86no and still a force
NOTHING STUMPS CHARLIE … NOT EVEN LIFE AS A CELEB
THE Gold Coast cricket scene was a very different place when Charlie Veivers arrived at Mudgeeraba Nerang in 1945.
“Nobody had a club like nowadays and there was no real organisation,” said the 86-year-old, Mudgeeraba’s first Life Member in 1960.
“About a month before cricket season started in October, someone would work out that cricket season is here so you just all turned up.
“We used to register with the association that we played fixtures with. Each district had a cricket team.
“Nowadays there’s all different grades but in my day when I first started there was only one grade.
“The association would send you out the draw, you turned up to play and most games were played in somebody’s paddock.
“Burleigh and Coolangatta had a bit of a park but everything else was just a pitch laid down in somebody’s paddock.
“Sometimes it got mowed, sometimes it didn’t.
“We had all concrete in the early days and we’d cover it with a canvas matting and after cleaning the cow pats off we were into it.
“I come out (to watch the kids) on Saturdays and you see them with their kit bags and that’s what we used to have for the whole team. We had three bats, three pairs of pads, there was quite a few years where we didn’t have a box.
“Transport was a problem because transport was by horse.”
Joined at the club by brothers and fellow Life Members Johnny and Clyde, fast bowler Charlie would spend 32 years as a player before turning to junior coaching.
During that time, he was also a long-serving member on the club’s ad hoc committee.
“Geez they were good days, we loved it,” the Southport resident said. “The club was formed back in 1886 and I was the first Life Member but back in those days the players never worried about those sort of things.
“They’d just have a hit of cricket on Sunday.
“After the game we’d sit under the shed or meet at the hotel and have a few drinks.
“We were all country bumpkins, we loved the game and you went out on that field and it was competitive.
“(But) the sportsmanship, you couldn’t fault it. There was some remarks but never sledging. They were a great lot of fellas because they were out for a day’s entertainment.
“They were out to play cricket, they weren’t out there to win. I mean, they tried, but we had a lot of laughs out on the field too.”
Veivers has become the public face of the Bushmen over the past 12 months after the club last year won an Origin Energy social media competition for sporting organisations celebrating significant anniversaries.
With the club marking its 132nd birthday, it was chosen for a $10,000 prize and TV ad in which Veivers became a focal point.
“Don’t ask me why I’m in it, it’s not my kettle of fish I’m afraid,” said Veivers, who is also a Life Member at Musgrave Hill Bowls Club.
“But it’s been fun, the club has benefited out of it and if the club is benefiting out of it then there’s 200 kids benefiting out of it.
“I never told anybody (about the ad) – I didn’t even tell my daughters – but when it came up on TV, boy did I cop hell at the bowls club.
“I still am. Over the last 12 months there’s been about 20 people, complete strangers, who have hit me up. I think it must be the age and the white hair.”
WE HAD THREE BATS, THREE PAIRS OF PADS, THERE WAS QUITE A FEW YEARS WHERE WE DIDN’T HAVE A BOX.
CHARLIE VEIVERS