Bradman Anecdotes; You, Don Bradman?! I kill you, mun! I bowl at you, I kill you! I split you in two
Cricketislife!
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Bradman on sledging:
"I played under Alan Kippax in New South Wales for some time, I played
under Jack Ryder in the Test series in 28-29, I played under Bill
Woodfull in 1930 until he retired, and I captained the side until I
retired. And in the whole of that time, I don't recall one single
incident of sledging. It never occurred, and it would not have
occurred because it would not have been allowed, not one of those
captains would have allowed it. If it had happened under me I would
have given the fellow one warning, and if it had happened again I
would have made sure he was not selected again.... it never went on in
my day, not at all, and I don't think it should happen now."
=======================================
Give him 300 and ask him to go out,'' shouted a spectator at the
Australians v Worcestershire match in 1934 during Don Bradman's
innings of 206, the second of the three consecutive double centuries
he made against that County. A lady watching the Don score 452 not out
in 415 minutes for NSW against Queensland on January 30, 1930,
remarked ``Why don't they let someone else have a turn? I am sick of
looking at him.''
That the Don was a nightmare to the bowlers is revealed in a despatch
by Arthur Mailey in 1949. He wrote ``I felt sorry for those bowlers
who were and will be up tomorrow against Bradman. Breaking through his
defence is even more difficult than getting clearance from the
Taxation Department.I've tried both.''
===============================================
Bill O Reilly on Don:
There's never been and never will be in my estimation a batsman so
good as that fella. I don't care how many you like to pour into one -
all the Chappells, the Borders and so on. Forget them, they're just
child's play compared with Bradman, and I've seen them all. Bradman
was a bloke whose ability with the bat was absolutely inconceivable.
The Yanks talk about Babe Ruth and all that. To hell with Babe Ruth.
This boy was a modern miracle.''
=======================================================
John Bradman, the son on his father :
I recall one night just after I'd gone to bed, I heard this wailing
coming from his room and I ran in to find him jumping up and down
slapping himself. He'd hopped into bed and had been bitten by a swarm
of bees ... the Department of Agriculture had a special unit that
dealt with bees.
"So the next morning he rang them up and said my name is Don Bradman
and I've got some bees in my cavity wall. And as quick as a flash the
bloke on the phone said: `Well my name is Bill Smith and I've got bats
in the belfry' and hung up. The poor fellow thought it was a joke.''
--
Mr Bradman reiterated his belief that his father should not be so
revered that he becomes god-like. "I was in the State Library recently
where some of his things are in a collection ... one item is a rug
which used to be on the floor of my room. It's in the design of the
Australian blazer pocket and it has a dark green background and in
this dark green background are some faded patches. "I was standing
next to some people and they were discussing these pale patches in
hushed tones and with almost reverential significance ... I could have
told them they were the patches where my little dog had peed on it.''
===================================================
Captaincy stories
'Bradman could read a batsman and tell you how to bowl to him, but he
did it obliquely, as with Bill Edrich, who tended to play across the
line, at Lord's in 1948. Lindwall habitually placed a short leg behind
the square leg umpire. When Edrich came in, Bradman asked Lindwall:
'Do you want that short leg behind or in front of the umpire?'
'No, leave him there,' Lindwall said.
He bowled a couple to Edrich and would have had him caught by the
short leg if he had taken Bradman's hint. He asked Bradman if he
should move the fielder.
'It's too late now,' Bradman said; 'he won't play that shot again.'
Edrich played against Australia for another five years; Lindwall says
he always had him in trouble as a result of Bradman's tip.
----------------------------
Lindwall recalls that the team attended a black tie function while a
match was in progress, and that three of the bowlers on duty, himself,
Colin McCool and Ern Toshach, were then invited to a party 15 miles
out of London. They had to make three separate cab trips to get there;
this persuaded them to stay at the party rather than attempt a
complicated trip back in the early hours of the morning. When they did
get back, still in dinner suits, they went up the hotel stairs in case
Bradman was in the lift, but met him doing his exercises. The great
man said no more than: 'Have a nice night? You had better do all right
today.'
They had a shower and took the field. Bradman bowled the three of them
all morning; each took three wickets. Lindwall was on the rubbing
table at lunch when Bradman 'smacked me on the behind' and said: 'You
were pretty lucky today.'
'Why? We got them all out.'
'If you hadn't I would have liked to see the three of you bowling all
afternoon.'
------------------------------------------
Bradman had a horror start as captain. He lost the toss at the 'Gabba,
watched his main strike bowler Ernie McCormick break down and was out
for a duck in the second innings on a sticky wicket. England romped
home by 322 runs and won the second Test in Sydney by an innings, rain
once again coming to its aid. Bradman made his second successive duck
and the critics were not impressed with the scoreboard - England 2,
Australia 0 and in grave danger of losing the Ashes. One newspaper
reported that Bradman, the spotlight now focused on him all the time
and his anxiety level full to overflowing, was not getting the loyal
support of all his players. McCabe issued a statement saying the
players were behind him.
Things turned around for Australia and Bradman in the third Test in
Melbourne. With rain a factor for the third time and England batting
on a sticky wicket, the shrewd Bradman told his bowlers not to get
England out. When Allen declared (too late, as it turned out) towards
the end of play on Saturday, the wicket was still unfriendly. Bradman
gambled and opened the second innings with tail-enders Bill O'Reilly
and a stunned `Chuck' Fleetwood-Smith.
O¦Reilly was out first ball, but Fleetwood-Smith survived, joking that
he had the game by the throat.
