Life Member Michael Surwald Life Member # 23

Mick Surwald - One of the best spin bowlers in FTGDCA during the 80’ & 90’s and his stats tell you why. He is the all-time leading wicket taker at our club (since 1978) with 489 wickets at 15.43. Mick won 11 averages. He won 7 in the 1sts in 8 years, 3 of which were also association averages. He also won 4 in 2nds (2 association) and the 2nd XI bowling award is named in his honour. He was a left arm orthodox bowler and legend has it – never bowled a full toss in his career. He was also an outstanding slip fieldsman. A 1st XI premiership player with best figures on 7/22 in the 1’s. Mick was secretary for many years, and as a teacher at Monbulk High School, was always on hand to serve the club so diligently.

Mick wrote down some memories of his time the MCC throughout the 1980’s

In the 1970s I played for Mont Albert as an opening fast bowler. We were all fast bowlers back then – Lillee and Thompson opened bowling for Australia. But it was not much fun, the ball lost it shine after 5 overs, so as the afternoon wore on it was harder to move the ball. A friend talked me into trying , arguing that there were not many cricketers bowling spin at the time. So when my young family moved to Monbulk in 1980, I fronted up to the club and told the captain I was a spin bowler. Of all the clubs in the hills this one had a full time spinner – the great Max James. Several players told me I would need to start in the 2nds as you cannot have 2 spinners in the same side. The new Captain was Lance Symons, a very good batsman. For some reason Lance picked me in the first game, so we played with two spinners for the season. Unfortunately Max retired soon after and that left me the only full time spinner. In fact, in the competition there was myself and Norm Reeves from Upwey as the only spinners during this decade.

The first year at the club was a good year, we lost our first Grand Final - hence setting a trend. Our was very good, led by Ken Utting and Lance Symons, with Stewart Lever and Greg Hardy. Bowling very tight was the surprisingly good Dennis Colee and Colin Jonas. Lance had a good trick going, we would hurry through our overs before the tea break – he had noticed a lot more runs were made by teams after tea as the ball got old and people tired. So the more overs before tea, meant less overs after tea to make runs. Simple but effective.

Mick’s first year at the club, 1980/81, the 1st XI were Runners Up

Being a spin bowler turned out to be a big advantage as I could bowl many over’s after tea and not tire, while most batsman had only faced medium pace bowling. My bowling came into its own when Greg Hulm became captain as he gave me more overs before tea, with our master plan of throwing the ball up outside off stump so they would loft in the air to mid-off, where Greg fielded, he took 99 catches there and never dropped one. Playing with Denis Colee, Greg Hulm, Greg Hardy, Ken Utting, Stewart Lever etc were very good cricketing years, they were fun to play and we made the finals every year in my first five seasons. The move to Monbulk turned out to be a very lucky one. Other players I played with in this during this time were Peter Colee, Eric Markham, Rob Wilson, Mark Bailey, Noel Marshall, Mick Murray and Darren Halliday. I know I have missed out other players, sorry.

There were many memorable games and finals I was lucky enough to play in. One game stands out however. Just before Christmas we arrived at the Monbulk Club house ready to play, but it was raining off and on and we had to wait for the umpires to call the game off. Yet at the tea break the umpires decided that play was on. We lost the toss and had to bowl our 70 overs. We bowled 30 or so overs by end of play. Next Saturday we bowled the rest of our overs, dismissing the opposition for around 230 runs. At tea, Lance Symons gathered us around and said we should bat hard and try to win rather than the safe option of playing for a draw. Stewart Lever and Colin Jonas got us off to a very good start. Then our star batsman took over – Lance Symons and Ken Utting. BUT they were nervous runners between wickets, known for running each other out. We sat in the clubhouse waiting to see who would run out whom. Sure enough there was a runout and the game looked lost. I cannot remember who made the runs after that but we won a great game in the last over. It was a great game because everyone played a part in the game with either bat or ball.

Mick Surwald – named in our best MCC team in 50 years in 1997.

As I slowed down I was moved to the 2’s and had several happy seasons playing under Greg Hardy. We had many young players in the team whose performances varied a lot week to week, but still we had fun and won our share of matches.

Funny times at the clubhouse come and go. I remember one season we started with a new player to the club as Captain, but by game 5 had lost form and graciously dropped himself to the seconds. We recycled Ken Utting as Captain for our next game. Ken lost the toss as was his habit and we took the field. Their opening batsman was a big hitter, he scored either zero or a quick 40. He hit 3 sixes in the first over and had just hit another 2 sixes in the next over when our new Captain yelled out “Does anyone want to be Captain, please” There was silence in reply.

A spinner relies heavily on a good wicket keeper. I had several during my time as a bowler, but one stood out. For this season we had no actual wicket keeper, so teams pick a batsman to take up the gloves. I was not happy with this situation so when I meet this 18 year old in Monbulk who wanted to keep wickets I convinced to come to the club and signed him up. He became our wicket keeper for a few matches, until he took a catch, threw the ball in the air and did a cartwheel to celebrate. This cartwheel was done with gloves and pads etc so he ended up half way through this exercise falling on his head, straining his neck - out for the rest of the season, never came back. A second keeper having had a stumping turned down from my bowling changed his method. At the next stumping he hit the wicket so hard all 3 stumps headed out to square leg, where the umpire was persuaded to give it out.

I was lucky at Monbulk as it was a very well run club, trying out new ideas to get people involved on and off the field. I was also lucky that overseas travel was not a big thing during this period so players were always available to play every week, hence few team changes and chasing up players to fill teams and lots of success. Thank you Monbulk Cricket Club.

Mick started his career at Monbulk in 1980 and played with some legends of our club including Ken Utting and Max James. He finally won a 1st XI flag in 1988/89 after many losing Grand Finals.