In 1966, when I first attended a training session at De Winton Park as a 12-year old, I was introduced to the captain of the "ones" - a kid with short pants, skinny legs and brown skin. It was Rennahs.

Eventually it was my turn to bat, something I had very little prior experience of. I put on the pads, poked back the stuffing and strode to the wicket. My stumps were skittled a number of times in quick succession - like any good captain, Rennahs walked over to me, took hold of my bat, and demonstrated, in this order - the correct stance, the block and the hook shot. (Apparently he was once invited by Frank Tyson to accompany a group of Ivanhoe Grammar cricketers on a tour of England - as a Correct Stance, Block and Hook Shot Skills Coach!) "Gee!" I thought, as Rennahs put his front foot manfully down the pitch and smothered the prodigious spin of Kenny Morton, "He must be like Bradman!"

When I got home that night the conversation with my folks at the dinner table must have gone something like this:

"How was training?"

"Good. I only got bowled eleven times and I snicked a four, I stopped two fours and I met the captain."

"Is he a nice boy?"

"Yeah, but he’s a grouse bat!"

We had two Under 16 sides (no Under 14 grade existed) in those days. Naturally, I played in the "twos". A good effort was not to lose outright on the first morning and a great effort was to carry the game over till after the break on the second morning. The batting order was worked out like this:

"Hey, Dennis! Can you bat?"

"Oh, yeah. I got 3 last week."

"That’s right. You better open. Who else can bat?"

"Kenny Shields just got a new bat! It’s a size 6! Made in Pakistan!"

"OK. Kenny, you’re openin’. Can I use your bat when you’re out?"

"Yeah."

"OK. I’m in after you, then."

Our worst effort was to be dismissed for 4 against Greensborough at Memorial Park. Four individuals each made singles and only about six eight-ball overs were bowled. Geoff Montfort opened the Greensborough innings. He equalled our score with the first ball he faced and was caught behind on the next. He carried on about the decision. What did he want, for heaven’s sake? After all, his innings had put his team in a position from which they could only tie or win the game, which they, in fact, did from the third ball of the innings!

This was the usual procedure for going out to field:

"I’m openin’. Who else bowls?"

"I can."

"No, you can’t. Hey, Geoff, (to Geoff Baker, who umpired) is there a rule that says the captain can bowl two overs in a row?"

"No, why don’t you give Kenny a bowl?"

"OK, then, but you guys spread out on the boundary when Kenny’s bowlin’."

"What about when you’re bowlin’?"

"Go to silly mid-off."

"Where’s that?"

"I dunno. Just spread out from both ends, OK?"

"OK."

We had a kid named Greg Bayliss who was so slow he once hit a ball past a fieldsman into the outfield. "Yessssss!" Greg called his partner for a run as the fieldsman turned and chased the ball almost to the boundary. He finally collected the ball and returned it, after several bounces, to the bowler, who removed the bails and ran Greg out attempting such a cheeky single!

When he got to the boundary line:

"Bad luck, Greg. What happened?"

"That was Dennis’s fault. There was never a run in that!"

A number of our Junior players from those days continued their sporting careers in more worthy sporting circles. Ian Henry boxed for Australia as an amateur. (Ian’s boxing career was more successful than Rod Gurney’s - he lasted only one punch in the final against Heidelberg Soccer some years ago.) David Barber and Rod Chapman both captained Collingwood Dowling Shield teams, and Rod played Claxton Shield baseball for Victoria. Peter Kendall later played District firsts for South Melbourne. And Rennahs, of course, became the inaugural Brisbane Bears Melbourne-based runner. The Bears didn't win many games, but apparently all the players could block and hook correctly!

Early Junior managers included Athol James, John Barber (a Life Member), and my dad, Ron Chapman. Bob Blanche and Geoff Baker were both young senior players with their first cars. They used to come down and umpire in the mornings. Twelve noisy kids, plus the gear, would pile into Bob’s old Zephyr and Geoff’s old heap. Then we’d drop a few 'doughnuts' and see just how many stones we could throw up from the Warringal Park (our home ground - complete with an old wooden grandstand) car park, before heading back to the old Rosanna Presbyterian church (our meeting place) in Arden Street.

I’d get home after a game. "How’d you go today?" Mum would ask.

"Good. Geoff did a 360 spin and nearly cleaned up Bob and a couple of trees."

"I mean at cricket."

"Oh. I made a duck."

Looking back through my scrapbook (very few Heidelberger or Sporting Globe clippings, admittedly!) I see that my only score of note in Juniors was 27 not out against Rosanna (my stats for the season - 10 innings, 3 not outs, 28 runs, highest score 27 not out, average 4.0 - that big innings certainly made my batting average look respectable!) and that occasionally I got a few wickets with my roundarm specials.

"How’d you go today?"

"Good. I made 27 not out. I reckon I’ll be in the firsts next week. You remember ages ago when you said you’d give me ten cents a run (yes, decimal currency had recently been introduced) if ever I scored ten? Well, can I have $2.70?" At the age of 14 I'd become a professional athlete and disqualified myself from ever competing in an Olympics, which at the time were limited to amateurs.

The one innings I remember best was the day I batted for about ten overs against Rosanna before my old mate, the late Phil Jarvis, dismissed me - for a duck! We played them a few times at De Winton Park, and to this day, that remains my finest innings on that oval.

