Syd Trumper - The brother who no one remembers
Gordon District Cricket Club | December 21, 2025
Syd Trumper was only 14 when he joined Gordon in 1909-10, the same season as his illustrious brother Victor. Syd had a long career with the Club playing until 1935-36, except for War service during the WW1 years and three seasons at Manly in the late 1920s, due to the residential playing rules of the time. After more than five years of retirement and past his mid-forties, Syd also played several matches in the early 1940s during the difficult years of World War 2.
Competition for places in the Gordon First Grade team was tough in the 1920s when the Club had many representative players. Syd was one of the players who often lost his place in the team when the Club’s NSW and Test players returned from representative duties.
His best period was the four seasons from 1929-30 after he returned from Manly when he twice passed the 500 mark and scored 1,926 runs at 30.57 in First and Second Grade. Syd scored 6,116 runs at 25.81 in all grades for Gordon (8 centuries, 16 fifties, highest score 148*) and took 101 wickets at 17.85. Syd scored 1,565 runs at 20.32 in First Grade for Gordon and 1,136 at 25.24 for Manly, a total of 2,701 runs at 22.14.
Syd’s death, on 27 January 1956 at the age of 60, was sudden. Only two weeks previously, he had chaired the monthly meeting of the Club’s General Committee. He had been the Chairman for 11 years and a member of the Committee for a total of 23 years, including three years as Assistant Secretary in the mid-1920s.
Part of his obituary in the Club’s 1955-56 Annual Report conveyed the wide respect for him. ‘A player himself for many years and an official for even longer, Syd will be sadly missed by all who knew him. Quiet and friendly in manner, his personality had endeared him to every member of the Club.’
At the time of his death, Syd had been a Gordon delegate to the NSWCA for more than fifteen years. He was well regarded in NSWCA circles and had been manager of NSW Sheffield Shield teams, a member of the Association’s Country Committee from 1944 to 1953, the last two years as Chairman, and then he was appointed to its Executive Committee in 1953. He was elected a Life Member of the NSWCA in 1951.
Syd served Gordon as a player or as an official in most years between 1909 and 1956, nearly half a century which included the difficulties of the Club’s early years, the two World Wars and the Great Depression. He had played with Gordon’s Test representatives (his brother Victor Trumper, Macartney, Kelleway, Taylor and Oldfield) and other first-class players (Moyes, Tozer, Boyce, Dive, Phillips, Campbell and Hynes).
Later, as an official, Syd had been associated with more Gordon first-class players, Robinson, Lush, Carroll, Pettiford, Eastwood and others in the grade teams, as well as long-serving officials, Tom Hartigan, Reg Black, Syd Smith, Walter Renshaw, Paul Harrison, Charles Harris. Syd, an affable and respected gentleman, had seen and done it all at Gordon! He was elected a Life Member of the Club (No. 17) in 1945.
