
SYDNEY UNIVERSITY CRICKET CLUB NEW PLAYER TRIALS SEASON 2022/23
NEW PLAYER TRIAL APPLICATIONS HAVE NOW CLOSED
We are in the process of analysing the stats and will send invitations and session times to the successful applicants by Wednesday next week. We thank you for your patience.
Dear Cricketers
The Sydney University Cricket club invites cricketers who are interested in attending our New Player trials to be held on Sunday 21st August from 10am to 3pm to apply by clicking on the link below.
Applications apply to players wishing to play Premier Level Cricket in the Sydney Grade Competition
Please NOTE- All applicants must be over the age of 16 years old as of the 31st August 2022 (only those players not eligible for AW Green Shield selection will be considered)
Once we receive your applications, emailed invitations will be sent to the successful players allocating a time slot on the above date.
*PLEASE NOTE THE TRIALS ARE BY INVITATION ONLY;
*IF YOU ARE A USYD STUDENT PLEASE MENTION THIS ON THE FORM;
*APPLICANTS MUST BE AUSTRALIAN RESIDENTS TO QUALIFY
________________________________________________________________________________
The trials will take place at:
The Martin Lambert Indoor Nets
TAG Family Foundation Grandstand
Building 23 Regimental Drive
The University of Sydney
Camperdown
Applications close on the 3rd August at 5pm
Best in Cricket
SUCC
Rodney Tubbs, an alumnus of the University, has received an Honorary Fellowship for his ongoing dedication to the University of Sydney's sport and fitness community.
Rodney Tubbs was awarded the fellowship in a ceremony presided over by University of Sydney Presiding Pro-Chancellor, David Mortimer.
An avid footballer, Mr Tubbs – affectionately known as ‘Tubbsy’ to his university peers – first became involved in the University’s sports and fitness community in 1965 as a player in the Aussie Rules Football Club.
Mr Tubbs’ time in the Club left an indelible mark on the wider University sporting community. Not only was he named the Club’s ‘best & fairest’ winner, but he also captained and coached their senior side to an inaugural premiership victory. In 1967, his excellent sportsmanship in Australian Football was acknowledged with a University Blue – one of the highest honours a sportsperson can receive at the University of Sydney.
Since 1996, Mr Tubbs has been instrumental in advocating for and supporting University athletes. Initially reconnecting with the University’s Sports Union, he has run more than 100 fundraising functions for the ‘Blue & Gold’ Club, which he established to celebrate the University’s sporting alumni.
Rodney Tubbs at his Honorary Fellowship conferral.
In later years, he worked with the Sydney Uni Sport and Fitness (SUSF) Executive Director to start the University of Sydney Sport Foundation. From 2005 until last year, Mr Tubbs was the Chair of the Foundation – managing corporate and alumni relations, fundraising for sporting clubs, and, most importantly, facilitating a strong a sense of belonging and community.
“Over the last 20 or so years, Rodney has made an unparalleled contribution to Sydney Uni Sport and Fitness,” Presiding Pro-Chancellor David Mortimer said.
“His extraordinary dedication has helped shape the community and has ensured student athletes are afforded the opportunities they need to thrive. Not only did he establish the ‘Rodney Tubbs Scholarship’ for Australian Rules Football, but he played an instrumental role in establishing the Commonwealth Bank of Australia Indigenous Scholarship, which is awarded to young Indigenous athletes.
“I am honoured to confer him as an Honorary Fellow of the University.”
Honorary degrees are awarded to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the wider community or who have achieved exceptional academic or creative excellence. Mr Rodney Tubbs has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship.
Greg SCAHILL celebrated his 98th birthday on 22 June. The Club joins in the celebration for our second oldest former player. (Kendal Binns will turn 100 in March next year).
Greg played for SUCC from 1941 until 1944. He studied Engineering and served in the Australian Army. He then turned out for the Veterans until the 1970s.
He is a former President of the Club (1973-1976), a Vice President since 1972 and a Life Member since 1977. He still retains a close interest in the Club.
When he was President, he gave great practical assistance to the Club even coming out of retirement to play two games when 5ths were struggling for numbers during the holidays.
Greg was much in demand as an after dinner speaker at Club functions. His self-deprecating humour and breadth of knowledge were always much appreciated and fondly remembered.
James Rodgers
DR BRYCE COOPER
Dr Cooper served Quirindi and district as a general practitioner for 41 years, but was also a talented sportsman, representing Sydney University in the first-grade cricket competition, athletics, baseball, and swimming. In 1929 he was selected in the NSW Sheffield Shield cricket team, captained by Alan Kippax and alongside international players Archie Jackson, Donald Bradman, and Alan Fairfax. Dr Cooper opened the bowling for NSW. He was also offered the opportunity to travel to England and play with the Australian team. Unfortunately, he had to decline this offer as his plan was to remain in England for work experience, and it was a proviso that the team travel both to and from England together.
Leaving Brisbane in June 1932 for England, Dr Cooper was Assistant Ship’s Doctor on board the “Port Bowen”. Once in London, he worked as a casualty officer at the National Temperance Hospital, and as House Surgeon for the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Women and Children. He served as Ship’s Medical Officer on his return to Australia, leaving Christmas Eve 1934.
Dr Cooper spent most of his working life in Quirindi, from early 1935, when he took over Dr Hessell Howell’s practice at 8 Dalley Street, until his retirement to Sydney in 1975 due to ill health. He was born in Lewisham, Sydney in 1905 and studied Medicine at Sydney University. He trained at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Royal Women’s Hospital and Prince Henry Hospital.
