Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Courtesy of melbournefc.com.au

JAI SHEAHAN, Melbourne’s first selection in the NAB AFL Rookie Draft, says another recent appointee, midfield development coach Aaron Greaves, has already played a big part in his career.

Sheahan said his former Geelong Falcons coach had worked closely with him throughout 2011.

“Aaron Greaves was my coach, and he was a massive influence on my game this year. He probably turned my year around and made me to where I am now,” he told melbournefc.com.au.

“I got pretty close to Aaron during the year. He’s a really good fella and he taught me a lot.

“I spoke to him a fair bit – prior to the Draft and the Rookie Draft. He gave me advice about the things I needed to work on.

“Once I got here, [he told me] how I needed to train, which was really helpful.”

Sheahan was surprisingly overlooked in last month’s NAB AFL Draft, but rapt when he was the sixth player called out in the Rookie Draft.

“It was disappointing to miss out on the Draft, but probably 20 minutes after the Draft, I got a call from Melbourne asking me to come down and train and try out,” he said.

“It was a bit of a booster after that, and it got the spirits up a bit.

“To get [my name] called out was a massive thrill. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, play football. For it finally to come true was really good.”

A key forward with the Falcons, Sheahan has also been earmarked for a position down back with the Demons.

He said having trained with Melbourne before the Rookie Draft had been positive.

“It was a bit of an introduction – to rock up on the first day is always a bit daunting, but if you’re here for a couple of weeks, you get to know a few blokes,” he said.

“The training has been solid, but it’s a dream and [playing in the] AFL is what I want to do.

“It’s really good, and I’m enjoying it.”

Sheahan has already “set the limits high” and wants to play senior football in 2012, but for now, he is relishing the opportunity to be at an AFL club.

“It’s unreal. It’s always been a dream to get to an AFL club and to be here is pretty surreal, so it’s good,” he said.

“I [found out I was drafted when I] was watching it on the computer with my family, and then I was scrolling down the screen and I saw my name pop up.

“I didn’t know what to think.”

On November 29^th, Newtown and Chilwell Cricket Club helped host a visit to Geelong by around 30 England Over 60s players and their partners.

One of the GCA’s legends, Robert Agg, fulfilled a boyhood dream at the age of 63 of captaining Australia.  That was the main game at Kardinia Park against an England side that include Ray Swann, father of the English off-spinner. The English won.

Down at Stinton Oval, where we hosted an England XI playing the Geelong over 60s, it was a different story.  The locals prevailed.

But forget the result for a minute and reflect upon just how brilliant it was to see the names Geelong and England in red letters up on Barnso’s scoreboard.

It certainly was a red letter day, for our club, for our game, and for our region.

The “two and froms” after a disastrous trip to New South Wales couldn’t believe the facilities we had to offer them here in Geelong.

Those that played on KP thought it as good as any ground they had ever seen – and the pitch.

And when they got down to Queens Park, they joined the chorus of their colleagues who spent the day there in declaring it one of the best club cricket facilities they had ever seen.

GT had produced a belter.

The game was decided in the penultimate over.

Clare’s food won rave reviews.

The chink of English coin at the N&CCC bar was a great thing to hear.

Next morning, we got an email from one of the best cricket administrators Geelong has had and will ever have congratulating N&CCC for the way it hosted its game, then the function afterwards.

There were a host of N&CCC people who put their shoulder to the wheel to make it happen.  No names, we – and they – know who they are. There is no I in N&CCC, but there is a U in club.

Every accolade was deserved.

Others – and we know who they are, too – can spend their lives in childish self-denial, but Queens Park, Stinton Oval, GT’s pitches, the sightscreens, the new practice facility, the men’s shed, the balcony, the rooms, the aspect across the ground, through the ancient trees and on to the Barwon, they make it a no contest.

If you don’t believe us, just ask the lovely woman from St Joeys from a few weeks back when our neighbours from across the river visited.

This the finest place to play – and watch – cricket in Geelong.

The Club was saddened last week to hear of the passing of legendary player of the fifties and Club Captain Len Reid.

