Anson Cameron - 'It’s written for losers, dweebs, fools, halfwits and toolshiners', launch The Footy Almanac - 2009

November 29, 2009, Clyde Hotel, Carlton, Melbourne, Australia

Anson Cameron is a novellist, speaker and Cats fan who was experiencing the giddy bliss of a Geelong's premiership when he launched The Footy Almanac.

Ladies and gentlemen

When John Harms rang me and asked me to launch the Footy Almanac I said, “I’m a congenial sort of guy, I’d love to, John. But I’m also a cultured kind of guy; a devotee of Tolstoy and Cervantes and Shakespeare. So tell me something about this Footy Almanac. I’m unfamiliar with it.’

He said, ‘Anson, It’s a chronicle of every game played through the AFL season.’

I said, ‘Who’s it written for?’

He said, ‘It’s the very lowest form of literature. It’s written for losers, dweebs, fools, halfwits and toolshiners.’

I said, ‘John... it’ll sell its arse off, a book like that. You’ve just mentioned everyone I know. Not only are you writing for fools, in the time-honoured tradition of Bryce Courtney and Dan Brown... but you’re writing for an audience already addicted to the product you’re pushing.’ I said, ‘John, it seems to me you and Paul have the modus operandi and the morals of a street-corner crack dealer.’

He said, ‘Shit, Anson, they told me you were good. But I didn’t know you were this good. You’ve seen through us at a glance.’

And I saw through him at a glance, ladies and gentlemen, because when my father was on his deathbed he said to me, “Don’t waste your time writing about love, Anson. Don’t waste your time pissing around trying to crack the case on the human condition. Write about football. Football is the new Love. Football explains the human condition. If the Elizabethan poets were alive now they’d be wracking their brains and banging their bewigged scones on a wall trying to come up with a word to rhyme with Selwood.  If you want to be Shakespeare in the age of Rudd, then football is your form, Anson. Tell stories that reek of liniment.”

I was, as usual, too stupid to take that advice.

But he was right.  It’s true. As there’s less drama and struggle in everyday life football rises up with all of its colour and movement and tragedy and comedy to fill the void.

There was a time when other things were more important than footy... but that time was long ago in an ignorant age when we lived hand to mouth and grovelled at the feet of Kings and tyrants. We are free now. We are educated. We have money. We have time. We have all the beer we can drink. We have designated drivers. Nothing is more important than footy now... especially with the Cats  winning flags at last.  Forget the love of a good woman. Forget the Miles fucking Franklin Award. It’s when we see Ablett appear spinning out of a pack with the Sherrin in his mitts heading goalward we know life is worthwhile.

They say that Long John Holmes (that was Long John Holmes, not Harms, I haven’t done the stats on the co-editors) they say Long John Holmes might have launched as many as ten thousand orgasms with his prodigious and highly obedient member.  And on first telling that might seem an impressive contribution to the sum of human happiness. But it seems a paltry achievement to me, when I remember that this September I saw Matthew Scarlett launch immeasurably more ecstasy than that with his big toe. Imagine that... his big toe. He made a whole city rise to its feet, palpitating at every orifice and screaming in ecstasy... with his big toe.

I talk of the toe-poke, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve watched it many times since. Call me sick. But for me, the beauty of that toe-poke will never fade.

And I’ve begun to wonder, since that glorious September day, how Johnny Turk would have reacted if our lads had arrived at Gallipoli in 1915 schooled at and skilled in the toe-poke. He would have retreated from the heights bewildered and befuddled in the face of this new dark art is my guess. Much as the St Kilda boys did. I doubt we’d be celebrating glorious defeat at Gallipoli, if we’d arrived as adepts of the toe-poke. I doubt it’s something the Ottoman could have countered.

Of all the five-hundred-page books I’ve ever read I think I’m safe in saying this is the only one that has ever climaxed in a toe-poke. And I’m glad it does. Because, though it might sound like pornography, the toe-poke, something that should be committed in a back room rather than at the MCG, we now know it as one of humanity’s grandest and noblest and most self-sacrificial achievements. And I move on from it reluctantly, for I could talk on the toe-poke all night.

And I move on to talk on my wannabe-slut sister, an otherwise intelligent and moral girl, who declares she would lie down in the sand and rut furiously with Cameron Ling on the main beach at Lorne while the Pier to Pub was being swum and feel no shame whatsoever. Isn’t that disgusting? It’s not the sort of tale I’d normally tell in public.  And I apologise for it.