BY Monday the wicket had lost its fire and, with Bradman back to his
fluent best with 270, Australia won. Bradman's improvisation had paid
off. This time Allen's captaincy was under fire. He might have
clinched the series 3-0 if he had declared England's second innings
sooner and exposed Australia to the damp wicket. Australia won the
next two Tests, the captain contributing 212 and 169, to retain the
Ashes 3-2 and Bradman had come through his first baptism of fire with
his reputation enhanced.
============================================================
In Adelaide against the might of the West Indies Merv Hughes had just
completed his highest Test innings of 72 not out, sharing in an 114
run 9th wicket partnership with Dean Jones (216). Hughes was relaxing,
towel around his neck, enjoying a cold something and bathing in the
kudos of his colleagues for some cavalier, entertaining and ridiculous
batsmanship. Then The Don entered the room. After congratulating Jones
on his strokeplay, Bradman cast an eye at the big, sweaty,
moustachioed fast bowler, shook his head and said, "It’s a funny game,
cricket."
-
====================================================
-Michael Parkinson on Don:
There is, for instance, the tale of Bill Black, an off-spin bowler
playing for Lithgow, who on a memorable day in 1931 bowled Bradman for
52. The umpire was so excited that when the ball hit Bradman's wicket
he called out: "Bill, you've got him."
The ball was mounted and given to Black as proof that he had dismissed
the greatest batsman in the world.
Later that season Don Bradman again played against Black. As the
bowler marked out his run, Don said to the wicketkeeper: "What sort of
bowler is this fellow?"
The wicketkeeper, a mischief-maker like the rest of his tribe,
replied: "Don't you remember this bloke? He bowled you out a few weeks
ago and has been boasting about it ever since."
"Is that so?" said Bradman. Two overs later Black pleaded with his
skipper to be taken off. Bradman had hit him for 62 runs in two
eight-ball overs. He made 100 in three overs and finished with 256,
including 14 sixes and 29 fours.
---------
On Bradman's first tour of England in 1930 there was a popular rumour
that the English pitches would sort him out. As an ardent subscriber
to this theory, George Macauley, the feisty Yorkshire seam bowler,
couldn't wait to get at Bradman.
When Yorkshire played the Australians Macauley demanded loudly of his
captain: "Let me have a go at this bugger." His first over was a
maiden. Bradman then hit him for five fours in the second over and
took 16 from the third. A spectator yelled: "George, tha' should have
kept thi' bloody trap shut."
-----------------------------
In Sir Donald's last first-class game at Sydney, Miller greeted him
with two bouncers. The first, of the harmless variety, was hit for
four. The second, preceded by a gesture to the press box declaring:
'If you think that was funny, you ain't seen nothing yet,' nearly
decapitated Sir Donald, who at the time happened to be chief selector.
================================================
Ian Chappel on Bradman and WSC:
Bradman to me has as much to do with the starting of World Series
Cricket as anybody because I got the feeling that Bradman treated the
board money as though it was almost his own money," Chappell said.
"He wasn't going to shell out anything."
Although he was no longer chairman of the Australian Cricket Board,
Bradman dominated two board meetings Chappell attended as captain to
lobby for greater benefits for the players, he said.
In the mid-1970s, the ACB was taking gates of up to $250,000 from Test
matches while players were receiving $200 each.
Speaking yesterday, Chappell said he was further frustrated by
Bradman's stand because he had opposed the ACB as a player in the
1930s.
"I was well and truly aware of what had gone on in his playing days
and the hypocrisy didn't escape me," Chappell said.
"I knew about a bit of the history, the fact that he as a player
fought the board probably as much we we did over different matters.
"He wasn't going to play in that Bodyline series because he had a
contract to write for a newspaper.
"We felt a bit annoyed that he was the one in our camp way back but
then the board obviously bought him over.
"They made him a selector while he was still playing and then he went
on to become chairman of the board."
Chappell reveals in the documentary he was approached three times
during his leadership from 1972 to 1975 for Australia to play
privately- funded exhibition matches outside the normal international
program.
Each time he referred the approach to the ACB and each time it was
rejected.
"If they'd allowed us to play in these extra games and we'd been well
paid, then we wouldn't have been complaining we weren't getting so
much money from Test cricket," Chappell said.
"To me it would have complemented perfectly."
=========================================================
His personal setbacks:
Sir Donald has had to confront much sadness in his personal life,
which perhaps strengthened his resolve to remain a private person.
His son, John, born in 1939, three years after the death of the
Bradman's infant son, was afflicted by poliomyelitis was a young
teenager. He made a full recovery from the virus but continued to
suffer because he was the son of Don Bradman.
In 1972 John changed his name by deed poll. At that time Sir Donald
said: "Only those who have to live with the incessant strain of
publicity can have any idea of its impact".
Daughter Shirley was born with cerebral palsy. Lady Bradman, who had
heart bypass surgery several years ago, and her husband have had
periods of indifferent and poor health
===========================================================
Fingleton on Bradman:
His batting stance was unique. His bat touched the ground between his
feet, not behind them, like every other batsman and photograph I have
seen. He stood perfectly still as the bowler approached; the end of
his bat did not act as an escape conductor for energy with that
nervous tap, tap, tap on the pitch so common to most batsmen as the
bowler ran to deliver the ball.''
``He was at once the despair of the bowlers, the captain and his
fieldsmen, the batting worthy struggling at the other end and his
comrades in the pavilion. He made it all look so easy, so simple, so
pre-arranged. He always made the onlooker feel that a loose ball would
be lifted for four to the very place on the boundary to which science
required that ball should be sent''.
