Many men have been there.

Today is the 145th anniversary of the first Test match between Australia and England at the MCG

Rather famously, there is still one record from that inaugural Test that has stood for 145 years.

Australian opener Charles Bannerman faced the first ball in the history of Test cricket, delivered by Alfred Shaw, and he eventually scored the first run, the first 50 and the first Century in Test cricket, reaching 165 before being forced to retire hurt with a broken finger on Day 2.

Australia would be bowled out for 245, and Bannerman’s contribution is still the highest percentage of runs (67.35%) for a completed innings in a Test match – The closest anyone has come since was Michael Slater’s 123 out of Australia’s 184 (66.84%) against England at the SCG in 1999.

In fact, no other Australian scored more than 20 in either innings of that maiden test, such was Bannerman’s performance.

Cameron Smith, currently the best Queensland sportsman named Cameron Smith

Players Championship CHAMPION:

10 birdies in the final round to ensure the mulleted master joined the coveted list of Australians to win at TPC Sawgrass:

Jason Day in 2016, which seems like the most boring win of the lot considering he was World No.1 when he won the title.

Adam Scott in 2004, who, like Smith, wound up in the drink on the 72nd hole and saved himself with a bogey.

Steve Elkington won by a record 7 shots in 1997, and he knocked off Fuzzy Zoeller by 1 shot in 1991.

And finally there’s Greg Norman, who won with a TPC Sawgrass 72-hole record score of 24 under (264) in 1994, which you can enjoy to the sounds of Sleepwalking by Gerry Rafferty:

The tale of Championship Sunday at the MBC

In the midst of the WA State team rocking up for a Sunday training session, it was Championship Sunday at Manning, with the final games of the Men’s Singles Championship, alongside the feature event of the year, the Men’s and Women’s Novice Singles championship, and if you ask me, they should’ve renamed the Men’s Novice Singles the Jack Attack Singles Championship, because out of the 6 players in the draw (2 sections of 3), there were 5 of us who feature prominently on Wednesdays:

Yours truly, Glen/Scratch (Buffed Helmets), Adam Mac (My trusty assistant), Graeme (Team Pamba), and Jared from The Lenny’s.

The exception was Ian, aka Whitey, who I’ve played at least 5 games alongside in 5th Division…. Somehow we didn’t win any of them.

When club captain Floppy did the draw on Saturday, I found myself in what I’d claim to be the Section of Death, because there was yours truly (Who crept up to 3rd Division this season) alongside Adam, who’s played in 1st Division on Saturdays & 1 game of Thursday Premier League this season, and Glen, who currently plays in Thursday 3rd Division, and by comparison, in the section of Jared, Graeme and Ian, they had only played 4th Division at best.

But it turned out that when it came time to play, all 6 bowlers would win 1 out of their 2 games, which meant it came down to for/against to see who would play off in the final.

In our section, Glen’s consistency & subsequent pressure saw him knock me off 18-10 in the first game, but that 14 end roll-up gave me a huge advantage against a luckless Adam, and it showed when I jumped him out of the blocks and ultimately won by a comfortable 18-9, which meant Glen had to score at least 12 shots against Adam to get through on no worse than For/Against, and as it transpired, Maccer found his range and got on top late to win 18-13, but Glen had done enough to win the section ahead of myself by 2 shots, +3 to +1.

So unfortunately for myself and Maccer, just like Melbourne’s captain, we were Gawn.

In the opposite section, Jared and Ian played each other first up, and Jared at one stage led 14-5, but Ian got going and clawed the score back to 16-16, but Jared finally won 18-16, Ian then carried the momentum against a rusty Graeme and won ‘bigly’ 18-3, and continuing this theme of there’s always a bigger fish, Graeme quickly turned that defeat around and led Jared 12-0 before winning 18-12, which meant Ian had won the section.

So it was Ian playing Glen in the final, with yours truly doing the scoring, and unlike it being first to 18 in the sections, the Final was first to 21.

In the tale of the tape, Glen led 4-0 early on, but Ian, who could barely crack a game in 5th Division this year, started remarkably landing shot after shot to lead 9-4, and he kept on going to the point that he led 16-10 after 14 ends, but Glen got it back to 16-16 on 17.

I am not kidding, it quite literally was a Sound Of Music scorline…. I am 16-16 going on 17.

After a few more back and forth ends, the biggest shot of the game, which is simply an opinion, came on the 20th end with Ian leading 18-17 and Glen sitting 2 bowls either side of the jack, but Ian landed a beauty, split the two bowls, trailed the jack out the back to hold 2 and lead 20-17 to move to within a shot of victory….