The last time we had the pleasure of Len’s company was at the Centenary function back in March when by hook or by crook he was going to attend and more importantly stay after collapsing at the function. Having been told he would have to attend hospital, Len’s reacted was ‘be blowed’ and back in he went!

To say that Len was stiff to not be a member of the Centenary team is an understatement. A team that could have had 40 to 50 players selected, Len’s non selection caused much debate!

• Joined the club in 1957/58, playing four seasons including three Golden Era premierships
• Club captain in 1959/60 – the middle year of the Golden Era of three consecutive premierships
• 48 games with the club scoring 1052 runs at 25.2 with a highest score of 111 against Leopold in 1959. 76 wickets at 18.71 including a best of 6/86 against Geelong West in 1961.
• Len also represented the GCA at three VCCL Country Week carnivals – 1958/59/60 – all premierships!

During the last season Len played at Newtown he lived in Donvale – near Dandenong, in Melbourne.  He hitchhiked to the game in Geelong every week.  Very early in the season Len was fortunate to get a lift from Footscray to Geelong, and managed to establish such a relationship with the driver that it was agreed that  if Len could get to Footscray at the same place and  time each Saturday he would be guaranteed a lift to Geelong.  Obviously it was not possible to keep this up indefinitely and Len shifted around in his work on a regular basis.  He told us that he just loved his years at Newtown, and that it was a pleasure for him to play for the club despite his travel problems in his last season.  He is remembered by his team mates as an unassuming talented gentleman who was an excellent captain.

This generates even more talk about the reliability of memories. What follows is constructed out of irreplaceable, indispensable, unreliable memories, the only corrections being those insisted on by my brother, David Jewell, who played for the Newtown and Chilwell Cricket Club over many years.

Remembered: a cricket ground at Queen’s Park, Geelong. A beautiful ground ringed by a white line to mark the boundary, a white fence for leaning on and an outer ring of storm green pines. The sun is high at 2pm when the game begins; the shadows lengthening, the sounds of bat and ball more distant as the sun slants and the game moves to its close at six.

For me the cricket is always sunlit, perhaps because on wet or blustery or blistering days I find something else to do. The players in their creams and streaked white boots lounge on matted pine needles or in the natural armchairs of pine roots polished by years of exposure and a couple of generations of human bottoms. Someone — the one-legged opener? — is sitting, rather grandly, on a deck chair; beyond him, Captain Morry’s 1932 Chevy. Its handsome red grille noses the fence. A shadowy someone is in the passenger seat: Mrs Morry? No other women. Wives are present only in the gleaming cream of cricket shirts and pants.

And I have my first puzzle: how was my recalcitrant mother persuaded to fuss over cricketing creams in the clatter and steam of her huge Monday boil-ups? My brother tells me that afternoon tea used to be served by the home team ladies during the 20-minute break, but now, at the close of the war, there is no afternoon tea and minimal fraternising with the opposition.

In our cluster there’s some moments of clapping, some peaceable ribbing — to a player back after the second ball has spread his stumps, “Couldn’t bear to leave us, Charlie?” — but mainly we watch in silence, and when it is over everyone goes home for the meal we call tea. My family eats at six, but on cricket nights my mother has the meal on the kitchen table at 6.30 sharp. Talk and analysis, if they happen, happen elsewhere.

All this is 60-plus years gone, but in the wide-open eye of my mind it is yesterday, as luminous, as indisputably actual, as a Manet. But this Manet is framed not in gilt but in swirling vapour trails . . .

In the second half of the 40s Geelong was a small town laced together by sporting clubs which often had a church in the background, not that it mattered. My second brother played under-15s cricket for St Matthew’s Church of England without seeing the inside of a church.

The Catholic-Protestant division ran bitter and political but while the purest Protestants played only between themselves the Catholics fielded teams in the general senior competition, and when Newtown and Chilwell won the premiership in . . . 1947? 1948? . . . it was a Catholic team they beat (my brother making an elegant 70-plus). Most of the people in the team, like most of the people I knew, seemed to profess nothing beyond a cheerful secularism.

