I Remember When With Milton Rendell

Do you remember the cricket pitches we used to play on in the fifties, sixties, and seventies? Some of them were pretty horrible—even on a good day. I played a lot of my junior games at Lilac Hill on concrete pitches covered with matting. The bounce varied a lot, depending on the condition of the matting, but the oval and change rooms were considered quite flash for their time. There were pitches where they put matting on top of old malthoid, which was an interesting experience. Malthoid was like a thin strip of rubber on a concrete base. Of course, there were still the old malthoid pitches as well. They were hot and sticky on a summer’s day. I remember playing at Swanleigh against the boarders in Middle Swan. The oval itself wasn’t too bad, but the pitch was terrible. One ball would skid at your ankles, and the next would hit a bubble and nearly knock your teeth out. No helmets in those days—the ball would just knock your hat off, or you’d take it on the head. There were quite a few of those malthoid pitches around. I think Swan Valley had one, as well as Swan Athletic and Stirling Park Oval opposite the Wheat Silos. Then there was the old Bellevue Oval on Wilkins Street. We trained there when I played a season for Koongamia as a junior. Our coach, Evan Thomas, was quite a character. Most of the ovals were pretty bare in summer—more dust than grass in some cases—but kids and clubs always found a way to make it work. Some of these places only had a tin shed and a couple of trees for shade, and the grounds were rock-hard. Kings Meadow in Guildford was like that; the ground was as hard as concrete. Despite all that, some pretty good cricket was played, and some great players were discovered in local competitions. None of this nice soft grass oval stuff back then—we played hard and hot in those days. Some would call it real character-building, while others might just call it plain crazy.