``His genius was absolute. To bat with him was an education and
revelation, not given by any other batsman of the period. Great
artists like Trumper and Macartney varied the direction of the shot
for sheer artistic satisfaction but Bradman was implacable. He was
more interested in runs than art, and in the days when he was playing
for Australia you would have searched a long time before you found an
onlooker who seriously disagreed with him. He was the undisputed hero
of the new-found public, the broadcasting public. He was the darling
of the spectator's heart - and justifiably so, because no batsman in
history had been so prolific and none of the moderns could approach
the standard he set for consistency and sheer honesty of batting
purpose.''
And Jack Fingleton concludes, ``All bowlers with the possible
exception of O'Reilly, whom he first met in a country game, came alike
to Bradman. At one time or another he took up Tate, Larwood (before
bodyline), Geary, Voce, Freeman, Verity, Constantine, Francis,
Griffiths, Grimmett, Fleetwood-Smith, Ebeling, Blackie, Ironmonger,
Oxenham, Quinn, Bell, Morkel, McMillan, and the rest of the world's
best. He was wary and respectful always with O'Reilly, but the others
he closely analysed and then slashed them apart before he left them
bewildered, abashed and out of breath.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
account in Fingleton' Cricket Crisis of Bradman's "cold and deliberate
cricket murder" of Mailey's bowling in a charity match - a charity
match! - in the early 1930s, motivated by a newspaper story on the eve
of the match, suggests little charity in Bradman's ego.
Wrote Fingleton: "A statistician found Mailey, then a cricket veteran,
had taken Bradman's wicket several times. The newspapers displayed the
fact. [But] it meant for Mailey his offering on the sacrificial altar
of Bradman's greatness, for the little chap never missed a cricket
item ... Bradman put Mailey in the stocks that day for all to see. He
hanged, drew and quartered him. Mailey was butchered to make another
Bradman holiday."
======================================================
Great Australian Cricket Stories by Neil Marks, the former NSW
cricketer and selector who has made a second career as an author and
raconteur of sports yarns.
Marks' father Alec, better known as Acka, was also a forceful NSW
batsman in his prime and became close mates with his young team-mate
Bradman.
There is the story of Acka, an expert snooker player, beating the
novice Bradman in a friendly game.
Five years later, when Bradman had moved to Adelaide, he invited Acka
to his home when the two were playing a Shield match against each
other.
After dinner Bradman led the way to a full-sized snooker table – and
wiped the table with his guest. He had been plotting his revenge for
years.
Another story relates how Acka worked on his bowling and was on the
verge of selection as an all-rounder on an Ashes tour.
In the final trial match against Bradman's team he scored 83 and then
was given a bowl. His good mate Bradman smashed him all over the park,
ending any tour hopes.
When Acka remarked jokingly that Bradman could have gone easy on him
and got his friend on the boat, Bradman answered seriously: "It never
dawned on me."
Finally Acka did make an Australian Test squad, captained by Bradman,
who was also a selector, as 12th man.
It was the highlight of his career and he was justifiably chuffed.
Then Bradman deflated him by saying he had pulled strings to get Acka
into the side, securing him match payment as a "wedding present".
As Neil Marks wrote, Bradman never realised how much he had hurt his
friend.
No, The Don wasn't a god, just a bloke.
=========================================================
Cardus on Don:
At Adelaide, at close of play on a hot day on which Donald Bradman
amassed 212, I asked Bill Voce, the Nottinghamshire and England fast
left-handed bowler: "What's the best ball to bowl at 'The Don'?" Out
of his heart, Bill replied: "There's no ruddy best ball to bowl at
him."
Bradman scored a century on his first appearance in first-class
cricket. One of the opposing bowlers, a famous Australian captain, was
asked after his baptism of Bradman: "What's this new young cove like?"
"He belts hell out of everything he can reach," was the reply, which,
I think, can be taken as the most eloquent of all ways of describing
Bradman's batting. He was a killer of all kind of bowling, given a
good pitch to play on.
A splendid South African bowler told me that, at Adelaide, Bradman hit
him for three fours in one of his first overs, the ball still new. His
captain thereupon asked: "What's the matter?" The bowler answered:
"Well, if you really want to know, he's just hit for hellfire fours
three of the best balls I've ever bowled in my life."
----
Cardus adds in a different context,'' one afternoon I was walking
along Whiteall I saw a newspaper placard: ``Bradman Fails'' and in the
stop press I read, ``Bradman b Ryan 58
=========================================================
when the Don scored 334 runs in a 1930 Test at Leeds, and a London
newspaper finally trumpeted just two grateful words on posters around
the city: "HE'S OUT!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Micheal Henderson with a fancy story
Nevertheless, I think I have a beauty. It was told to me by the great
Australian batsman, Dean Jones, who positively swore on the head of
his daughter it happened, and I have since been told that Merv Hughes
also confirms its truth.
The scene is set at a Test match between Australia and the West Indies
at Adelaide Oval back in February 1989. These were the days when the
Windies were the greatest power the cricketing world had ever seen,
the days when they used to select 11 fast bowlers in the team and a
12th man who was a fast bowler just to be on the safe side.
And it was into just such a furnace that the young bowler Mervyn
Hughes walked - with bat in hand. Figuring fortune favoured the brave,
Hughes wielded the willow like an axeman his axe, and somehow - after
snicking fortutiously, connecting full-bloodedly, and missing entirely
- he finished the day's play at 72 not out.
The tradition in Test cricket is that the batting side take a few
beers into the fielding side's dressing-room afterwards, but not on
this evening. Instead, Merv took an ice-box full of bottles, so keen
was he to give the men of the Windies the full blow-by-blow account of
every run he'd made. So it was that half an hour later, Jones - who
himself had contributed 216 - and Hughes and several other Australian
players were in the Windies dressing-room, when a sudden hush fell
upon the gathering.