There were no visible class distinctions, either. Pastry cook, dairyman, schoolteacher, clerk, chemist, railway worker, carpenter, cobbler — the team’s string of occupations reads like an old-style nursery rhyme. Captain Morry was foreman at the local ropeworks; the ropeworks manager-owner played under his strict captaincy. Carson Carroll, a small, dark, gentle man I suspected of being sweet on my dashing big sister, ran a dairy farm at Fyansford; my big brother’s best friend’s father ran a pub.

Then there were the schoolboys from Geelong High or the Gordon Tech recruited by one of our eager army of spotters. The clubs were short of men, by war’s end. My big brother, six years older than me, was one of the team’s star batsmen when he was still at school, going in at one or two down, often scoring better than 50 and (to my mind) always beautiful to watch.

I also remember my scalding envy when my other brother, a mere three years older than me and still wearing short pants, was urgently called to the crease towards the end of a tense match (had someone been hurt?). He can’t have been much more than 12, but he made three, carried his bat, and a handful of years later was one of the club’s steadiest batsmen.

In those days when, say, a batsman crumpled, everyone came running, then huddled unhappily while a privileged few helped the wounded one from the field and into more expert care. I simply can’t get used to the fish-eyed indifference projected these days, with even the men closest standing like logs and everything left to the pros. As for sledging! As for a captain whingeing at an ump’s decision!

Back then, decorum ruled and umpires were a tribe apart. They might chat briefly with Morry (if they’d met him in the street there’d be handshakes and shoulder-clasps) but at the ground their aloofness protected their authority, which was absolute. There might be lip-tightening at a decision, but never an audible murmur of dissent. Nor do I remember any altercations between players and no swearing, either, on field or off.

Watching, I’d be freshly astounded, as I’d been through season on season of impromptu beach cricket, at the male passion for inventing rules and then for passionately honouring them. This was a most durable form of sacred men’s business, being produced through shared ceremonial action in a specially sanctified space, and consolidated into lore through the slow drip-feed of talk, time and experience, with all this happening inside a democratic male tribe where hierarchy depended a little on age, more on character and most on god-given talent.

Yet there were, it seemed to me, moral oddities. One example: when our one-legged opener peg-legged out to the crease, the opposition would bring on their slow bowler so he couldn’t just prop back and whack ‘em (he had a great eye) but would be forced to use his mismatched feet. And I worried: was this a fair tactic to use against a man with a wooden leg? Yet it never raised a murmur. Yes, he had only one leg and was therefore allowed a runner, but he fielded usefully (in slips) every week and every week he earned his place. Of course they should bring on their slow. Anything other would indicate lack of respect.

And now I have to face Mrs Morry. A dear friend of mine insists that her vivid, detailed, emotion-drenched earliest memories are camera-accurate, and I believe her. But I discover some of mine, however vivid, however cherished, are fantasy.

I have cheated Mrs Morry. I have evaded or blurred her, when at every match there she would be, sitting very upright in the passenger seat of the Chevrolet, watching the game through the upright windscreen — and keeping immaculate score. As I now know. As I now (almost) remember. What I remembered until yesterday was that I was the one who kept score, but now that my brother has reminded me, I can see her, faintly wavy behind the glass, obdurately there. Perhaps my false memory rests on some crisis occasion when she was ill.

Remembering harder (blinking into the smoking crystal) I see Carson Carroll sitting beside me, a little away from the main group, repeating the numbers, watching my pencil, praising my exactitude. His wrist is in a cast. Carson is the fill-in scorer. Carson is also being kind to a droopy 10-year-old female hanger-on who happens to have a pretty sister. I was never the scorer, not even once — and a private, secret source of self-pride shreds. I think I managed my lonely childhood by imagining myself to be socially invisible: the watcher unwatched, the never-participant observer. Decades too late, I burn with shame to know I was not only seen but managed, pitied . . . But there is no one to complain to. Kind Carson has been dead for years, and my brother has been putting me back in my box for what seems centuries.

The worst of it is that memory once corrected is like fraying silk or a disintegrating ice floe: losing existential integrity, it is opened to decay. “The Cricket” I loved — my luminous Manet — is diminished now, as a detail flakes away to slither into an undifferentiated past too featureless for human use.