But I tell it just to show the depth of her delusion. She finds Lingy beautiful. She’s smitten. And the people who have written this book are similarly smitten, each in their own way, similarly deluded, similarly committed, similarly passionate, about some player or some team. And that’s the thing. That’s the thing, ladies and gentlemen.

All the Holy books were written by propagandists. By partisans. By zealots. They are histories of tribes and they tell joyfully of the destruction and scattering of their enemies. Count The Footy Almanac among their number. For if you read this book you will know that in the year of Our Lord 2009 the righteous hooped demigods from across the bay have scattered their foes as chaff before the storm.

Yes the deadening hand of objectivity might be sufficient to write about unimportant things like politics or love or war ladies and gentlemen... but it just doesn’t cut it when it comes to telling of football. If you want pallid objectivity, try the media. They write about footy as if it were a science, or a business... they pretend it isn’t romance.

What you’ve got here is the tribal scream of a hundred zealots wearing their hearts on their sleeves and putting their balls or equivalent anatomy on the line.

The great rule in writing is to Care about what you write about. In effect... to barrack for something. And the people who wrote this book do. Which is what enables them to write with such boundless passion.

And in launching the Footy Almanac I feel like I’m throwing the gates of an asylum open and releasing a throng of beautiful, horny, lunatic preachers all ready to bark their own species of madness and love from the street corners of our town.

And it makes me feel good to do so. Because football is a beautiful madness and it needs its preachers.

So Congratulations to John and Paul on the cacophony of fevered voices they have collected here. They tell of Australian Rules Football like nobody else does.

This speech, and many other superb examples of 'toolshiners' covering sport, exist on The Footy Almanac website. You can buy the 2015 Almanac here. Or click on Cyril!

Anson Cameron is a brilliant speaker who is featured more than once on Speakola. You can book him here.

Terry Wallace: 'I'll spew up!' speech, versus Collingwood, The Year of the Dogs - 1996

28 July, 1996, Footscray v Collingwood, Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia

I don't know about you blokes but I can't bear fucking losing a game like that! Look, fantastic effort but what does a fucking fantastic effort mean? It doesn't get us anything! We don't get diddly squat! We don't get a point. They don't just give us something for just fucking getting close! It means nothing. If you think that I'm going to be happy walking into this room when we get beaten still, we can't be! We just can't accept it! I don't know about you guys, but if I see one bloke walk out of here, getting a pat on the back from people out there for a good effort, I'll spew up! Because it's just not acceptable! We were a rabble in that first quarter, absolutely bloody disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. yeah, for three quarters we were worked our asses off, we worked our backsides off to get back into the game, but the game is about 120 minutes of footy, and that was the most winnable one that we get for a long time, and we just pissed it down the drain. We absolutely pissed that game down the drain. Don't any one of you forget about it. Take away one thing from this game. You have the ability to play in this competition and to play it very very very well. We cannot got from that [hand gesture] which we've displayed right in the three quarters, back to what we displayed in the first quarter ever again. Ever again.,

Go and have your showers, we'll see you back at the social club.

Similar content: Danny Southern's jumper presentation to Roarke Smith, mentioning death of his brother.

Jim Thorpe: 'Thanks, king', Decathlon gold medal presentation, Olympic Games - 1912

July 15, 1912, Stockholm, Sweden

Jim Thorpe was an American (also native American) decathlete who won gold in the decathlon. At the medal presentation, King Gustav of Sweden announced to Thorpe, "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world!". Thorpe's two word reply:

Thanks, king.

Kumar Sangakkara: 'I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan', MCC 'Spirit of Cricket' Lecture -2011

July 6, 2011, Lord's, London, UK (video in seven parts)

Mr President, my Lords, Ladies and gentlemen

Firstly I wish to sincerely thank the MCC for giving me the opportunity and great honour of delivering the 2011 Cowdrey Lecture.

I was in India after the World Cup when my manager called to pass on the message that CMJ was trying to get in touch with me to see whether I would like to deliver this year's lecture. I was initially hesitant given the fact we would be in the midst of the current ODI series, but after some reflection I realised that it was an invitation I should not turn down. To be the first Sri Lankan to be invited was not only a great honour for me, but also for my fellow countrymen.

Then I had to choose my topic. I suspect many of you might have anticipated that I pick one of the many topics being energetically debated today - the role of technology, the governance of the game, the future of Test cricket, and the curse of corruption, especially spot-fixing. All of the above are important and no doubt Colin Cowdrey, a cricketing legend with a deep affection for the game, would have strong opinions about them all.

