AT LORDS
Lords is the spiritual home of cricket and the annual test there is the high peak of the summer game in the UK. Over the years I visited Lords each of the twelve times I was on leave in England. On each visit I have gone to the famous ground almost as soon as arriving in London. For the cricket fan and indeed sports enthusiasts there is something mythical about Lords.
It is steeped in history and, across the generations, the greatest players from the four corners of the globe have trod the emerald green turf. The honour boards in the majestic Victorian pavilion record the names of all the centurions or ‘five for’ bowlers in the annals of Tests, played there.
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It is not a lengthy bus ride from bustling Oxford Street in the city’s heart, along Edgeware Road. The bus stops at St John’s Wood Road and then it is a few hundred metres walk along the leafy avenue of the main Member’s entrance – the Grace Gates. The latter honours the life and times of the legendary W.G. Grace, cricket’s first superstar. A Gloucestershire doctor, the burly, bearded Grace is acknowledged as the player who took cricket from the village greens and turned it into the mass spectator sport we know today.
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The name Grace loomed so large over cricket’s firmament that whenever he played around England there would be gate signs thus ‘Admission sixpence – if the Doctor plays its one shilling’.
Grace believed the crowds flocked to see him bat and there were times on dismissal when he refused to depart – waving his bat to the crowd and telling the umpire “they’ve come to see me bat, not you raising your finger”.
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SOBERS’ 184
In 1970, I was fortunate to be at the famous ground for England versus a World XI. The game was played in mostly glorious weather in front of capacity crowds.
The high noon of an English cricket season is the Saturday of the Lords Test and, on this particular Saturday, the gates were closed with thousands locked out.
I won’t go into details of the game except to write that the West Indies superstar Sir Garfield Sobers transformed the Lords field into a cloth of gold on that sunlit afternoon with a majestic 184 scored in just under four hours.
He produced every stroke known to the game and, on dismissal, the whole crowd stood to applaud him all the way from the wicket to the pavilion.
I watched the play alongside a Yorkshire farmer and his wife. Both avid cricket fans, they had been at Headingly, Leeds, in 1948 for Don Bradman’s final Test on the iconic Yorkshire ground, where he had hit triple centuries in 1930 and 1934.
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THE OLDEST RIVALRY
Australia return to England next year for a further chapter in the Ashes saga – the oldest rivalry in sport. It is 25 years since the Aussies have won a series in the old country. Before the tour, though, there is the iconic 150th anniversary test between the two nations at the MCG in early March 2027, tickets are selling fast for the game.
SPECTACULAR
One of my nephews Ric Martin who attended ACK in the mid eighties has just returned from his third African safari with his wife Paula. He loves the sights and sounds of a remarkable country especially the vistas and beauty of the natural parks such as depicted in the picture.
Ric said he felt safer in Johannesburg than in Melbourne.
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VALE PAT CLARKE
Patrick James (Pat) Clarke was farewelled from this life by a large assemblage at St Patrick’s church just a week ago. The Tantaraboo hill farmer was much loved by family and friends and was truly a genuine Aussie of faith and principle. Pat faced a tough cancer battle with fortitude until the very end. Father Jossy conducted a fine Requiem Mass, the finest form of a Christian service. Lifelong friend Bernard Clancy delivered a splendid eulogy highlighting a life well lived by a really good man.
A student of Assumption in the sixties along with his well-known and also highly respected brother Michael. A sister Mary was deceased. I remember the two boys from college days and recall their very fine parents. The families lived in a weatherboard home close to where St Patricks PS is now situated. Pat had a great knowledge of the hill area and surrounding areas. He was a longtime member of Springfield CFA and for quite sometime was a much esteemed brigade captain. Family members played their part in the mass- wife Carolyn also immediate family James, Janet, Karen, Ian and Emily. He was a grandfather of four and a loved uncle and friend to many. Traditional hymns highlighted the service which also featured the CFA service conducted by commander Matt Chiltern and David Allen.
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Pat may have gone to the greater life but he will long be remembered by family and friends.