There are some enduring legacies. The cricket gave me a safe perch to observe a weekly march-past of ideal ways of being male, from calm reliability through eruptive power to glancing grace. I could assess the attributes desirable in a mate quite as directly as if the pines had been palms and the men in their creams had been leaping and stamping with plumes on their heads and bones through their noses.

Cricketing creams are as elegant a masculine display rig as I’ve seen, and instead of dancing I was offered a quiet walk to the wicket, the taking of guard, a light tossing of a red ball, a tensing, then an intense concordance of fluent and magnificently unpredictable action.

Somewhere beyond and above us hovered the Australian Test team, every player a deity with his own distinctive attributes. I had chosen mine: small, dour Lindsay Hassett, once a useful bowler, now a middle-order batsman capable of opening if he had to do (I liked him to open). He might seem an improbable choice, given the presence in the team of, for example, tall, handsome, narcissistic Keith Miller, but my devotion never wavered.

It was based, in part, on delusion, as devotion so often is.

I had somehow persuaded myself that a bat my older brother used and which I spent many hours grooming had belonged to, had even been used by, the great Hassett. (I was so solitary and secretive a child I could manage to believe almost anything.) I now think, or my other brother thinks, that it must have been a “Hassett bat”, not Hassett’s personal own.

But I know I went through the delicate, sensuous business of maintaining it believing it to have been his: oozing on the golden oil, tap-tapping it tenderly into the silky wood, testing with my fingertips the fine tough cord close-wrapping this brave, worn, wonderful, history-drenched object through which a glorious past sang. I could not have loved it more had it been wielded at Thermopylae.

I think it was Hassett’s dourness, his tenacity, his intense privacy which lay at the core of my devotion to him. I saw him as a man of Thermopylae: gallant, isolated; ready to sell his life, but at the highest price possible. This heroic identification was reinforced by the vocal theatrics of that celebrated cricket commentator, Alan McGilvray, on that most intimate and insidious form of public communication, the radio.

I also remember from those days, with access to radios limited, the mournful cry that would come echoing from passing trams, along empty corridors, between houses and gardens: “What’s the score?” And sometimes, just sometimes, an answer, jubilant or glum: “Four for 148, and MILLER’S GONE!”

McGilvray instructed me why I should love Hassett by representing him as the ultimate in reliability and moral poise — “at the wicket all day, scoring 20, just what Australia needed” — yet capable of moments of heart-lifting grace: “And it’s short and Hassett is dancing down the wicket and he’s cracked him through the covers for four, glorious shot, glorious shot!” And from the dozens of photographs and the handful of newsreels magically animated by that voice, I would see him dance.

Then came 1948, with the Invincibles touring England, Hassett vice-captain to Don Bradman and leading the team whenever Bradman was resting, therefore subjected to constant vociferous appraisal. His public elevation saw an end to my private devotion. It is true I also turned 14 that year.

But my cricket-forged ideal only went underground. Years later (after, I admit, marrying a non-cricketer) I would name my second son Richie for Richie Benaud’s imperturbable possession of self.

I remember those afternoons, and those men, with love. I don’t know what scars they bore because when they were playing cricket they set them aside. I think it was their best selves who played there at Queen’s Park, and that is how I remember them.

This is an edited extract from Inga Cleninnen’s essay, In the Pines, in Australia: Story of a Cricket Country, edited by Christian Ryan (Hardie Grant, $89.95).

Newtown and Chilwell Cricket Club pulled off one of its most stunning wins of recent times in the tied 20/20 game at Stinton Oval on November 7th.

Such that after the tension-filled bowl-off, men (and one woman) of varying vintages had grins like split melons and all rushed to be together in the change rooms.

The president could not have chosen a better day to host his sponsors and supporters.

With so many wags from eras long gone in the rooms and on the balcony, there were plenty of great one-liners, too.

But down in the change rooms, Sammy Eason topped them all.

“I haven’t won a game in two years and now I have won two in two days,” he beamed, and then repeated it just in case you hadn’t heard it right.