For the record, I do too: I strongly believe that we have reached a critical juncture in the game's history and that unless we better sustain Test cricket, embrace technology enthusiastically, protect the game's global governance from narrow self-interest, and more aggressively root out corruption then cricket will face an uncertain future.

But, while these would all be interesting topics, deep down inside me I wanted to share with you a story, the story of Sri Lanka's cricket, a journey that I am sure Colin would have enjoyed greatly because I don't believe any cricket-playing nation in the world today better highlights the potential of cricket to be more than just a game.

This lecture is all about the Spirit of the Game and in this regard the story of cricket in Sri Lanka is fascinating. Cricket in Sri Lanka is no longer just a sport: it is a shared passion that is a source of fun and a force for unity. It is a treasured sport that occupies a celebrated place in our society.

It is remarkable that in a very short period an alien game has become our national obsession, played and followed with almost fanatical passion and love. A game that brings the nation to a standstill; a sport so powerful it is capable of transcending war and politics. I therefore decided that tonight I would like to talk about the Spirit of Sri Lanka's cricket.

The History of Sri Lanka

Ladies and Gentleman, the history of my country extends over 2500 years. A beautiful island situated in an advantageously strategic position in the Indian Ocean has long attracted the attentions of the world at times to both our disadvantage and at times to our advantage.

Sri Lanka is land rich in natural beauty and resources augmented by a wonderfully resilient and vibrant and hospitable people whose attitude to life has been shaped by volatile politics both internal and from without.

In our history you will find periods of glorious peace and prosperity and times of great strife, war and violence. Sri Lankans have been hardened by experience and have shown themselves to be a resilient and proud society celebrating at all times our zest for life and living.

Sri Lankans are a close knit community. The strength of the family unit reflects the spirit of our communities. We are an inquisitive and fun-loving people, smiling defiantly in the face of hardship and raucously celebrating times of prosperity.

Living not for tomorrow, but for today and savouring every breath of our daily existence. We are fiercely proud of our heritage and culture; the ordinary Sri Lankan standing tall and secure in that knowledge.

Over four hundred years of colonization by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British has failed to crush or temper our indomitable spirit. And yet in this context the influence upon our recent history and society by the introduced sport of cricket is surprising and noteworthy. Sri Lankans for centuries have fiercely resisted the Westernisation of our society, at times summarily dismissing western tradition and influence as evil and detrimental.

Yet cricket, somehow, managed to slip through the crack in our anti-Western defences and has now become the most precious heirloom of our British Colonial inheritance. Maybe it is a result of our simple sense of hospitality where a guest is treated to all that we have and at times even to what we don't have.

If you a visit a rural Sri Lankan home and you are served a cup of tea you will find it to be intolerably sweet. I have at times experienced this and upon further inquiry have found that it is because the hosts believe that the guest is entitled to more of everything including the sugar. In homes where sugar is an ill-affordable luxury a guest will still have sugary tea while the hosts go without.

Sri Lanka's Cricketing Roots

Fittingly, as it happens, Colin Cowdrey and Sri Lanka's love for cricket had similar origins: Tea. Colin's father, Ernest, was a tea planter in India. While he was schooled in England, he played on his father's plantation where I am told he used to practice with Indian boys several years his elder. Cricket was introduced to Ceylon by men like Ernest, English tea planters, during the Colonial period of occupation that covered a span of about 150 years from 1796.

Credit for the game's establishment in Sri Lanka, though, also has to be given to the Anglican missionaries to whom the colonial government left the function of establishing the educational institutions.

By the latter half of the 19th century there grew a large group of Sri Lankan families who accumulated wealth by making use of the commercial opportunities thrown open by the colonial government.

However a majority of these families could not gain any high social recognition due to the prevalence of a rigid hierarchal caste system which labelled them until death to the caste they were born into. A possible way out to escape the caste stigma was to pledge their allegiance to the British crown and help the central seat of government.

The missionaries, assessing the situation wisely, opened superior fee levying English schools especially in Colombo for the affluent children of all races, castes and religions. By the dawn of the 20th Century the introduction of cricket to this educational system was automatic as the game had already ingrained into the English life; as Neville Cardus says "without cricket there can be no summer in that land."

Cricket was an expensive game needing playgrounds, equipment and coaches. The British missionaries provided all such facilities to these few schools. Cricket became an instant success in this English school system.

Most Sri Lankans considered cricket beyond their reach because it was confined to the privileged schools meant for the affluent.

