A R E S U M É - Queensland Cricket

8Well the Council groundsman had the job of bedding down the wickets and cultivatinggrass on them but what about the outfield. I can recall having working bees at the groundplanting sprigs of grass bought from the homes of players and other Club members andworkers. We watered the planted areas around the wickets at night by hand with ourhoses brought from home. I remember thinking many times over the years when lookingacross the Norm Gray oval. “Gee some of that grass came from my house in Helles St.Moorooka”. I guess other colleagues at Souths may have thought the same.I think after about 9-12 months of toil the area was ready for cricket, not “A” Grade whostill played at “The Gabba”, but for the lower grades.In these days the cricket oval boundary was marked with a mower strip cut in the grasswith small triangular cloth flags in Club colours attached to string wire pegs to push intothe ground. These flags were put in place by the players prior to the game commencingand removed afterwards. Vandals and thief’s were also around in these days. Soon afteranother wicket area was laid on the Forsyth St. side of the leased area to cater for asmaller ground for the lower grades. This area ultimately became the Bob Young oval.The overall aim being to have this area as our permanent home we needed to get theplaying surfaces to a standard for “A” grade fixtures. This then required at least (3)things:-1. The wickets and grass ovals needed to be of a reasonable standard.2. Sight screens were needed.3. The main oval needed to be fenced.Apart from Item 1 which the Council had control of and paid for most of the costs forItems 2 and 3 were at the Clubs expense.Knowing money for development of Fehlberg Park was important the Treasurer of thesedays George Jeavons and Ralph Badcock tucked away what funds they could for thispurpose.It was firstly agreed we build the sightscreens for the main oval area and we employ afriendly contractor for the work which we agreed should be galvanised steel posts withwooden framework and vertical wooden battens. Kevin TALBOT a relative of my wifeand a good house builder agreed to do the work at a reasonable cost provided wesupported him with labour to point the woodwork and supply manpower as needed to putthe structures in place. The timber I believe was purchased through the contractor, it wasdumped in Len Ipson’s, the neighbour upstream from us in Venner Rd,backyard.