Both N&CCC and Grovedale had been locked on 7-125 at the end of their two innings.

Showing the wonderful leadership for which je is renowned Ben Neville chose not just to bowl first in the bowl-off, but to be the first bowler … to lead by example.

The roars from the balcony could have been heard on Mars as he struck … Twice.

Grovie’s first up bowler missed twice.

Then another Ben, Ben Eason, was happy to be led by example. Stumps hit … Twice.

He’d saved a million runs in the field with his whippet like running. Now this. Gold. Now wonder his old man had the camera out.

After Grovie’s number two bowler missed both times, it was 4-nil and the N&CCC abacus was working overtime. We can’t lose from here Rusty declared!

“They need to hit twice, no one can do that,” he said.

“Russell, we’ve just done it, and twice in a row!”

“Oh yeah!”

They did get a couple of hits, but there was also a couple of telling and seriously applauded misses.

So in the end, it required the King to rattle the castle at least once to claim the famous victory.

Greg Wells reckons he missed the first time just to add to the tension.

“He’s like that, you know,” said Goose.

“No way,” said the King. “I was trying to hit it both times!”

The roar on the balcony could have been heard on Pluto when at the second attempt, the stumps went back and the bails tumbled to GT’s sacred turf.

The regular part of the match itself was a beauty, time and again Newtown showing a massive fighting spirit against a well credentialled opponent.

Ben and JR were out early. Eeeek!

Sam Arthurton eked his way to a fine half century, then showed the best answer to a sledge is a switch-hit four, or shovelling the ball over the wicketkeeper’s head into the acres of vacant space.

There’s no doubt Grovie had not seen Sam and his amazingly creative batting coming. They looked stunned as he switch-hit at will. “Where did that come from,” they seemed to be saying? The broads of Norfolk via The Essex Academy! They teach ‘em to do that now.

“The best Pom so far,” said a wise old man on the balcony.

But it was the same wise man who had wondered earlier why they weren’t using the sight screens! Jaikie and Mikie might still be in it Sam!

Along the way, Sam had terrific support from the Gavin Castle, one regal six in a little cameo.

And then Dima, up from the third’s, smashed Grovie’s leg-spinner for a soaring six.

The roar from the balcony could be heard all the way to the end of the universe, following the ball in that general direction, as it were.

7-125 looked more than defendable, said Morgo, who the day before had learned a bit about what is defendable and what isn’t.

Phillip John’s observations seemed even more perspicacious (no relation to the record-breaking 7ths wicketkeeper/batsman) when Govie got struck into Grovie’s top order and then Dima got a couple of wickets with pure jaffas.

Dima’s run-out of the Grovie wicketkeeper was also pure – pure poetry. At the non-striker’s end, a gozzer. Every man in a blue cap knows and respects Kelso as a bloke and as a player. Every man in a blue cap knew that Dima had pulled of the miracle dismissal. It’s a wonder he had any oxygen left in his body as his captain hugged the dear life out of him.

But we know Grovie is a proud club too and tooth and nail, they fought to get back into the game and looked to be there well and truly when the King nearly knocked himself out going for a catch on the boundary.

Eventually, to deliver the final knockout, Grovie needed two runs with two wickets in hand.

Enter Govie again, wicket second last ball, a steepler caught by Ben Eason.

Still two to win, one ball left.

Govie bowled it, it was mis-hit to nowhere in particular, but the single was taken. Match tied.

See above for what happened next!

Courtesy of the Geelong Advertiser
By Daniel breen

EXCITEMENT abounds at Stinton Oval.

Having endured a long time between drinks, Newtown & Chilwell has high hopes this weekend of ending a winless drought that stretches back to January 2009.

It was that day that the Two Blues defeated a soon-to-be-relegated Newcomb & District outfit.

Tomorrow, it has a potential finalist in North Geelong on the back foot after a super day with the bat at Osborne Park last Saturday.

