Documentary on David Hookes.

A South Australian cricket legend.

Passing of Kevin Lewis , West Torrens Cricketer

I am posting this as a tribute to the late Kevin Lewis who died suddenly on 3/10/20.

Kevin was a highly successful cricketer with West Torrens Cricket Club in Adelaide District Cricket.

Here is a notice from the Adelaide Advertiser and some pics I have in my archives featuring Kevin. 

  "The West Torrens Cricket Club is deeply saddened by the passing of Club great Kevin Lewis. Lew played State Cricket, took 476 A Grade Wickets, was Curator, Coach and instrumental in the Club’s move to Henley.

Our thoughts and best wishes are with his family.

Publication: The Advertiser

Adelaide"

 

 The 100 not out group at the West Torrens Centenary dinner. Kevin is front left

Star players of the Cricket Club at the Centenary including Kevin.
 

Passing of Keth Deboar,Max Conroy

This week it has been sad to note the passing of former West Torrens Cricketer and all round good bloke Keith Deboar, and also Graham Stanford told me today of the passing  of another teammate of those days,Max Conroy.
When you play sport you form many friendships in your playing years and a lot of the time they don't always continue after your playing days.
You do catch up though occasionally at past players days at the Cricket Club.
Soon you are talking about things as if it were yesterday.
I had the privilege of playing with both Keith and Max in the only cricket premiership I ever played in.
West Torrens C Grade in the1967/68 C grade Premiership .
See picture below.
I remember many highlights of he game as I am sure we all do and we all went back to Keith's home that night for a celebration.
Keith was a wonderful guy and team man.
Max I remember as a laconic laid back sort of bloke who was always good to be around.
Some medium pace bowling and opening batsman.
Both were very competent cricketers.
I don't think I have seen Max since our playing days.

My thoughts and best wishes  are with both families especially at such a tough time as the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Hopefully some time we will be able to have a farewell for these guys.

Left to right. Back row Darryl Wood, Geoff Thompson,John Wildy,Max Conroy,Michael Peake,Des Fahy,Keith DeBoar,Robert Cronin (Scorer)
Front: Ray Pens,Graham Parry,Lloyd Turner (captain-wkeeper),Lynn Fielke,Roger Sweet.
West Torrens 195 d. Port Adelaide 192 and 9/131 at Adelaide #2, 23-30 March 1968.
I have a great memory of Michael Peake hitting the winning runs and letting go of his bat and running down the wicket without it.
I think I was batting with Graham Parry at tea and we had 10 runs needed.
I got out first ball after tea.
Thankfully the other guys got us through.

Thanks to Rocka for the details.

Standing from left to right at the West Torrens Cricket club centenary dinner Barry Fry,Bob Hank and Keith Deboar.

I am not sure who the others are in the picture.

If you search on this blog in the index on he right for west torrens cricket club you will find many posts and pictures.

If anyone family or team mates wants copies of photos I have in my archives I am happy to email at no cost.

I have a growing archive of Cricket Club pics.

I can be contacted at 0417867476.

cheers

Geoff Thompson

What I am reading.

Hi.

I occasionally review books I have read on here.

 I am currently reading "All the King's Men" by Denis Brien.

This book is written by local South Australian cricket identity Denis Brien.(Rocka)

It is about the History of the Hindmarsh Cricket Club from 1857 to 1897.

It became the West Torrens Cricket Club where I used to play cricket.

Denis is a long time player and servant of the club and a great local historian.

If you like cricket ,especially with a South  Australian flavour, you should buy the book.

Here is something from the club newsletter.

Some of the King's Men. Rocka is on your far right with cap and sunglasses.

0. ROCKA WINS AUSTRALIAN PRIZE FOR HIS CRICKET BOOK
   All The Kings’ Men
   The recently published history of the Club in the 19th century
   All The Kings’ Men – A History of the Hindmarsh C.C. 1857 – 1897 has won the Australian Cricket Society’s Literary Award, the
   Jack Pollard Trophy, for the best cricket book written and published in Australia for the 2017 - 2018 Financial Year.
   The Judging Panel is spread across Australia and reviews every Cricket Book published in Australia during the review period.
   All The Kings’ Men was considered the best.
   A limit supply are still available @ $40.00 –  Profits go to junior development at the club. 
   
   
   
   I have started it and it is a great read.
1.  
2.  
   

Death of Ralph Hillman- Legendary Schoolteacher and Sports Mentor and Coach

Today I attended the funeral of Ralph Hillman who was a teacher at Henley High when I was there from 1959-1963.

He later taught in Queensland and also at Port Adelaide.

I have not seen him since schooldays.

Ralph was an amazing man and it was great to hear some of the stories from his pastor, grandson and a former student.

It brought back many of my memories of him and the fact that he has influenced so many young people and some of us not so young now.

The funeral was a wonderful tribute to the man and also a statement of his Faith.

My lasting memory of Ralph was on the occasion of my last high school cricket match in 1963(I think it was the day President Kennedy was assassinated) and after the match Ralph presented me with a brand new cricket bat.

I asked him why and he says it was for recognition of the contribution I had made to sport at Henley High.

It was not an official presentation but I believe he had paid for it out of his own money.

Amazing!  I was deeply moved.

In recollecting to back then, I think it was Ralph that encouraged me to go and play cricket for the West Torrens Cricket Club.

