Special Australia Day award for Rushworth legend Mal
A legendary Rushworth and Goulburn Valley sportsman has been honoured in his home town’s Australia Day awards.
Mal Mcleod, one of the greatest cricketers to grace the fields of the Goulburn Valley and beyond and also a fine footballer, received a special presentation for his services to the town’s cricket and football clubs and other local sporting organisations.
Now in his 80s, Mal has been the curator of Rushworth’s cricket wickets since 1960.
Former Rushworth boy Alan Mclean, who was coached in cricket by Mal as a teenager and his teammate playing cricket and football, reveals below his amazing input to the town and Goulburn Valley cricket and football fields:
Last year marked an extraordinary 61 years of Malcolm Mcleod’s active involvement as curator at Rushworth Recreation Reserve, known as the “Ironbark Stadium”.
In 1960, Mal led a small group who travelled to Mia Mia to obtain a truck-load of black soil, positioned to become turf cricket pitches at Rushworth, replacing a concrete model topped with malthoid.
Since then he has seeded, watered, mown, rolled and marked the wicket, watered and cut the grass, and presented the oval for literally thousands of cricketers.
While preparing the pitch, he has covered hundreds of kilometres walking behind the roller, taking the equivalent of months, perhaps years, of his personal time.
Mal has also prepared the oval for football, involving tractor and mower, taking care of most of the equipment repairs, attending also to fuel and lubricants.
Mal’s contribution to cricket in the Goulburn Valley has been without equal.
At Rushworth he has been the local club’s captain, winner of multiple bowling and batting averages, century maker, Country Week representative — Bendigo and Melbourne — and Victorian Country XI representative versus New Zealand at Kyabram in 1967, and also a
Northern Country XI against the Victorian team at Echuca in the late 1950s.
Rushworth Cricket Club won the Kyabram Cricket Association premiership in six successive summers, starting in 1959-60.
Mal played in all six of these flag-winning teams, taking over 40 wickets in those six finals, and many more in semi-finals.
In the first of those summers, he took 60 wickets and won the club batting average with 39.4 runs.
In the winning streak of premierships his classical fast-bowling action was admired by all and his performances were:
• 5/28 and 5/20 against Tongala in 1960-61
• 5/34 versus Girgarre in 1961-62 • 8/28 against Stanhope in 1962-63 • 7/39 and 6/20 versus Girgarre in 1963-64.
At age 26, in season 1961-62, he took an extraordinary 74 wickets in the Kyabram District Cricket Association at an average of 7.4 runs.
At age 37 in 1973, playing at Goornong representing the KDCA against the Yea Association at Bendigo Country Week, he took 9/34.
When a competition was established for boys under 15 in the district in 1965, Mal was the Rushworth manager-coach for the first three seasons, introducing many lads to competitive cricket.
For five seasons from 1966-67, he played for Toolleen in the Rochester Cricket Association, making centuries and taking many wickets, before returning to Rushworth in 1971-72.
He is a life member of the Rushworth Cricket Club.
Mal was also a fine footballer. He played football with success at Frankston (1954), Shepparton (City United, GVL 1957) and Tongala (1958 and 1959) based on his bank employment placements at the time.
At Rushworth, he played over 200 senior games in the Goulburn Valley League and the Heathcote League. He was a GVL representative player in 1961 and a member of the Tigers’ 1965 and 1969 flag-winning teams in the Heathcote District Football League.
He was Rushworth Football Club’s best and fairest in senior and reserves teams, club captain-coach in 1967, and reserves team captain-coach in 1971 when he won the Heathcote League reserves best and fairest award at age 36.
He has also served as club secretary and is a life member of the club.
Other sporting involvements were as an accomplished A-grade player at Rushworth Golf Club, and at the swimming pool where he was secretary-treasurer of the committee.
In all an extraordinary contribution to sport in Rushworth and beyond and deserving of a special award on a special Australian day.