Two Blues coach Bryan Thomas was under no illusions when asked about his side’s prospects. He knows the job is only half done, with North Geelong possessing more than enough batting talent to reel in the 276 it has been set for victory. Still, there’s no denying the feeling around the club after a huge pre-season and a handful of quality off-season recruits.

“They’ve done a massive pre season and there’s discipline as well as skill that we’ve worked on, so it would be just reward if they get a win on the board,” Thomas said.

“We did a long pre-season, there was lot of enthusiasm and they’re playing for each other. We had 80 at pre-season and it’s been exciting. For a club that’s won two games in two years and been on the downslide it’s great numbers.”

As much as Newtown’s total was built around the brilliant innings of captain Ben Neville (146), Thomas was pleased to see the youngsters bat around around their skipper.

“I set the boys the goal of batting out 85 overs. We faced 84 last week but for young people to bat around Ben like they did was fantastic,” he said.

Neville is also benefiting from having a clear head after shouldering the burden as captain-coach for the past two years.

“The pressure that the club and himself put on each other the last two years was immense. This year he’s been able to clear his head and play his natural game,” Thomas said.

The addition of Geelong trio Tim Nunn, Bennett Merriman and Peter Lynch, as well as tearaway Levi Dare has also allowed youngsters that were previously thrown in the deep end to gain confidence either in lower grades or in positions of reduced responsibility.

“Guys like Yves Roussety are also enjoying having less pressure. He was opening the batting at the age of 17 and battled for two years up there but he’s been able to drop down to eight and that’s going to help him and the team,” Thomas said. “To be honest, there were probably too many kids that were thrown in the deep end too early and we’re just easing them back a bit.”

Newtown’s 2ndXI has already benefited from players dropping back to where they are comfortable and enjoyed an easy win in round one.

Thomas said a 1stXI victory early in the season would mean a lot to the club.

“It would be huge for the club to get a win in the ones. It would really kickstart the season and there’d be a lot of joy for the people who have been working hard around the club and haven’t sung the song for a while,” he said. “Everybody’s excited at the club which is good for the club in its 100th year and it would be good to get a few ones wins under our belt.”

Good morning everyone,

Well at last the season is here and we made a promising start, getting home in the seconds, thirds and fourths last Saturday against Lara.

The firsts, although getting beaten, proved that they are a side with great potential and I’m sure supporters can expect good things from our first XI this season.

Following our monthly committee meeting earlier in the month, I thought I’d better report on things arising from that.

Sam Arthurton has arrived safely from Essex as you will already know from last Saturday’s first XI scorebook.

If you haven’t already met Sam, I can report he is a terrific young man. I met him at the airport and he has been living with Dianne and I since his arrival.  We all believe Sam will have a great time in Australia, just as we will enjoy hosting him.

There has been progress on the practice facilities, but of course, the weather hasn’t helped there.

Great thanks to the Geelong College for allowing us to use their facilities.

Our cricket sub-committee continues to be a very active part of our club. I want to congratulate Bryan, Don and Mick Wood on their efforts, and also our secretary, Steff Shaw on the brilliant job she has been doing obtaining all the contact details for players new and old. I know that the coach believes that Steff is just an amazing asset for our club.

Big Jesse Thomas, has agreed to look after the bar for us on Saturday night and we are looking at other arrangements for Thursday night’s. ­ Ron Thomas (Bryan’s father) is the likely candidate for this spot.

Sponsorship is looking pretty healthy, but we still need more, so if you know of someone who should be sponsoring our club, let Phil Morgan know.

Congrats also to Morgo and Brett Bentley, who will captain the 5ths and 6ths this year. In case you haven’t picked it up in the other news avenues Russell Mitchell, Frank Tuskes and Grant Whiteside have been reappointed captains of the 2nds, 3rds and 4ths respectively. They are and will continue to offer great support for Ben Neville our reappointed 1sts Captain.

Generally, as has been the case for a while now, our club is doing well off the field.

When I look around at all the people who willingly put their hands up for jobs, all I can do is feel grateful and proud.

We all know that we have to start performing on the field and I believe that turnaround will start in October 2010, and take us right through to March, 2011.

Let’s enjoy it.

GO TWO BLUES

Neville Crane