They looked to the door and there was Sir Donald Bradman himself,
being ushered into the room by several South Australian cricket
officials. The Don had expressed a desire to meet this mighty team,
and now here he was.
For the next 15 minutes or so, the great man was introduced to the
visiting players, with each West Indian standing up well before Sir
Donald got to their position on the bench. Then, when their time came,
they warmly shook his hand and had a few words.
This all proceeded splendidly until Sir Donald got to the last man on
the bench, Patrick Patterson - the fastest bowler in the world at that
time. So the story goes, not only did Patterson not stand, he simply
squinted quizzically up at the octogenarian. Finally, after some 30
seconds of awkward silence, Patterson stood up, all two metres of pure
whip-cord steel of him, and looked down at the diminutive Don.
"You, Don Bradman!?!" he snorted. "You, Don Bradman?!?! I kill you,
mun! I bowl at you, I kill you! I split you in two!"
In reply, Sir Donald, with his hands on his hips, gazed squarely back
at Patterson and calmly retorted: "You couldn't even get Merv Hughes
out. You'd have no chance against me, mate!"
Fare thee well, Sir Donald. True or not, we will all still be fondly
recalling stories of your life to our own dying day.
Aditya Basrur
<snip>
Fantastic. Thank you.
Aditya
Cricketislife!
wrote:
>Fantastic. Thank you.
All Stories picked up from various net sources. Too many to mention
and I dont even remember where I picked some of them.
More stories on Bradman.
====================
Bradman: Oh yes, that's a great story, that happened the other day.
I'd been having a round of golf and was driving home quietly about 3
o'clock. The strange thing was it was alongside Victoria Park
racecourse, near the grand prix circuit. I was actually driving on the
grand prix circuit and the policeman waved me down, there were no
other cars in the vicinity at all. I thought he'd broken down and
wanted some help. And when he pulled me over he said "I'm sorry but
you've been exceeding the speed limit." I said "No I'm not, the speed
limit's 80 (kmhs) here, and I was only doing about 70." He said "No
it's not, it's 60 and my radar gun says you were exceeding the speed
limit, you were doing 72."
Then he said "Have you got your licence with you," so I pulled out the
wallet and produced it to him. He got out his book and began to make
some notes, then he said "Are you Sir Donald Bradman?" I said yes,
that's right, and he said "it's an honour and a privilege to meet
you," and I said "Well I'm very sorry I can't say the same to you."
RM: (laughs) Did he book you?
DB: He certainly did, I went away $173 poorer and a lot wiser.
RM: So there's a policeman in South Australia who had been brazen
enough to book Donald Bradman?
DB: Yes, well that proves that there are no corrupts in the police
force in South Australia (laughs)
RM: Are you a speed merchant by nature?
DB: Well no I'm not, I'm such a slow driver that theres a story in our
family...we were driving to town one day, and my daughter said to me
"What's the matter Dad, are we driving into a head wind?" (laughs)
Thats my reputation as a driver.
=========================================
Ram Guha on Bradman
The Don never played in this country, but was adored here
nevertheless. He retired in 1948, and five years later decided to make
another visit to England, as a journalist. As it happens, his aircraft
made an unscheduled stopover at Kolkata's Dum Dum airport. Word got
around, somehow, and within minutes there were 5,000 cricket-crazy
Indians on the tarmac, screaming for him. Bradman hastily got into an
army jeep and took refuge in a barricaded building.
--------------
My feelings regarding Vivian Richards were anticipated by a Yorkshire
cricket lover watching Don Bradman in the summer of 1948. He loved
him, for his brilliant batsmanship, and hated him, for all those runs
scored against his side. As Bradman walked off the Headingley ground
for the last time, having hit 173 not out to take Australia to an
emphatic victory, this Yorkshireman stopped the foreign foe on the
pavilion steps. Eyes brimming with tears - tears of anger and of
admiration - he spoke the two words that best expressed his complex
emotions: "Yer booger!"
--------------
Some years later(after the record 499, by Hanif Mohammed ) the
Pakistani cricket team toured Australia. When they played South
Australia at Adelaide, Sir Donald Bradman walked into their dressing
room and asked to meet the man who had broken his record score of 452.
Hanif got up, and apologetically said, ''Sir, you will always be the
greatest.'' The Don looked him up and down and replied, shaking his
head: ''So you are the fellow. I always thought that the batsman who
broke my record would be six feet two inches tall. But you are shorter
than me!''
==================================================
When the city of Adelaide decided to rename a street for Sir Don,
several businesses on the strip tried to cash in on the cricketer's
reputation-for example, the Ultimate Risk Sex Shop intended to rename
itself "Erotica on Bradman" but changed its mind after a wave of
negative publicity. Eventually, the Australian government changed the
law to prevent businesses from using Bradman's name to suggest a
commercial connection.
===============================================
Teetotal and a non- smoker, when possible he avoided rowdy
celebration, although as a talented pianist he would occasionally be
roped in to accompany sing-songs. After he made 309 not out on the
first day of the Test match at Headingley in 1930, against an attack
including Larwood and Tate, he went up to his room to listen to music
and write letters all evening.
Some of his team-mates resented this attitude. In particular, the
Irish and Roman Catholic members of Australia's side in the 1930s -
Jack Fingleton and Bill O'Reilly to the fore - took exception to the
tight, dedicated, Empire-loving, Royalty-idolising,
aristocrat-appreciating genius under whose shadow they lay.
``A churlish little man,'' Fingleton called Bradman in 1980, all
passion clearly not spent
---------------------------------------
In May 1941 Bradman was discharged from the Army on medical grounds. A
frozen shoulder left him unable to lift his right arm. He also lost
all feeling in the thumb and index finger of his right hand; it never
returned, he wrote in his book Farewell to Cricket (1950).
