Graeme Thorpe and other players and curators of the 1980s - Penrith Cricket Club
Penrith Cricket Club | January 22, 2026
Graeme Thorpe, ‘Thorpey’, as he was affectionately known, joined Penrith Cricket Club from Bankstown in 1978/79. He was like the movie character Rocky in appearance – a thatch of black hair, unruly and curled at the ends, with bright eyes and a weathered face. There was earnestness to his character, a serious air that conveyed the message that he meant business and if the going was going to get tough then he’d like an invitation to be there.
Unlike Bankstown’s Steve Small, Tony Radanovic and Les Andrews, who had come over to ‘the other side’ on a professional basis, Graeme just turned up at the Club’s trials to ‘try my luck’. He impressed the selectors as a fluent strokemaker with a rubbery wrist action, rather like might be seen in the style of a top Indian batsman. In the fielding drills he had no peer – safe hands, sharp reflexes and impressive speed over the ground. And he could bowl useful loopy leg-spin, the stuff an enterprising skipper might try to bust a stubborn partnership.
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Even so, the provisional selectors graded Graeme in Seconds. He was there only briefly, and an unbeaten 66 won him promotion to the Firsts opening batting slot next to Steve Small. The rest is history. That team won the Club’s first First Grade Premiership.
In Graeme’s six seasons with the Club, he went on to score more than 2000 runs, averaging a very good 400 a season. He made his maiden century (121) in 1983/84 and, as would be expected, bowed out with a 500-run season in 1984/85. He was a great team man. He once ran the First grade to outright victory over Sutherland at Howell, running seemingly impossible twos to the danger end ball after ball, over after over. It drove the Sutherland wicketkeeper (Steve Rixon) to distraction.
Always part of the team, in later years Graeme turned his hand to pitch preparation for the Club. In the 1983/84 season, he took over at Rance, and then did Cook Park for two seasons. In 1986/87, he went to Howell, where he stayed for four seasons.
Other curators of the 1980s were Earl Vincent at Howell; and at Cook, Kevin Murphy, Barry Dukes, Robert Gallen and opening batsman Andrew Williams, who toiled for five consecutive seasons from 1988/89. Brian Cameron came from Kingswood Bowling Club to Rance in 1985/86 and took over Howell from Thorpe in 1990/91, where he still presides.
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