Trumper Tribute

Ex-cricketers and celebrities recently turned back the clock to help honour the legendary Victor Trumper at the SCG.

Mick Molloy, umpires with top hats...what a crazy outing.

When it was announced seven months ago that the SCG’s newest stand would be named after Victor Trumper, there were grumblings amongst Sydney’s cricket mob. Hell, we wanted it named after the Waugh brothers. Who was this Trumper, anyway? How did he earn an SCG stand?

But while that stand was going up, its foundations gnawing into the Paddington earth, an idea settled in David Strange’s mind. Strange was tired of the scarce attention granted the golden age of Australian cricket. He was tired of our memories extending back as far as Bradman and no further. Why were blokes like Trumper, like Charlie Macartney, like Fred Spofforth so vague in the Australian cricketing consciousness?

Why did no one know the great stories of Trumper’s life? His ability to throw a cricket ball over 100m; the wondrous 74 he scored on a sodden minefield at the MCG in 1904 when the rest of the team could manage just 48 between them; the time he stood outside the SCG hill with a bag of money handing coins to street urchins. Why did no one know of Trumper’s grace, artistry, philanthropy? Strange’s idea firmed: why not recreate that golden age?

He trawled the libraries of Sydney, borrowing every book he could find on cricket’s early days. He went to museums, taking photos of the old bats, pads, gloves. He approached Harry Solomons, owner of Sydney’s largest cricket shop. Photos and diagrams were sent to India, replicas came back. Old long-handled bats as thin as fence palings, palmless sausage gloves that take 20 minutes to strap on, slatted pads that provide all the protection to knees and thighs of a second pair of trousers. And so Strange’s idea took shape: Victor Trumper Day at the SCG; a Twenty20 game using the old equipment; two teams of ex-cricketers, celebrities, cricket historians, and a journo.

Throughout the afternoon as the game winds down, you wonder what Trumper himself, roused from his 93-year-old grave in Waverley Cemetery, would’ve made of proceedings. Had Vic fielded at mid-off and watched with a detached eye, how would he have judged the game?An enduring aspect of the Trumper legacy is that Vic would, at times, surrender his wicket to share the wealth. If the game was all but won, the bowling attack blunted, the pitch benign, Vic would fritter his wicket to give those beneath him a chance at easy runs. He was never an accumulator of runs, a hard-nosed grinder who racked up mammoth scores to bolster his average.

Statistics support the myth. In low-pressure situations, games where Australia was hammering towards victory, or the match was reclining toward a draw, Trumper’s scores were meagre, his average a slender 21. For him, runs were something to be shared around.You imagine, then, Vic would’ve cheered the opening ball of the match. Greg Campbell, a snarling Tasmanian quick who took 30 wickets on the ‘89 Ashes Tour, his blond mullet a notable addition to the team photo, was at the top of his run. Greg Page, the yellow Wiggle, was marking centre. Campbell’s mullet has long gone, but his action still retains a fair slice of its former glory … It was never going to be an even contest.So Vic would’ve roared with laughter as Page’s off-stump was flattened, only to see Campbell’s celebrations curtailed by the outstretched arm of the square leg ump. No ball – 12 fielders on the paddock. Page lived to score his runs.

Victor Trumper. Image: Getty Images

By the same token, Vic would’ve frowned at the treatment afforded Tim Farriss. The INXS lead guitarist, batting third drop for the Trumper XI, stumps to the centre with a runner in tow. His right knee has been giving him grief. He takes centre, then marks the line with the most tortured swipe of his right boot. Two balls in, his middle stump is clipped by a flat Gideon Haigh offie. No joy from the umpire this time – Farris stumps back along his own recent footprints while his runner shrugs his shoulders and assumes Farris‘ still-warm spot at the crease. No, Vic wouldn’t have liked that moment at all.

So what else do we know of Trumper? A modest man; a quiet figure who never revelled in his successes. Read his diary entry after he clubbed a century before lunch against England at Old Trafford in 1902: “Wet wicket. Fourth Test. Won toss, made 299. Self 104 … ” Imagine a modern day tour diary recording a rapid-fire ton with such indifference?Given this, you can only imagine Vic would’ve scrunched his brow at the on-field theatrics after Adam Spencer scuttles his way to an unbeaten 50. When, in the final over, Spencer lifts a shortish ball from Brad MacNamara over mid-wicket to notch his half-century, the radio man drops to his knees, kisses the turf, plucks the cap from his head, kisses the crest, then strides about the wicket individually saluting members of the crowd. True, Spencer’s tongue may have been firmly planted in his cheek, and, true, there’s little chance Spencer will ever again have cause to raise his bat on the SCG, but Vic would’ve shaken his head at the revelry.

What else do the books say of Trumper? That he was a man of absolute grace on the paddock. Arthur Mailey wrote of bowling to his idol in a grade game at Trumper Park. His first ball was dispatched. As was the next. And the next. Sensing that his skipper wasn’t likely to grant him another over, Mailey decided to stretch his repertoire with a wrong ‘un. It drifted, dipped, ripped back, and left a charging Trumper stranded two paces out of his crease. “Vic made no attempt to scramble back,” wrote Mailey. “He knew the ball had beaten him and was prepared to pay the penalty … As he walked past me he smiled, patted the back of his bat and said, ‘It was too good for me.’” A young Mailey, both awestruck and dumbfounded, was left feeling “like a boy who had killed a dove”.

So what would Trumper have made of the constant rumbling coming from Mick Molloy’s mouth at first slip? What would’ve he said to Molloy’s offer, “How about I hold your bat for you?” after the journo swings and misses at two balls tailing into his pads? Doubtless he would’ve laughed. Because, as the cricket historian Bede Nairn wrote, “Trumper reworked the charter of cricket from a Victorian artefact into an Edwardian palimpsest, with spacious Australian flourishes all but replacing the English script.” Like Brazilians have done with football, Trumper gave cricket its Aussie intonation. And there’s no more “Australian flourish” than a dollop of bone-dry wit froma disgruntled slipper.

What else do the balladeers say of Trumper? How about this tale that has survived from the 1905 Ashes jaunt? It was a tour game, the Australians facing the bellicose Yorkshiremen. A young coalminer, playing his first match for the county, was brought into the attack as Trumper settled at the crease. The collier took a while finding his line, the ball spraying everywhere. But instead of demolishing the wide-flung deliveries, Trumper treated the bowling with undue respect. “What was that all about?” asked his team-mates later. “Would you have preferred me,” Vic replied, “to destroy his chance of making an easier living than working down the pit?”

If this was Trumper’s attitude to cricket, then he would’ve smiled at Stuart MacGill’s treatment of the journo taking his stance 20m away. Surely MacGill must’ve known the journo needed a yarn? So he drags his first delivery down, flat and short, the spin modest, allowing the journo to step back and slice the ball through point for four. MacGill serves up the same fare the following ball. Again the journo steps back and clubs it to the point fence. Yes, Vic would’ve loved this sharing of the spoils.Of course, the munificence of both MacGill and Trumper could only extend so far. A handful of balls later, the leggie squirts one out the front of his hand. It hovers, tempts the journo into a legside flick, only to dip and drop and clean up his leg stump. MacGill looks pleased. It’s a ball of true artistry. Doubtless Vic would’ve enjoyed that, too.

– Aaron Scott