For the rest of the war Bradman busied himself with his work on the
Adelaide stock exchange, on which he bought a seat in 1943. But even
this occupation proved fraught, as Harry Hodgett, his boss, was
imprisoned for fraud in 1945. Bradman worked hard and successfully to
restore the position of the firm, which now traded as Don Bradman and
Company. During this period, he recorded, ``cricket never crossed my
mind.''
...He continued to work as a stockbroker until 1954 when he announced,
rather curiously, that his doctor had advised him to retire.
=================================================
Bradman insecure, super-battler, but no crook
By Frank Devine in The Australian
DON Bradman has all the qualifications to be an Australian immortal.
But first he needs a rub-down to cleanse him of sanctity. We need to
see him as a man in full, with flaws, foibles and even sins revealed
and understood.
My colleague David Nason performed useful work in The Weekend
Australian Magazine last Saturday as the first post-mortem devil's
advocate in the Bradman cause. He sought to demonstrate that Bradman
was complicit in fraudulent dealings at the Adelaide stockbroking firm
for which he worked and which led in 1945 to its bankruptcy and the
imprisonment of its principal, Harry Hodgetts.
What did Bradman know and when? That question has been fuel for
Adelaide gossip for half a century. After all, Bradman had been with
the firm for 10 years – with 18 months out for military service. Apart
from Hodgetts, he was the only one authorised to sign cheques. He had
a seat on the Adelaide stock exchange in his own right.
Surely he knew what was going on and was therefore, at least, the
accomplice of a crook. I have no wish to contribute to the illusion of
St Don. Why should I? He's not even a Catholic. But I am convinced
there's nothing to pin on Bradman over the Hodgetts collapse. This is
based on a long, taped conversation I had with him on the subject in
1995, while gathering information for a book (I write slowly).
Can you prove innocence through the testimony of the accused? It is
done all the time. In more than 40 hours of conversation I found Don
reluctant to concede much that did not show him in the best light, but
unbendingly truthful in direct statements. Jessie Bradman sat with us
often, a fine corroborating witness.
Nason speculates in his article – as have Adelaide gossips all these
years – that Bradman got away with whatever he was supposed to have
done, and was able to start his own stockbrokership from the wreckage
of Hodgetts's, because of Masonic connections.
Andrew Young, the authoritarian chairman of the Adelaide exchange, and
apparent Bradman supporter, was grand master of the South Australian
Grand Lodge of Freemasons. But Bradman, who had been enrolled as a
Freemason while he lived in Sydney, told me he had been half-hearted
about it and had, in fact, resigned before going to Adelaide. Jessie
said Don had only ever attended one lodge meeting. Not a strong
connection for conspiratorial favouritism.
Don said he was an employee, never offered a partnership by Hodgetts.
He wasn't sure he wanted one. The no-risk security of being an
employee – as he believed – suited him better. He had bought a seat
because it was cheap during the war – "a few hundred pounds". He had
known things were going badly for Hodgetts for about a year before the
firm went bust. He had taken salary cuts until in the final weeks his
pay was down to £6 a week, and not always paid. He said frequently, in
our conversation, that he was innocent of any participation in
Hodgetts's frauds.
Did he suspect what was going on? I believe he forced himself not to
be suspicious. Bradman was obsessed with security, haunted by having
no profession with which to support his family when cricket ended. He
told me once, "Away from the cricket field I never had any confidence
in anything I did."
WHEN Hodgetts, a member of the Australian Cricket Board, offered in
1935, in the middle of the Depression, to train Don as a stockbroker,
he leapt at it, although it meant moving to a city where neither he
nor his wife knew anybody. A six-year contract went with the offer.
The security!
I think Don fell into deep depression when he saw things going wrong
at Hodgetts's. He told me, "I hadn't any alternative to working there.
I suppose I might have got some menial job – at best, selling
insurance for the AMP."
When the collapse of Hodgetts's came. he was frantic. "I would lose
everything," he said. With a tremor in his voice: "My house!" The
house he built when he moved to Adelaide is no fortress. But it is
solid, square-standing, a refuge – Don's ultimate security symbol.
He sought the advice of close friends about setting up as a
stockbroker on his own. He recalled that all told him he would be a
fool to do so. But he assured himself of bank backing and went ahead
within four days. Most of Hodgetts's clients went along with him. His
early struggles, with minimal staff, his wife as bookkeeper, were
pretty desperate. He usually worked until 1am. Other Adelaide
stockbrokers were not, on the whole, welcoming. They thought he was
using his cricketing fame to compete with them. I think they are the
prime source of gossip about Bradman's evil-doing at Hodgetts's.
Was Bradman, in fact, spruiking for Don Bradman & Company when he
returned to Test cricket in 1946? He evaded my inquiries about this.
Maybe I was excessively delicate. But he was 38 and in fairly poor
health (he frequently saw double during his first serious net
practice). Maybe he was spruiking with his new string of centuries.
Stockbroking (like Test cricket) is no place for softies. In any case,
I believe his efforts from 1945 to 1947 reinforce the super-battler
aspect of the Bradman legend.
=======================================================
Don Bradman: My father took me down to Sydney to see two days of the
Fifth Test between Australia and England. That was the only
first-class match I ever saw until I played in one. I can still hear
the sound of the ball going into Sammy Carter’s gloves when they
bowled. And extraordinary thing, after all these years, I can still
memorise the sound of that ball going into Sammy Carter’s gloves. But
of course my greatest memory of the match was that this was on the
Sydney Cricket Ground, which I’d never seen before, and it was a
magnificent ground, and I said to my father, ‘I shall never be happy
until I play on this ground.’
