August - Melbourne Cricket Club

club news
THE DON RECALLED
AT MELBOURNE
A new book by MCC Library volunteer Alf Batchelder examines
the master batman’s brilliant record at the home of sport
It would be reasonable to assume that
the millions of words written about
the great Don Bradman had
exhausted every possible avenue for
authors contemplating another tome on
the peerless batsman. Not so.
MCC Library volunteer and club
historian Alf Batchelder discovered when
writing his magnum opus, Pavilions
in the Park, that there was plenty of
scope to further research Bradman’s
performances in Melbourne, at the MCG
where he thrilled the biggest crowds in
the country on so many occasions.
It didn’t take much encouragement
for author Alf to get back into harness.
The Don had fascinated him since
childhood. “From age seven I was a
regular listener to Kia-Ora Sports Parade
every Friday night on 3KZ,” Alf recalls.
“In late November 1948, they
announced that the next program would
be a Bradman Testimonial broadcast
from the Melbourne Town Hall, and The
Don would be there in person. I begged
my father to get tickets and, being the
cricket fanatic he was, I don’t think I
needed to be too convincing.”
A week or so later Alf sat in front of the
Grey Smith Stand and watched his hero’s
final innings in Melbourne. Sadly, The Don
was out for 10 but for Alf his first visit to
the MCC Reserve on a match day was “an
exciting, unforgettable experience”.
Decades later, the Bradman allure
remained, research for his book taking
Alf through virtually everything that was
written about The Don in contemporary
reports of his batting feats at Melbourne
and the events surrounding them.
“I think writers over the years have
given undue attention to his
performances in Sydney and Adelaide,”
says Alf. “Melbourne and the MCG have
been glossed over somewhat, yet it was at
Melbourne that he played so many of his
significant innings.
“In Melbourne he made 19 centuries in
30 matches and nine centuries in 11 Tests
at the ground. You were dead stiff if you
missed out on him making a big score in
Melbourne. He also made the most famous
duck in Test history at the MCG in the
most eagerly awaited encounter ever.
“No-one has had the same hold
over the Melbourne crowd. He is
unquestionably the greatest drawcard the
ground has ever seen and not only because
of his batting. It also stems from the
influence of radio, the press, newsreels and
advertising. Bradman
was the first Australian
sportsman to be heavily
promoted by these media
elements.”
You will have gathered that the
enthusiasm for the chase was well and
truly there when Alf embarked on his
research in the MCC Library after the
Bradman Luncheon in 2005. The
resulting manuscript will delight all
cricket lovers, and publication is being
arranged to meet the Christmas market.
Importantly, its release will usher in
both the centenary of Bradman’s birth
and the 60th anniversary of his last
innings at the MCG.
If you ask the old-timers about
Bradman’s impact here, many will respond
in part: “It seems like only yesterday…”
So the book’s working title is entirely
apt: Only Yesterday – Don Bradman
at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
This year’s Bradman Luncheon will be
held on Friday August 24. See page 18.
TWO DECADES OF FINE FELLOWSHIP
The MCC’s Long Room Wine and
Food Society would have been
hard pressed to find an author
better qualified than Keith Dunstan to
record the first 20 years of its activities.
A wine buff who even today would be
most comfortable at Jimmy Watson’s,
Keith has done it all.
He has written the history of CUB, the
Bundaberg Rum company and Victoria’s
best-known winery, Brown Brothers. At
one stage he ventured into winemaking
on the Mornington Peninsula and wrote
a book about it. In 1992 he showed his
pride and joy pinot, “Chloe”, at a
society luncheon.
Perhaps equally important, Keith has
enjoyed countless luncheons and
decades of fine fellowship at burgundy
and beefsteak clubs and gatherings of
like-minded people, such as the communal
bottling of bulk wine.
In his inimitable style he tells of the
society’s genesis, the characters involved
and how it has broadened its scope to
the point where, in traditional MCC
fashion, the waiting list outnumbers the
membership.
With a nod to Keith’s pioneering history
of the club first published in 1962, the
society’s 72-page history is entitled The
Lunch Group That Grew. The author’s
credentials ensure that it will have wide
appeal and an order form can be
downloaded from the MCC website.
Alternatively, secretary John Champness
can assist on email jchampness@aol.com.
The cost of $25 includes GST and postage.
8 MCC NEWS
august 2007