Richard Stobo - Richard Stobo - Memories of that Grand Old Stand - Part 1

Gordon District Cricket Club | June 22, 2025

I first met Victor Trumper when I was about 10 years old. My father introduced me to him. Or, rather, my father introduced me to Arthur Mailey, who introduced me to him. See, one of my father’s favourite stories was Opposing My Hero, Mailey’s brilliant account of bowling to Trumper in a Grade game before the Great War – Mailey’s Redfern against Trumper’s Paddington.¹ “There was no triumph in me as I watched the receding figure. I felt like a boy who had killed a dove.” Is there a finer sentiment in all of cricket’s wonderful literature? I doubt it.

To read Mailey’s story is to be transported to a Sydney altogether different to today’s in so many ways. It is a gentle tale told almost in slow motion, and contrasts deeply with the frenetic nature of the 21st century. There is no question Trumper belonged to an altogether different time; nevertheless, there are reminders of that golden age around us still, and perhaps none more evocative than the sleepy suburban ovals that still dot the landscape. And nothing spoke more clearly to district pride than the names of the grounds themselves: Bankstown Oval, Petersham Oval, Hurstville Oval, Drummoyne Oval, Manly Oval, Randwick Oval, to name but a few.

And, of course, dear old Chatswood Oval.

Each ground had its own flavour and character – Petersham with its inner-city parkland, Hurstville with its bike track, Drummoyne with its grassy hill and beautiful bay, Manly with its bowling club and tennis courts, Randwick and the beach.

And Chatswood, with its railway line, pine trees, long straight boundary, and short square of the wicket. You always had to bowl full and straight at Chatswood.

But one thing almost all of these wonderful grounds had in common was a grandstand. Not always red brick, but usually. And it doesn’t take a great leap of the imagination to picture them all those years ago, full of spectators. Knowledgeable spectators – mostly men in hats, I imagine – who went down to their local ground on a summer’s afternoon to support the men representing their district against opponents from a district elsewhere.

I grew up in Killara in the 1970s and loved my cricket. It was only natural therefore to catch the train to Chatswood in 1979 to trial for the Gordon DCC Green Shield side. This was my first step into the wider cricketing world and marked the beginning of a long and happy association with Gordon that carried on into the 2000s.

Chatswood Oval became something of a second home.

And perhaps nowhere at Chatswood Oval was more significant to me than the iconic Trumper Pavilion, standing silently and proudly at the northern end of the ground. Every Thursday, players would arrive at the ground for practice – it wasn’t ‘training’ in those days – and head immediately to the changing room. There, on the noticeboard just inside the door, were the team lists for Saturday’s matches, neatly written in Club secretary Warwick (‘Wacka’) Murray’s blue pen and distinctive hand. No preparatory or sympathetic phone calls in advance, as I recall. You simply read your name on the lists, found out where you were playing, and then went to the nets and got on with it.

The Trumper Pavilion holds great memories for me, including my first game in First Grade in November 1983, against North Sydney. I had turned 18 only a few months before and found myself for the first time in the same changing room as such great Gordon players as Trevor Chappell, Phil Antman, Michael Falk and Rowan McGregor, among others.

I distinctly recall the atmosphere of that day; it was clear as soon as I walked through the gates behind the stand that First Grade was different. I had been fortunate to play in Wacka’s Third Grade premiership side the previous season and understood the pressure of finals. However, there was something very grown-up about First Grade.

Walking into the changing room under the pavilion for the first time as a Gordon First Grade player was special, and the place seemed to be buzzing with serious people. There was an edge to the day; this was the top of the tree in Sydney cricket, and I quickly realised that I was part of something that mattered.

Happily, for me, Phil Emery, one of the finest players ever to wear the Gordon cap, was also in the side. Phil and I had first played together in Fourth Grade against Balmain at Ryde Oval during the previous season. We were close mates and rose through the ranks more or less together, but he had made his way into First Grade ahead of me and was already well established.

Importantly, that day saw the beginning of our long and fruitful partnership in First Grade, and the words ‘c Emery, b Stobo’ will always mean a great deal to me. I knew that if I was good enough to get a batsman to nick one, Phil was more than good enough to do the rest. He did a great deal to make me look much better than I actually was.

I opened the bowling from the southern end that day, running in towards the pavilion. I always enjoyed bowling from that end, particularly with a southerly at my back. My first First Grade wicket came from that end, a catch by Michael Falk at mid-off. But nothing stands out in my memory more clearly than one particular over in November 1988, against Sutherland. And the Trumper Pavilion provided a fitting backdrop.

References

¹ The match was in fact not Paddington v Redfern. Mailey, somewhat mischievously, made the story up. The first time Mailey played against Trumper in a Grade match was the Gordon v Redfern game played on 1 and 8 April 1911 at Redfern Oval. In the first innings the scorebook read VT Trumper stumped Hayes bowled Mailey 34. In the second innings the following week Trumper scored 78, being caught by Mailey. The crowd on the first day was over 10,000, who gained free entry to the game. One could say that it was the most famous dismissal in cricket literature, but not entirely accurate. Arthur’s son, Arthur Mailey junior, told the editor in 2002 that his father “made a lot of stories up, but they looked good in print”. There was one other Grade match where the two players met.

NOTE: Part 2 of this story will be posted shortly.

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