---------------------------------
Bill O'Reilly: Bradman was the greatest cricketer ever that I saw walk
through a gate onto a cricket field anywhere that I’ve been, there’s
no doubt whatsoever about that. He had everything it needed to take
charge of a game and to call the tune all the time he was out in the
middle, which he generally did. To bowl against Bradman with my way of
bowling, I regarded it as the greatest experience that you could have
out in the middle, because I acquitted myself – I think I just about
broke even with him, too. Someday some researcher will tell me how I
stood with him. For instance the first time ever we played against
each other as kids, he got 234 on the first Saturday. I did get him
spilled a couple of times under tragic circumstances in the slips. And
234 not out, and I spent the rest of the week wondering (I was then a
university boy, home on holidays at Bowral and Wingello) and the rest
of that week I spent saying to myself, ‘Well God blimey, forget about
cricket, go back to Botany Harriers and start high jumping and running
again. If a kid like that, 17, can do what he did to you there,
there’s not much hope.’ But then again, the next Saturday, I rolled
him head over heels first ball of the day, and I thought, ‘God, this
isn’t a bad game at all; this’ll do me, I’ll stick at it.’ And I think
probably a little bit of research along the track would show that my
duels with him weren’t lopsided.
--------------------
Bill O'Reilly: I would say old Walter Scott writing one of his novels
would have regarded him as a recluse. He was a man who had nothing
really to contribute socially amongst any of the boys at all, and in
fact what’s more, looking back now, I don’t think I ever really got to
know Bradman, and I knew him longer than any other cricketer that has
ever lived, because we met as kids in the bush.
-----------------------------------------------
Charles Williams (Labour life peer in the English House of Lords and
biographer of Bradman) on Don:
Now why a sporting hero? Well Australia has never had a war of
independence, it’s therefore never had a George Washington, it’s never
had a civil war, never had a Lenin, it’s never had a war against a
close enemy, it’s therefore never had a Joan of Arc, and so on and so
forth. Its heroes have mainly been sporting heroes, and because of the
climate and individualism of Australia and those who live there, sport
has been particularly attractive, and particular attention has been
given to it. So in the circumstances it’s not wholly surprising that a
sporting figure who achieved what Don achieved, should be much more
than just a simple sporting figure; he was almost, as it were, an
amalgam of, say, Joan of Arc and George Washington and Lenin at the
same time, if I can use that expression.
-------------------
Williams on Don unpopularity with some of team mates:
Within the ranks of the Australian cricket side, however, Bradman
wasn’t always as popular with his team-mates as he was with the
public. Charles Williams says that one of the reasons for this, that
bubbled away under the surface, was the sectarian divide in the team,
the division between Catholics and Protestants that was potent in
Australian society and politics throughout the first half of the 20th
century.
Williams: Like all these things it’s a mixture. Certainly there was
that, and as Don said to me in a slightly bitter tone, it’s the only
time he got rather bitter during our conversation, ‘Fingleton was the
ringleader’ and he said when they went to Melbourne they were met by
priests in cassocks. You know, it was quite powerful stuff. That was
part of it. Part of it of course was jealousy, straight jealousy, that
Bradman was the hero, Bradman was the man that people wanted to see.
If Bradman got out, all the grounds emptied even if Jack Fingleton was
going in to bat. And that was irritating for people like O’Reilly and
Fingleton, who were in their own right, cricketers of the highest
standard.
The third problem was that Don himself was not the easiest character
to get on with. He was, in his playing days, he was quite sharp, he
was a pretty fierce Captain, he played to win and there wasn’t much
quarter given to the opponent or indeed sometimes his own side. He was
also, up until the late ‘30s he was a teetotaller, didn’t like all
this noisy stuff, couldn’t understand why people drank beer, didn’t
understand why people smoked, didn’t see what good it did them.
Whereas the O’Reilly/Fingleton/Fleetwood-Smith those people, they all
of them enjoyed a beer and enjoyed having a good time and there was a
good deal of social tension of that nature. The classic story is when
Don came out at Headingley in 1930 and all the boys rallied round and
said, ‘Well, you know, Braddles, you know, have a drink and
celebrate’, and he said, ‘I’d rather go up to my hotel room and write
a few letters’, which he did, and listened to some music. Now that was
an odd thing in a way, if I may put it like this without offence, for
an Australian to do. An odd thing for anybody to do, but for an
Australian particularly in a side like that, in a touring side, it was
regarded as being pretty stand-offish, they didn’t like it. So there
was a combination of all these factors.
---------------------------
Charles Williams: He talked at some length about the vendetta, he
called it, that Fingleton led against him, as Fingleton was the
ringleader. And he talked about the problems he’d had in ‘36/7 and the
England tour of 1938, and he said that one of the factors in 1948,
after the War, which led him to accept at a relatively advanced age,
the Captaincy of the Australian touring side, was the fact that
O’Reilly and Fingleton had both retired. And the fact that the ’48
side was in his view a very happy side, which is borne out by every
other commentator, was due to the fact that the schism that was there
in ‘36/7 and ’38 was no longer there. So although there may have been
no overt rows about religion, because I don’t think Don’s the sort of
person who had that sort of row, it was an underlying theme that was
an irritant when they all, for instance, on board ship, he said, they
all went off together to mass on the Sunday, and they made a point of
doing that, in a rather sort of pointed manner. Where of course
Bradman and the other Protestants didn’t go to mass, it was a Catholic
mass. It’s that sort of thing rather than overt rows I think that made
for tension in the team
==============================================================
It has been well documented that until poor health beset him, Bradman
was a keen golfer. Some years ago, he was playing a round with Dean
Jones. At one stage, Jones was in the rough, and he was circling his
ball, trying to figure out how to get it past several tall trees
between it and the fairway. As his playing partner was deep in
thought, Bradman said: 'In my day, when I played here as a young man,
a three-iron was good enough to get it through those trees.'
