LITTLE RIVER TO HONOUR ITS LEGENDS
LITTLE River Cricket Club is set to honour champions on and off the pitch at its 150th birthday bash next year.
The Redbacks, who were formed in 1869, will unveil a 12-man legends team as well as a 17-person committee to mark the contribution of their volunteers over the past 150 years.
“They want to acknowledge the ones not only on the field but off the field as well,” Little River president Doug Fairchild said. “With the committee, we’ll have a president, vice-president, secretary and a treasurer because there’s people that might have been president for 18-20 years in a row, so they’re working through that.”
Geelong cricket champion Alf Clark is in contention for the legends team, having launched his stellar career at the club.
“He was a junior at Little River and he made the under-16 Australian team, so he’d be one,” Fairchild said.
“They’ve set the minimum at 30 A Grade games, but many, many years ago we only had the one team, and there’s guys who were only there for three or four years but they had a big impact.
“There was a guy from the 1920s, Joe Grills was his name, and he took 80 wickets in a season.
“I have five independent people working on this team and they are at loggerheads a little bit because it’s so hard to get it down to 12.
“The players who are named Legends of our club will automatically go into the inaugural club Hall of Fame.”
Les Sanderson, who keeps the records up to date, heads the selection panel which comprises Alan Randall, Ray
Sanderson, Ian Wagstaff and Andrew Richmond.
Up to 40 names were put on paper for the legends team, with the panel reducing the list to 16 recently.
Fairchild, who has been on the committee for 30 years, revealed the club recently discovered six missing years of history,
“We always thought it was 1875, but in the last 12 months Les found another newspaper clipping from 1869 and that states that Little River was formed in that year,” Fairchild said.
“That’s why we’ve updated our records and it makes it 150 years this year.”
The club originally played to mark the milestone on February 29, but will now party on March 1 at noon at Little River Reserve.