We won our first Senior flag under Merv Anderson in 1968-69 in third grade. The following year, my last in Juniors, I also filled in the scorebook for the second grade side each Saturday afternoon. I played my first senior game when someone was missing for a one day game and I was invited at the last moment to fill in. It was an inauspicious Senior debut. We played Rosanna by the creek near Northland (our home ground). I dropped a catch and was out for a second-ball duck, LBW to John Ditcham. I must have really let the club down that day because I was never selected to play that high again in my life!

Of course, Merv Anderson’s kids used to come and watch their dad and their uncle, Gary Williams, play. Graeme and Neil could be spotted with bat and ball on the boundary line, but Greg was often missing. That is, unless you chanced to look in his father’s bag. There, among the biros, scorebook and spare balls, you could often find Greg, resplendent in shorts and his dad’s baggy cap, generally drinking a bottle of Slades. As I recall, his mum once brought some vegemite sandwiches to a Junior barbecue for him because he wouldn’t eat anything else! How times change.

Roger Gill’s big brother, Warwick (yes, believe it or not! he has a BIG brother!), who was playing Seniors at the time, once came down to Warringal Park to watch an Under 16 game. He certainly looked quite different to his appearance of the previous week - was it possible for a 17 year-old to grow long black sideburns and a moustache within a period of seven days, or had Wocker been raiding his mum’s mascara? He swore that the former explanation was true but we all favoured the latter. The following week, Wocker was back to his old self. I have a theory that all the Elvis Presley sightings in recent times may really be sightings of Warwick Gill at it with the mascara again! He was a very large lad - he once stomped on a ball (rather than bend down to field it) in a fifth grade game I played in. "Don’t kill it, Wocker!" someone shouted. Sure enough, the ball had been flattened so badly that it had to be replaced before play could continue.

SENIORS (1970-71)

Naturally, I went straight into the club’s lowest possible XI after leaving the Junior ranks. We made up a third XI (5th grade), captained by Kevin Maher, a nice guy, father of John Maher who wicketkept and scored runs at both Junior and Senior levels for a number of years (and who would delight in running in to bowl right-handed at training and suddenly release the ball from his leading left hand without ever bringing his right arm over - captured lots of training wickets, but never attempted in a match). Kevin was a shocking cricketer and captain, but we had lots of fun and several massive defeats. Our home ground was Heidelberg Tech.

We used to often get an old bloke called Jim Anderson umpiring our games. He umpired his first game during W.G. Grace’s first tour Down Under at the age of 60-odd, and kept going till his death in the mid-1970’s at the age of something over 150! He was a Life Member and President and everything else of the Umpires Association and he was also an absolute authority on everything to do with cricket, as well, of course, as being an absolute dictator. He had a bulbous purple nose, baggy Depression-era trousers and a rule book in one pocket. It had always been customary to allow the umpire to inspect the match ball before a game - probably to check that it was suitable for the game. Well, Jim had a different angle.

"Here’s Rosanna Pressie’s ball, Ump," someone said, tossing him a bright red new cherry.

He inspected it, somewhat akin to James Halliday inspecting a rare glass of Penfolds Grange, before tossing it up and down in one hand a few times.

"Yep," he said. "That’s five and a half ounces all right. You can use this one." He tossed the ball back to us and requested that play begin.

No one is sure where Jim spent his Saturday mornings, but you could almost set your watch by the regularity of the hourly interruptions to play as he would leisurely stroll over to the boundary line and piss under the fence.

For some reason, Kevin Maher thought I could bowl off-spin and used to give me lots of overs (come to think of it, that probably makes him the best captain I ever had!). One day I was bowling when rain began falling. Grey clouds were overhead and the prospects for further play looked bleak, but Jim asked us to play on. I bowled another ball. The batsmen complained again. Jim allowed play to halt but refused to allow any player to leave the field. All players gathered around the pitch in the falling rain for some considerable length of time. Jim remained at the stumps waiting for an opportunity to start play again. The rain stopped but the sky was blacker than ever. Jim thought it would improve, so we remained on the field. Jack Hill, the blind miner, could see that it was only going to get worse.

"Can’t we knock off till next week, Jim?" someone asked. "We can’t see a thing."

"I’ll decide that young man," Jim replied. "Give me your bat."

Jim took off his jacket and marched down to the keeper’s end to face his first ball in just over a hundred years. His glasses resembled the bottoms of milk bottles before they’ve been washed. He faced up in the classic stance.

"Bowl us a couple, young fella," he commanded me.

I came in from a couple of steps and gently rolled my arm over. He took a great swipe and missed. Jim adjusted his scrotum, Ian Chappell-style, and faced up again. "One more!"

This time his almighty swipe nicked the ball and I had him caught behind. He never batted an eyelid.

"Well," he stated, "if I can’t see it, it must be too dark. I’m pulling up stumps, gentlemen. See you next week."

One other time we played St Pius and one of their batsmen was given out LBW by Jim. "Bullshit!" he thundered, and tossed his bat about twenty metres through the air. Kevin Maher’s wife was the lone spectator on the boundary.

"Did he say what I think he said in the presence of that lady over there? He shall make an apology to the lady after the game or I shall be on the phone to his parish priest first thing on Monday morning," Jim told the gathered fieldsmen. When the guy apologised after play, Kevin’s wife not only didn’t know what on earth the poor bloke was supposed to have done (she'd heard nothing), but explained that, after a lifetime with Kevin, a word like "bullshit" was nothing!

Of course, we lost just about every game outright, being dismissed in the 20’s a couple of times and even losing outright in a day once. But, we had fun. Kevin retired at the end of the season. It would not be long before Don Richmond and his legendary black bat would join the club.