Presumably thinking that any sporting advice from The Don was good
advice, Jones pulled out his three-iron, reared back and ... THWACK!
Straight into the trees. Seeing Jones's perplexed expression, Bradman
stated calmly, while holding his hand at knee level: 'Of course, in my
day, the trees were only so high'
==========================================
Bill Lawry:
In the 1928-1940 era," Lawry said, "Bradman used to fill the grounds.
In my era, I used to empty them.''
====================
Dennis Batchelor:
During Bradman’s second century I learned that he was suffering from
ill-health. I fancy it was a touch of ‘flu with a rising temperature.
I dare say if he had had plague we should have got rid of him for 150.
=====================================
Was Larwood the fastest bowler you ever saw?
Don: No he wasn't. At his best he was very good, very fast, but the
fastest bowler I've ever seen was Frank Tyson ... he wasn't a good a
bowler as Harold but he was exceptionally fast.
--------------
When did you first fall in love with Jessie Menzies?
DB: Err, I think that would be the day she came to live with us when I
was about 12 years of age. I remember the day very well because I had
been sent down the street by my mother on a mission to buy some
groceries, and I ran into the doctor's car...on my bike, and had an
accident. He had to take me home, I had my nose all cut and scratches
all over my face. And when I got home she was there at the door,
having just been delivered by her father, because she was going to
stay with us for 12 months and go to school. And we went to school
together every day for the rest of that year. That was when I fell in
love with her, that very first day. I don't think she fell in love
with me until much later, because I was a terrible sight the day she
saw me.
RM: (laughs) Did you decide then you were going to marry her?
DB: (smiles) No, no not quite then..but very shortly afterwards.
RM: But she turned you down first up, in 1932..?
DB: No, no, she didn't turn me down then..just postponed it.
RM: I see, but you wanted to marry her before you went on the 1930
tour?
DB: No I only wanted to be engaged, I didn't want to get married.
RM: And she said no?
DB: She said "Wait until you get back from England, and if you still
feel the same way, talk to me again."
RM: And you did?
DB: And I did, straight away..as soon as I got back.
RM: Could you have done all this without Jessie?
DB: No, no..no way in the world, no way in the world. She's the most
marvellous woman who ever existed
-----------------
Can I ask you the story about the missing engagement ring?
DB: Well it's a bit of a mystery (sips water) Yes, I brought her a
nice engagement ring..single diamond, with a couple of diamonds each
side, and one day she reported to me that she couldn't find it. And so
we racked our brains and searched everywhere, but we couldn't find it.
So we finally came to the conclusion that she'd taken it off while
preparing some vegetables, and it had been thrown out. And that was
the end of it and we couldn't find it anywhere..this went on for about
20 years, and then one day I was scratching around in the garden, up
in the backyard, and I suddenly saw something glint in the sunlight. I
turned it over, and it was a ring. I picked this ring up, and it
looked like one of the rings the kids get at the show. I took it
inside and said to my wife "Do you recognize this, did one of the kids
get it in a showbag or something like that?" She took one look and
said "Good gracious, that's my engagement ring". It turns out it had
been thrown out in the rubbish, it had gone through the incinerator,
it had gone through the vegetable garden, and I accidently scratched
it up on a gravel path. So we got it restored and she wears it today,
absolutely beautiful. A miracle.
RM: (laughs) Was she the boss?
DB: She always has been.
=============================
=================================================
Don Bradman: In retrospect I think my feeling is one of gratitude that
I was given such a great opportunity through sport to serve my
country. As a boy I had no idea that my career would develop in this
fashion, I just simply loved playing cricket as a sport, and I can
truthfully say that it was a labour of love. I continued to play it as
a sport throughout the whole of my career. I was not in a position of
power; my parents were humble country folk, they had no wealth or
influence. Any success I had was purely the result of my own talents,
and I’m gratified for the reason that I think my life can be seen as
an example to the youth of Australia in proving that any person from
any walk of life has the opportunity, if he cares to grasp it.
SONG: Bradman
Now shadows grow longer, and there’s so much more yet to be told
But we’re not getting any younger, so let the part tell the whole
Now the players all wear colours, the circus is in town
And I no longer can go down there, down to that sacred ground
He was more than just a batsman, he’s something like a tide
More than just one man, he was half the bloody side
Fathers took their sons ‘cos fortune used to hide
In the palm of his hands; in the palm of his hands
Michael Creevey
Yes, very good indeed, including the ones in the next post. I am reminded of
an experience of Jeff Thomson's where he recounts an incident which occurred
before he played for Australia. He was with a group of young up and coming
fast bowlers who were introduced to the Don. The Don was somehow challenged
to face these young tearaways (aged in their late teens). The Don, as
recalled by Thommo, aged in his late fifties, dressed in suit and tie,
proceeded to smash these young upstart quickies all over the place. Thommo,
it seems, was grateful that he didn't take up the challenge.
Regards,
Michael Creevey
Yuk Tang
>
> Yes, very good indeed, including the ones in the next post. I am
> reminded of an experience of Jeff Thomson's where he recounts an
> incident which occurred before he played for Australia. He was with a
> group of young up and coming fast bowlers who were introduced to the
> Don. The Don was somehow challenged to face these young tearaways
> (aged in their late teens). The Don, as recalled by Thommo, aged in
> his late fifties, dressed in suit and tie, proceeded to smash these
> young upstart quickies all over the place. Thommo, it seems, was
> grateful that he didn't take up the challenge.
