Slashing Through the Cordon: The Kiama Cricket Podcast Bill Peters

On today's long-overdue return episode of Slashing Through the Cordon, we discuss the issue of umpiring in cricket, in particular the occurrence of the square leg umpires that come out and do the job when their team is batting. In a sport that is so overregulated and so over umpired at the highest levels in this day and age, with technology and video reviews and pitch maps and actually attempting to follow the rules, it is still a quaint part of lower grade cricket that games are self-umpired, and that people expect that these games will be played under the laws of cricket with completely unbiased decisions.

This episode offers three stories from my own experiences in my early days of grade cricket, and will now doubt give everyone a chance to recall their own experiences of the same. That's coming up on today's edition of Slashing Through the Cordon - the Kiama Cricket Podcast.

When it comes to talking about the history of cricket in the Kiama region, it would be remiss to bring up the name of a man who did not play for the Kiama club, but was a trailblazer in the forerunner to the current south coast competition, the Kiama District Cricket Association. Edgar Emery, also known as Gerry Emery, is an icon of the Gerringong Cricket Club, arguably that club’s finest ever player, whose name now adorns their home ground. His record speaks for itself, and even casual readers of local cricket history know his name and vaguely are aware that his exploits on the cricket field bear mentioning. Now while dissecting and retelling his life and cricketing career would take much longer than most would like to spend, what I will be doing on today’s podcast episode is having a short discussion on one particular season, a season where Emery’s wonderful batting skills shone like a beacon in a year where the world overseas was reaching a dangerous crescendo. So for everyone who is aware of the name, but perhaps not why you know the name, please hang around as I fill in a few of those blank spaces on today’s episode of Slashing Through the Cordon, the Kiama Cricket Podcast – with a Gerringong flavour.

Today's episode is dedicated to the memory of Greg Chambers, who sadly passed away last week at the age of 53. Many people around the Kiama district would know of Greg, but it is his cricketing exploits that are fondly recalled by members of the Kiama Cricket Club. This episode will offer some of the best moments from Greg's cricketing, both for Kiama and in his junior representative days.

On today's much delayed episode, I take you through the career of Alexander Gordon, who played for various clubs in and around Kiama from the earliest days of recorded matches all the way through until 1880. It is a career that faced some controversial moments, as well as matches of the highest calibre. It is an episode where I will hopefully show you that Alexander Gordon should be considered the first of Kiama's great cricketers, and bring to life a cricketer that most of you will have never heard of.

In April 1879, the Kiama United Cricket Club took on the visiting Clyde Cricket Club at Church Point in a match that for all intents and purposes played out as most other cricket matches do, until the game took a turn late in the day. It was at that point that it became less about cricket and more about pushing the laws to their limits. Today's podcast explores the actions that occurred in that strange but interesting match.

In the three Ages of South Coast Cricket, the one I haven't started talking about yet is the Second Age, when the first organised competition was formed. Not many people know that initially Clubs from the South Coast actually participated in a version of the Illawarra competition. Today I go back to 1910-11, when Kiama delegates formalised an agreement to become a part of the IDCA, and clubs first competed against each other for a cricket premiership for the first time.