Whitey also managed to finish off my Hawks tape measure in the process:

However, Glen would hold 1 and then 2 on the next 2 ends, as Whitey bowled one on the wrong bias (Which he did a few times when I played with him this season), leaving the score at 20-20, setting up a tense winner-take-all final end, and Glen couldn’t quite get his weight right bowling first, while Ian got two bowls within a metre, and finally the pressure proved too much for Glen, whose final bowl was a drive that just missed the holder, confirming Whitey as the Novice Singles Champ for 2022:

They say there’s always next year, and in my case that’s correct because the Novice Singles is only for first and second year bowlers, so we’ll probably get at least 3 of this year’s field back next year, while Ian gets a shot at the WA Novice Singles Champion of Champions on April 23 and 24.

In the other events on the day, the Women’s Novice was down to a field of 3 with Helen (of the CD’s from Jack Attack) being stuck in isolation until Monday, which meant it was a simple round robin to decide the title, and the title would go to Brenda, who was the runner-up in the event last year, and this year comfortably won both her games to take the title…

And in the Men’s Singles Championship, I should mention that Bob Bandy, aka Sir Robert of Windsor, who somehow lost to yours truly two weeks ago, sensationally knocked out WA State Singles champion David Downey 21-20 after a marathon 27 ends, then he knocked out Premier League bowler Jo Angel 21-20 in the Quarter Final after picking up 2 on the last end, but at the end of the day, they were all playing second fiddle to big Tommy Mitchell, who won his second Singles title at Manning, knocking off Scotty O’Brien 25-10 in the final…

And to finish this report off, here’s the two Men’s Champs of the day celebrating their country heritage:

On a final note about Sunday – It may be slightly uneven circumstances, but knocking off Adam marks the first time I’ve ever defeated a 1st Division player in a competitive event.

My last game of the Thursday Pennant season

So much to my surprise last week, I was rocketed up from 5th Division to play the last game of the Thursday pennant home & away rounds in 3rd Division, and it was against Rossmoyne at Manning, who had already confirmed their relegation from 3rd Division, while Manning were pretty much cemented in 4th place, although it was a matter of finding out whether they’d be playing at Glen Forrest, Kalamunda or Gosnells in the finals.

I was alongside two blokes I’d never met in person: Eric Williams, who was once the Men’s President at Perth Tatts, Derrick McCloskey, the Scotsman from Scotland, and a Life Member of the club in Johnny Capper, who does bowl with an arm on account of his bad back.

I’d like to think that I well and truly made the most of my one-off chance, because with myself and Derrick’s front end bowling keeping the pressure off John and Eric and keeping the blowtorch on poor old Rossmoyne, we ultimately got the job done 25-13, which myself and John agreed was a pretty fair result, although I should note that were it not for a couple of superb shots from Douglas and John, especially from ends 4 to 7, the score could’ve been a bit more lopsided.

There were at least 2 ends where they turned 4 down into 2 up…. It was great bowling.

As to be expected, Manning ultimately got the aggregate 67-47 with 5.5 points, and the reason we got 5.5 points instead of 6 is a funny one, because on the far rink, Manning led 20-8 after 13 ends…

The final score of the rink?

21-21 AFTER 21 ENDS.

I’VE FINALLY SEEN IT.

Sadly though, I did get confirmation on Monday that game will be the last game I play this season, because I didn’t meet the minimum games requirement to play finals in either 3rd or 4th Division (Which was at least 4 games), so I’ve ended the season on a winning note, albeit a bit sooner than I’d hoped.

All up this season, the record for my rinks in Pennants was 11 wins & 10 defeats from 21 games, which I think was a great effort after losing the first 4 rinks I played in.

5th Division: 5 wins, 8 defeats

4th Division: 1 win, 1 defeat

3rd Division: 1 win

4th Division Women’s: 4 wins, 1 defeat

The Friday night sunset in Perth

On Friday there were more than a few spits of rain across Perth, which is not too random for March, and in the middle of the marvellous sunset it created, my chatting party briefly went outside (Where they were playing a few makeup games of the Men’s and Women’s Championship Singles) and noticed something out in the hills to the East that looked like a half rainbow of sorts, out past the light towers:

Seriously, it looks like a rainbow that they got halfway to finishing and just said “Ah, **** it!” and stopped.

On another note from Friday night, which should make you go awww, here’s Laura’s dog Sasha, who lapped up pats for several hours, and then stood there waiting to congratulate her victorious master:

What a good doggo.

I admire people who park their cars like this

“Are you sure I’m inside the line?”

“By miles, darling!”

We had a bloke at the Waterford TAB a few years ago named ‘Rocket Rod’ who used to park his car like that….

That was until they took his license off him….. I think he also got promoted to glory, because he we haven’t seen him in years.

Hmmm, it’s almost like they’re related

And for goodness sake, that grammar is worse than mine.

You wouldn’t see me cut the letter off a word in a sentence, would yo?