I had not gone out to play straight after school years as I wanted to concentrate on football.

I understand he was also behind many other guys playing for the club and I know he also mentored some fine footballers.

He was a fine coach, teacher and mentor and as I heard today he also had an amazing singing voice.

It was very touching to hear the tribute paid by his grandson Jackson.

I am sad that I did not maintain contact after school days but am looking forward to catching up in Heaven.

Darryl Wood and Ian Mcphee were also there from the West Torrens Cricket Club.(Past players)

The packed Church was a testimony to how many lives he had touched.

Adelaide 1st Grade District Cricket Grand Final

Over this weekend the Western Eagles West Torrens Cricket Club have been playing Kensington for the first grade premiership.

It was played at Woodville Oval.

I was able to be there for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon and was able to stay long enough to see Leigh Drennan make a match winning century.(104)

It has been a wonderful year for the Eagles who were under the threat coming into this season of merging with another club.

Fortunately due to the hard work of some people this did not happen and now they have won the premiership.

Below are some pics I captured while there on Saturday.
Below is the link to the Western Eagles website where you can catch up with all the latest and I am sure a match report soon.

http://www.westerneagles.com/

The Eagles won the match and the Premiership.

They have had an amazing year.

Well done to everyone.

Eagles all out for  334 and Kensington all out for 176.

My friend  "Edge" would have loved to have seen this.

Ian was a past Captain of the club, past president and also a key figure in the anti merger actions.

If anyone know the names of some of the players in these pics please email me at
geoff.g.thompson@gmail.com and I will caption accordingly.

Some Eagles legends?

Leigh Drennan driving to bring up his century.

Congratulated by Trent Kelly

"Edge" Ian Edgley and myself.

West Torrens V Glenelg-A grade Cricket

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours watching my old cricket club West Torrens, play in A grade against Glenelg at Glenelg Oval.
West Torrens won on the first innings.
wt 1st Innings 211
glg 1st innings 185 (T Kelly 5 for 58)
wt 2nd innings 3 for 157  Crosthwaite 104 no

Pics taken with Canon 400d

Cullen Bailey bowls to Adam Crosthwaite......

....who hits him for 6

A Crosthwaite

A Haslett

Kelvin Smith plays forward to Doropoulos...

....and is given out LBW

Talkin' about my Generation-part 3 Sport part 2

In my previous post on sport I hinted I would post some football budgets and newspaper clippings from my sporting generation.
While many of these have my name mentioned(my grandmother saved all these for me) they give you a little bit of appreciation of SANFL football in the 60's and also South Australian District cricket in the same era and Northern Territory Football league in the 1970/71 football season in Darwin.
The year I played in Darwin a former Port Adelaide and Sturt player,Peter Yeo, played in the finals in Darwin which was a bit controversial at the time.
Some years ago now he suffered a crippling injury in his home.
I have attached a link about Peter which also links to a radio interview he did on the ABC Radio conversations with Richard Fiedler.
So some of these articles are posted for my niece Carly's benefit and a bit of  a grandfatherly boast that I once could play a little bit.
So forgive me for my self indulgence.

This was in the centre spread of Adelaide's Lunchtime edition of the News. I was under a "hospital ball" and Kelly Stringer ran about 20 yards and placed his knee firmly in my back. I was given a free kick.The game was on Adelaide Oval the famous cricket ground and soon to be an AFL venue again.

State of origin matches between South Australia and Victoria were always a big talking point

The year after this Sturt started their huge run of about 6 premierships in a row.

This day I came off the reserves bench and played most of the game.

There are some great footballers in these seconds reams who went on to make their mark and some already had and were windind down their careers

Robert Day was a West Adelaide Champion only a couple of years older than myself.He also played in a premiership team with Hawthorn

Ken Eustice had been a West Adelaide Champion who transferred to Central Districts as a Captain Coach.I had his number 13 in my brief leaugue appearnces with West Adelaide.h

!965 News Feature on how the teams were shaping up for that season

This and the below article was from a pre season trial game in 1966.I had a very good game but a few months later I had left the club to play amateur league.I bumped into Don Roach a few weeks after I had left and he encouraged me to come back but I did not take his advice as I had dropped my confidence to play League Football and was enjoying Amateur League with my mates in the Postal Institute football Club. We won a premiership that year.

The first and last time I made this weekly list of A Grade best bowlers

For J Thompson read G Thompson. I also ran out Bob Simunsen in this game.

In this my first game in A Grade I hit Colin Harrison for 4 from the first ball I faced.I batted with Kevin Griffiths for some time and was getting over confident as I thought Harrison was not such a  great bowler. I was out LBW to Harrison from a wrongun.I remember Barry Jarman saying didn't you pick that one? I said "does he bowl a wrongun?"

Darwin football now.The ost enjoyable season of sport I ever played

Our team the Wanderers were the first mainland league team to play a game on Bathurst Island. I was acting captain.There was hardly any grass on the oval.Instead of tossing a coin for ends we tossed a stone from the playing surface that had spit on one side. We were thrashed by mainly young teenagers, mostly playing without boots.What an experience!

Bob Elix and Tony Shaw were former South Australian champion footballers

see the link below about  Peter Yeo.

http://www.abc.net.au/queensland/conversations/stories/s2006412.htm?nsw