Still on a good wicket
WHEN Glenn Bartle and Darren Kiddle set off for England to play club cricket in the summer of 1987, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
“We had nothing organised,” said Kiddle.
“We didn’t even have a club picked out or anything like that,” said Bartle.
“I had distant relatives in Kent and we’d booked a week’s accommodation in London, so we were going to fly by the seat of our pants.”
It was April ’87 and Bartle, 22, and Kiddle, 19, decided to venture into the unknown.
The pair had barely stepped foot on the plane for the 22hour journey and they found a familiar face.
“We flew over with Darryl Fuller, who used to play with North Geelong, and he was a lot more organised than we were,” Bartle reflected.
“He had his club teed up in the Mansfield area and he went up there. After a few days, he gave us a call and said that the bloke he was staying with was looking for a few players.
“He said: ‘Would you guys be interested’? We were on the next bus.”
That club was Mansfield Hosiery Mills in Nottinghamshire It would be their home for the next six months.
Little did Bartle and Kiddle know, their venture would ignite a 31-year tradition.
To this day, Geelong players continue to link up with the English club commonly known as the Millers.
In the latest chapter, Leopold’s Dylan Barmby and Mansfield’s Dan Harris have linked up in Australia this season, having played together at the Millers in 2017.
Harris, playing his maiden Australian summer with Alexander Thomson, has followed in the footsteps of Millers’ brothers Tom and Matt New, who were recruited by East Belmont.
Barmby is among a host of Geelong cricketers who have worn the Millers strip, including Bartle, Darren and Rod Kiddle, Grant Dew, Ian Smith, Mark Zimmer, Kevin Neville, Luke Muller, Jason Bakker, Brett Allen, Damien Koliba, Rohan Costin and Steve Long.
The friendships have been maintained over the years and continue to flourish, with the current chairman of the Millers, Derek Smallwood, spending time at Leopold last season while visiting his sons who play and coach in the Mornington Peninsula.
Millers’ club legend Billy Frodsham also remains close with the former GCA players to this day.
“I wasn’t really aware of the history until I got over there and saw a few pictures on the wall of the guys who had been a part of it,” Barmby said.
“Then it sunk in a little bit. The people were just so warm and welcoming.
“It was one of those clubs that you walk into and you just feel at home.
“The facilities are amazing. They’ve got a massive barn out the back with a couple of indoor wickets and they’ve got a big function room as well as the clubhouse.
“It wasn’t like anything I’d seen back here.”
A lot’s changed since Bartle and Kiddle broke the ice more than three decades ago.
“They didn’t have a lot of that when I was there,” Kiddle said. “Back then it was just the clubhouse and they eventually put a caravan on site for all the guys who were staying there.
“So we stayed with different people along the way. You could stay in the caravan on weekends or full-time, whatever suited, and use the clubrooms as you needed to.
“They were very welcoming and couldn’t do enough for you and we’ve been friends ever since.”
In their maiden season, Bartle and Kiddle play first XI cricket, the equivalent of fourth division in the GCA, in the Bassetlaw & District Cricket League.
And they took the competition by storm.
“We were given a lot of opportunities,” Bartle said.
“I batted at three or four in the first game and then they put me up to open and that’s where I batted for the rest of my time.
“Darren opened the bowling and batted at four, so they gave us a good go. We were probably better than the standard, without gloating. I averaged 45 and Darren won the bowling average easily.
“They ended up moving up the grades and the standard got a bit better.”
Bartle credited Steve Brown, a household name at the Millers, for creating a culture and atmosphere that would keep Geelong cricketers coming back. “He was the main man,” Bartle said.
“They gave us money whereby we worked on the wickets with the curator two or three mornings a week, and Steven’s father Maurice used to pick us up in the morning and take us to the club.
“We got friendly with his younger brother Richard, who we still catch up with from time to time. They were very welcoming, they did everything for us and they were fantastic people.”