Although a general practitioner, Dr Cooper was also a specialist in gynaecology. He is said to have delivered some 3,000 babies in the Quirindi district. When he first came to Quirindi, obstetrics was mostly done in the home until addition of an obstetrics block at the hospital.
Some stories from Dr Cooper’s Memoirs, published in Quirindi Advocate, June 30, 1976 on his retirement, include a trip beyond Caroona through floodwaters to treat a patient. “He drove his English Austin 6 to the railway bridge, crossed the railway line by train, transferred to horseback and with his bag sitting on the saddle pummel eventually got to treat the patient…” Another was an accident north of Wallabadah on the highway where he found “an upturned panel van and two ‘green people’ wandering about…” The publican and his wife from Wallabadah had been to Tamworth, where they had purchased green paint, spilling out when the vehicle overturned.
A farewell was held at Quirindi Pavilion upon Dr Cooper’s retirement, attended by around 400 people, “a testimonial to his position in the community. The Pavilion was beautifully decorated by members of the Quirindi Garden Club with two big arrangements on the stage and table decorations on the supper tables”. (Over the Teacups – Quirindi Advocate June 30, 1976)
Whilst in Quirindi and district he was actively involved in the golf club, tennis club, swimming club and bowling club.
Dr Cooper passed away in Sydney on May 19, 1995
Quirindi Historical Cottage and Museum has a collection of medical instruments used by Dr Cooper in his medical practice, including a stethoscope, tweezers, scissors, scalpels and other small items. His brass professional plate hangs in the hallway. More recent donations include the NSW Sheffield Cricket Team pullover worn by Dr Cooper whilst playing in 1929 and a framed photograph of the team.
Dr. George Frank Hugh Stening
Frank Stening, one of University’s outstanding cricketers of the 1950s, died on 10 May 2022 at the age of 85.
Dr Stening entered University to study Medicine in 1955, following a very successful career in school cricket at Cranbrook. Possibly at school his batting was more highly regarded than his bowling – he scored 101 not out against Barker in 1953-54 – but he was the leading all-rounder in an unusually strong Associated Schools competition that featured players like Gordon Rorke and Neil Marks. University’s selectors were quick to seize on his potential as a fast bowler, and he was hurried into the First Grade side in 1955-56. It was a steep learning curve, and he captured only a handful of expensive wickets in that first season. He later recalled that
It was daunting to be playing with and against names you had only heard of and not met. Grade cricket in those days was strong and you played regularly against the state players and internationals. Remember too, that NSW was virtually the Test side. And there were many grade cricketers as good as the internationals playing in the competition. In 1955 Peter Hall was our captain, a debonair and slightly eccentric architectural student/graduate. He would arrive at the cricket attired in a Uni Blues blazer driving a vintage car or Bentley that stood out amongst the opposition, and us, especially at places like Bankstown. He was unfailingly polite and a handy, but not brilliant, cricketer. My second game in First Grade was on the Monday of the long weekend against Manly at Manly and Keith Miller was captaining Manly. There was a decent crowd there to see Miller, who had been controversially dropped from the Test side. I can remember he strolled into our dressing room before the start not knowing any of us except Saxon, and wanted to know our captain. Peter timidly, but very presentably, indicated he was and Miller immediately demanded 'do you want to bat or bowl?' Peter responded that he thought we should toss, to which Miller responded 'you bat', which we did. They beat us by an innings in the day and Miller did virtually nothing other than to run me out. That was really how we were accepted in grade and we ended the season not winning a game and having, I think, one draw.
The following season, Dr Stening made a useful contribution towards the First Grade team’s surge to the semi-finals. Unfortunately, in the last match before the finals, he held a spectacular diving catch at backward square against North Sydney, but broke a rib in the process, and could only look on as Glebe overpowered the students.
By the start of the 1957-58 season, he had developed his pace and stamina and became a genuine force in First Grade cricket. A few critics complained that he didn’t move the ball very much, but at his best he could be as quick as any bowler in Sydney. In December 1957, he bowled 18 eight-ball overs in an afternoon to claim 5-67 against a strong St George side. Although he and his new-ball partner Dave Walker suffered from limited support and some terribly fallible catching, Stening ended the season with 34 wickets at the excellent average of 19. He also scored his first half-century in First Grade and earned his first representative selection, for a Metropolitan team against a combined Newcastle-Illawarra side. He improved still further in 1958-59, claiming 35 wickets at 13, including a conspicuously hostile spell of 7-30 against Bankstown. He was chosen in the NSW Colts team for the annual match against Queensland Colts and, although his bowling was hampered by an ankle injury suffered in the week before the game, he followed his two wickets with a match-saving innings of 56 (against an attack that included, in Tom Veivers and Peter Allan, two future Test bowlers). His hard-hitting batting was often valuable in University’s lower-middle order.
Although his pace had dropped a little in 1959-60, Stening still managed 30 wickets at 16 in 1959-60, and also hit his highest First Grade score, 60 against North Sydney. That innings ended in unusual circumstances: not out overnight, he was nowhere to be found when play resumed on the second day of the game, and was “timed out”. When he eventually appeared at the ground, he blamed his lateness on a punctured tire, and grabbed three wickets to help University win a tight match by 16 runs. Altogether in First Grade he scored 779 runs at an average of 15.9 and took 114 wickets at 20.
George Frank Hugh Stening was born on 20 October 1936 and died on 10 May 2022. He is survived by his second wife Loekie, their daughter Nadina, and his sons Mike, Angus and Tom. The club extends its condolences to Dr Stening’s family.
Max Bonnell