In the version I read, Thommo did bowl, and the faster he bowled, the harder
Bradman hit it.
Cheers, ymt.
Moby
> Dont miss the anecdote involving Patterson and the Don.
>
> --------------
>
> Bradman on sledging:
>
> "I played under Alan Kippax in New South Wales for some time, I played
> under Jack Ryder in the Test series in 28-29, I played under Bill
> Woodfull in 1930 until he retired, and I captained the side until I
> retired. And in the whole of that time, I don't recall one single
> incident of sledging. It never occurred, and it would not have
> occurred because it would not have been allowed, not one of those
> captains would have allowed it. If it had happened under me I would
> have given the fellow one warning, and if it had happened again I
> would have made sure he was not selected again.... it never went on in
> my day, not at all, and I don't think it should happen now."
<snip rest>
lol. This comes in as the first anecdote, and yet the rest of the
post is full of anecdotes that show this one to be, if not incorrect,
at least with Sir Donald not entirely approaching the truth.
There -was- sledging then, just as there is now and what I've snipped
is a great set of primary source stuff showing this to be the case.
Moby
Bob Dubery
"Moby" <Mo...@unimail.com.au> wrote in message
news:b4bbf26f.03080...@posting.google.com...
> lol. This comes in as the first anecdote, and yet the rest of the
> post is full of anecdotes that show this one to be, if not incorrect,
> at least with Sir Donald not entirely approaching the truth.
>
> There -was- sledging then, just as there is now and what I've snipped
> is a great set of primary source stuff showing this to be the case.
Que?
You've got a bowler asking very loudly to be allowed to bowl at the
"bugger", a spectator complaining that she wished somebody else would get a
turn, and a very strange off-field outburst from Patterson.
I don't doubt that things were not quite as gentlemenly in the golden age as
some would have us believe, but I don't see much in CILs post to show that
there was sledging in Bradman's day.
Cricketislife!
<cricke...@rediffmail.com> wrote:
>when the Don scored 334 runs in a 1930 Test at Leeds, and a London
>newspaper finally trumpeted just two grateful words on posters around
>the city: "HE'S OUT!"
Click
http://www.pnc.com.au/~scurry/news30.jpg
to see a Newspaper Poster screaming ' He's OUT
Moby
Do try that again. To translate, what you've said is:
I saw examples of sledging, but I don't see much to show that there
was sledging in Bradman's day.
Moby
Hint: Who's definition of sledging are you using? The definition of
someone who sledges, or the definition of someone who doesn't like it
and doesn't do it?
Bob Dubery
> "Bob Dubery" <mega...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<3f35d6fe$0$2...@hades.is.co.za>...
> > "Moby" <Mo...@unimail.com.au> wrote in message
> > news:b4bbf26f.03080...@posting.google.com...
> >
> > > lol. This comes in as the first anecdote, and yet the rest of the
> > > post is full of anecdotes that show this one to be, if not incorrect,
> > > at least with Sir Donald not entirely approaching the truth.
> > >
> > > There -was- sledging then, just as there is now and what I've snipped
> > > is a great set of primary source stuff showing this to be the case.
> > Que?
> >
> > You've got a bowler asking very loudly to be allowed to bowl at the
> > "bugger", a spectator complaining that she wished somebody else would
get a
> > turn, and a very strange off-field outburst from Patterson.
> >
> > I don't doubt that things were not quite as gentlemenly in the golden
age as
> > some would have us believe, but I don't see much in CILs post to show
that
> > there was sledging in Bradman's day.
>
> Do try that again. To translate, what you've said is:
I know what I said.
Hint: I was kind of hoping you might expand upon your earlier statement.
kenhiggs8
> "Bob Dubery" <mega...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<3f35d6fe$0$2...@hades.is.co.za>...
> > "Moby" <Mo...@unimail.com.au> wrote in message
> > news:b4bbf26f.03080...@posting.google.com...
> >
> > > lol. This comes in as the first anecdote, and yet the rest of the
> > > post is full of anecdotes that show this one to be, if not incorrect,
> > > at least with Sir Donald not entirely approaching the truth.
> > >
> > > There -was- sledging then, just as there is now and what I've snipped
> > > is a great set of primary source stuff showing this to be the case.
> > Que?
> >
> > You've got a bowler asking very loudly to be allowed to bowl at the
> > "bugger", a spectator complaining that she wished somebody else would get a
> > turn, and a very strange off-field outburst from Patterson.
> >
> > I don't doubt that things were not quite as gentlemenly in the golden age as
> > some would have us believe, but I don't see much in CILs post to show that
> > there was sledging in Bradman's day.
>
> Do try that again. To translate, what you've said is:
>
And I guess no-one could ever accuse you of telling people what they said.
Let me guess.
You spent the week end with Alvey?
hugs
Higgsy
Vijay Kumar K
>
To me that "strange off-field outburst from Patterson" shows awe, more than
arrogance. Put in a "could" after every "I" in that statement, and the
unspoken awe that such a slight man could be such a terror as a bat.
Vijay
Lord Guha
Richie Benaud was interviewing Bradman in the early 80's and asked him
how he thought he'd fare against the current crop of bowlers. Bradman
replied that he probably would only have an average of about 60.
Benaud says that he's just being too modest - to which Bradman says "I
am after all amost 80 years old".
Boom Tish
I guess only Bradman could get away making a statement like that.
LG
kenhiggs8
Was this before or after the Patterson comment?
A heard a variation on this, something along the lines of Dean Jones
asking Bradman if he thought he could do better than he (Jones) was
doing against the WIPQ, to which Bradman said possibly not, but he was
over 80.
hugs
Higgsy