THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND CRICKET CLUB UQCC OLD BOYS CRICKET NEWS Cnr Upland Rd & Sir William Macgregor Dr, St Lucia, Qld Tel. 07 3346 9530 Edition 22 – December 2019 IMPORTANT DATES 2019-20 19 January 2020 – Gators Blue at Trevor Hohns Oval 9 February 2020 – Wests at Uni No. 2 21 February – Old Boys Long Lunch, Emporium South Bank 1 March 2020 – Gators Gold Graceville No. 2 UQ SPORT Downs Club TBA Semi and Final dates TBA IV Tour – Melbourne University CC – March 2020 Welcome Welcome to the 22nd edition of the UQCC Old Boys newsletter. In this edition we: 1. Get an update on how the students are faring this season and a wrap up of the Uni brekkie 2. We hear from UQCC Old Boy, Richard ‘Dicky’ McInnes who has a fascinating article on his involvement in elite men’s and women’s sporting teams over the years 3. Some long term UQCC records have recently been broken – we take a closer look 4. Have comments and feedback from the Old Boys network 5. Provide match reports from our recent Old Boys games Club Update Scott Henry does a great job as the UQCC Operations manager. I thank Scott for the following updates. The Club is currently in a great position heading into Xmas and is currently: • 1st in Club Championship • 1st in 1s, 2s and 4s Men • 2nd in 1s and 2s Women Old Boys Long Lunch Our Annual Old Boys Long Lunch will again be held on Friday 21 February 2020 at the Emporium, South Bank. Further details will follow but please note the date for your diary. 1 18th UQCC Test Brekkie The club’s 18th Annual Corporate Test Breakfast proudly supported by FDC was held on Wednesday 20 November 2019 at the Royal on the Park Hotel. Andrew Courtice once again did an outstanding job as MC for the 280+ guests in attendance. Former Australian Test player and current Adelaide Strikers coach Jason Gillespie entertained the crowd with his insights into life, playing experience and current coaching career. His story on his Test match 200 vs Bangladesh including follow up text to Mark Waugh on how he found it difficult to navigate through the 160’s (given Waugh’s highest test score was 153) was a highlight. The breakfast continues to be the club’s main fundraiser of each season and, as such, the club is greatly appreciative of the continual support of sponsors and Old Boys. We look forward to seeing you all again in 2020. A Call Out for old UQCC Photos I am putting out a call out for any old photographs that you might have of UQCC teams or individuals. We would like to maintain them on the Club Database for safekeeping. Please provide the date the photo was taken and the names of anyone in it. If you could use your technological skills to have them scanned and sent to [email protected] and [email protected] we will ensure they are recorded for prosperity. George C Scott If you refer back to Edition 7 of this humble rag you will come across a contribution from ‘George’ Chris Scott who played two seasons for UQ in the 1980’s. George was a very popular member of the club being involved in all aspects of both on and off field activities. In those days he played at Nottingham, keeping to the likes of Sir Richard Hadlee and Eddie Hemmings. He later went onto play for Durham as a wicketkeeper batsman. Chris was a fine player, but unfortunately his record 2 will always have an asterix for one thing – grassing a nick off Brian Lara enroute to his world record 501…. However, every cloud has a silver lining and we had the pleasure of catching up with George last week in Brisbane as the Fox Sports production ‘The Front Bar’ flew George out from his Cambridge UK abode to feature on their B Lara expose. Thanks to Fox Sports, George pouched this opportunity and a number of us had a great lunch with him to catch up on the last 35 years. Here’s a link to the show – good work George and remember it’s great therapy to talk about it! https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/australia/cricket-2019-brian-lara-record-501-chris-scott- warwickshire-vs-durham-west-indies-england/news-story/09906ebe74854b5d977860e78d983614 Richard “Dicky” McInnes At the recent Uni Test Breakfast, Jason Gillespie explained about the ‘road less travelled’ to get to his current roles in cricket coaching (via Zimbabwe, Yorkshire etc). It reminded me of UQCC Old Boy Richard McInnes and the career path he has taken over the last 25 years. He is a great guy and a talented cricketer, but it is skills in coaching and sports administration which has led him to the four corners of the earth. I have watched with interest as his career has evolved and I sensed there was a very good story to be told. How many can they say they have been intimately involved in the dressing rooms of UQCC, the Australian Men’s and Women’s cricket team, the Bangladesh Under 19 and National team, the Queensland Firebirds Netball team and now the Australian Water Polo team. How many can compare the work ethic of Mr Cricket vs Laura Geitz vs Ellyse Perry? Which dressing room had more fun, which fans were more rabid? 3 Richard played in the 90’s at Uni and up until Thanks to Richard for this down payment on last season was a regular in the Uni Old Boys his memoirs. team. It appears he has turned a little soft as he has made himself unavailable this year due to an impending hip replacement – suck it up! The Best Seat in the House The editor of this newsletter has been at me for some time to pen some of my career experiences. Although my journey is not to be compared with many of illustrious UQCC alumni, I guess I have had a pretty good seat to watch some amazing events unfold. So, in the following paragraphs, I have endeavoured to capture some of the stories from my last 20 years which have included multiple World Cup campaigns with different countries, multiple Ashes series’, coaching in a foreign country and being involved with some amazing male and female athletes. In 1995 the Sunshine Coast Scorchers were admitted into the Brisbane Grade Competition. As a 21-year-old living in Hervey Bay, completing my electrical apprenticeship, I decided to ‘have a crack’ and see what I could achieve. This would become a reasonably consistent theme through my life, leading in the main, to some wonderful opportunities. So, for the 95/96 season, I did the trip from Hervey Bay to Brisbane each week to play and loved every minute of it. The Scorchers had some success as we won the one-day competition in our debut year. I also managed to have a decent game against Uni where I took five wickets and made some runs. This was to be important in the following year when I enrolled to study at QUT and moved to Brisbane. Attending Uni, living at Chapel Hill, having played with Martin Love and Rendell O’Connell as a younger man, Uni was the obvious choice as a Club. I decided to “have a crack” at Uni and fortunately WEP remembered me from the previous season. He immediately made me feel very welcome, and I settled in to play at UQCC for the next three seasons. I played the first year, in and out of the top grade, often slashed with Kaspa, clearly a like for like substitution… Ray Reynolds was coaching the Club at the time and I offered to help him out. I really enjoyed the coaching side of things, helping people who wanted to improve. Little did I know this would become a career for me and a vehicle to travel to the four corners of the world. The end of the 96/97 season was a significant one for the Club, with WEP passing away in March. The stalwart of the Club who did so much for so many would not be there for the following season. Much has been written and spoken about WEP, so I will not add too much more, other than to say how privileged I was to say, I was at the Club while he was still there and that he had a significant impact on me in that short time. I remember chatting to UQCC and Bulls legendary LAFS PW Jackson and he encouraged me to throw my hat in the ring for Club Coach. That was enough for me to “have a crack”. Toot Byron and Nev Paulsen from Qld Cricket assisted me through the Level 2 course that I technically needed to be a Club Coach. I still remember my goal in that season was “for every player in the Club to 4 improve one part of their game” and I felt my job at the time was to help them do that. I am not sure how much influence I had, but we managed to win 4 of 5 Grand Finals that season and claim the Club Championship, which in those days was rare. The following year we played in four Grand Finals winning two, so it proved to be a successful time for the Club on the field. During these years I was studying a Human Movement degree at QUT and volunteered a lot of time with Qld Cricket.