Tributes to a champ
~ Vale Kevin O’Dowd ~
LEGENDARY local cricket historian Kevin O’Dowd has been described as one of the game’s most dedicated servants after his death yesterday rocked the local sporting community.
O’Dowd, pictured above, single-handedly created Geelong cricket’s version of Wisden through decades of meticulous research and his legacy lives on in a comprehensive record of all first XI matches from 1896.
He passed away in hospital yesterday after battling what was aptly described as “a couple of bouncers” with his health in recent years, aged 71.
LEGENDARY local cricket historian Kevin O’Dowd has been described as one of the game’s most dedicated servants after his death yesterday rocked the GCA.
O’Dowd single-handedly created the GCA’s version of Wisden through decades of meticulous research and his legacy lives on in a comprehensive record of all first XI matches from 1896.
He passed away in hospital yesterday after battling what was aptly described as “a couple of bouncers” with his health in recent years, aged 71.
“We are all replaceable, but this one is going to be terribly hard,” former cricket heavyweight and good mate Bob Merriman said.
“I don’t know anyone in my cricketing life who has devoted as much time to the history of local cricket as Kevin.
“Yes, there are people who have written books … but his ability to go back all the way through history was incredible. His network and his contacts were extraordinary because of the quality of person he was.”
O’Dowd mixed with world cricket’s highest figures. Sir Donald Bradman described him as “a splendid example” of one of cricket’s finest servants.
His books attracted the attention and acclaim of the Marylebone Cricket Club and Melbourne Cricket Club, while the various volumes of his almanacs — he was working on No. 21 — stand as the statistical point of authority on 120plus years of the local game.
“He was involved in the early 1980s when we had international and interstate games in Geelong,” Merriman said.
“I particularly remember him when the English were here and the last run was scored and the crowd ran out on to the ground. The question was whether the run counted or didn’t count — he had that kind of thought about the game as its proper application of the rules.
“But he didn’t overdo that. I’ve met a lot of statisticians who, frankly, nearly drive you up the wall. Kevin had this ability to interview people or talk to people in a very friendly way and because of that he achieved great insight because of the responses he got.”
When Kardinia Park hosted a Sheffield Shield match between Victoria and Queensland in the early 1980s while the MCG was undergoing a resurfacing, O’Dowd sensed something special was brewing as strong crowds turned up across each of the four days to watch a Queensland side featuring the Chappell brothers and Jeff Thomson.
“When we had the first Sheffield Shield match in Geelong, we looked at the question of breaking the crowd record for the previous 35 years,” Merriman said. “I had no idea what the figure was but Kevin came racing up to me to say we’d just broken the record for the past 35 years. He wanted to bring it to the attention of the people who had worked hard for the match — and that was something we could all feel very proud about.”
Even until two weeks ago, O’Dowd, under duress, penned his weekly column, O’Dowd Declares, for the Geelong Cricket Association website.
His column, all 923 words of it, highlighted the batsmen who had shined amid a season of bleak weather and even reflected on a scratch match 117 years ago between GCA clubs, Grocers & Combined Trades, Geelong Grammar and Geelong College.
With a sharp eye for detail, a penchant for quirk, a love of the game and a respect for the club and its players, O’Dowd devoted his life to preserving and presenting the game’s history for all players — past and present — to devour and reflect.
The bulk of his data was collated manually hour upon hour in the Geelong Historical Records Centre, long before the arrival of computers. It covered clubs long gone, GCA teams, representative games and the Geelong Cricket Club, among others.
“His ability to pick something special in our game … Kevin had that ability to be able to pick out something that nobody really could,” Merriman said. “He had that ability to pinpoint something that was unusual or rare.”
O’Dowd’s Highton home is a museum and he was the man people turned to for answers.
“He was the go-to person at end of games and when you felt records were going to be broken,” long-time Geelong cricket administrator David Kelly said.
“Everyone would go to Kevin and he would usually know, without having to reference.”
Kelly spoke in awe of the dedication required to effectively start collating an association’s history from scratch.
“Kevin is one of the most respected people we will ever have in the game,” he said.
“He has left us with a platform now for people to follow him. We will always be indebted to him and he will always be remembered by his current peers, because they didn’t make two Kevin O’Dowds.”
O’Dowd is survived by wife Carol, son Julian and his wife Callie, brother Denis and sister Davina, and grandchildren and Alistair and Sebastian.