The missionaries in due course arranged inter colligate matches backed by newspaper publicity to become a popular weekend social event to attend.

The newspapers carried all the details about the cricket matches played in the country and outside. As a result school boy cricketers became household names. The newspapers also gave prominent coverage to English county cricket and it had been often said that the Ceylonese knew more of county cricket than the English themselves.

Cricket clubs were formed around the dawn of the 20th century, designed to cater for the school leavers of affluent colleges. The clubs bore communal names like the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC), Tamil Union, Burgher Recreation and the Moors Club, but if they were considered together they were all uniformly cultured with Anglicized values.

Inter-club matches were played purely for enjoyment as a sport. Club cricket also opened opportunities for the locals to mix socially with the British. So when Britain granted independence to Ceylon in 1948 it is no wonder cricket was a passion of the elitist class.

Although in the immediate post- independent period the Anglicized elite class was a small minority, they were pro-western in their political ideology and remained a powerful political lobby.

In the general elections immediately after independence, pro-elite governments were elected and the three Prime Ministers who headed the governments had played First XI cricket for premier affluent colleges and had been the members of SSC.

The period between 1960 and 1981 was one of slow progress in the game's popularity as the power transferred from the Anglicized elite to rising Socialist and Nationalist groups. Nevertheless, Sri Lanka was made an associate member of the ICC in 1965, gaining the opportunity to play unofficial test matches with players like Michael Tissera and Anura Tennakoon impressing as genuine world-class batsmen.

In 1981, thanks to the efforts of the late Honourable Gamini Dissanyake, the ICC granted Sri Lanka official Test status. It was obviously a pivotal time in our cricketing history. This was the start of a transformation of cricket from an elite sport to a game for the masses. Race Riots and Bloody Conflict

I do not remember this momentous occasion as a child. Maybe because I was only five years old, but also because it wasn't a topic that dominated conversation: the early 1980's was dominated by the escalation of militancy in the north into a full scale civil war that was to mar the next 30 years.

The terrible race riots of 1983 and a bloody communist insurgency amongst the youth was to darken my memories of my childhood and the lives of all Sri Lankans. I recollect now the race riots of 1983 now with horror, but for the simple imagination of a child not yet six it was a time of extended play and fun. I do not say this lightly as about 35 of our closest friends, all Tamils, took shelter in our home. They needed sanctuary from vicious politically-motivated goon squads and my father, like many other brave Sri Lankans from different ethnic backgrounds, opened his houses at great personal risk.

For me, though, it was a time where I had all my friends to play with all day long. The schools were closed and we'd play sport for hour after hour in the backyard - cricket, football, rounders…it was a child's dream come true. I remember getting annoyed when a game would be rudely interrupted by my parents and we'd all be ushered inside, hidden upstairs with our friends and ordered to be silent as the goon squads started searching homes in our neighbourhood.

I did not realise the terrible consequences of my friends being discovered and my father reminded me the other day of how one day during that period I turned to him and in all innocence said: "Is this going to happen every year as it is so much fun having all my friends live with us."

The JVP-led Communist insurgency rising out of our universities was equally horrific in the late 1980s. Shops, schools and universities were closed. People rarely stepped out of their homes in the evenings. The sight of charred bodies on the roadsides and floating corpses in the river was terrifyingly commonplace.

People who defied the JVP faced dire consequences. They even urged students of all schools to walk out and march in support of their aims. I was fortunate to be at Trinity College, one of the few schools that defied their dictates. Yet I was living just below Dharmaraja College where the students who walked out of its gates were met with tear gas and I would see students running down the hill to wash their eyes out with water from our garden tap.

My first cricket coach, Mr D.H. De Silva, a wonderful human being who coached tennis and cricket to students free of charge, was shot on the tennis coat by insurgents. Despite being hit in the abdomen twice, he miraculously survived when the gun held to his head jammed. Like many during and after that period, he fled overseas and started a new life in Australia. As the decade progressed, the fighting in the north and east had heightened to a full scale war. The Sri Lankan government was fighting the terrorist LTTE in a war that would drag our country's development back by decades.

This war affected the whole of our land in different ways. Families, usually from the lower economic classes, sacrificed their young men and women by the thousands in the service of Sri Lanka's military.

Even Colombo, a capital city that seemed far removed from the war's frontline, was under siege by the terrorists using powerful vehicle and suicide bombs. Bombs in public places targeting both civilians and political targets became an accepted risk of daily life in Sri Lanka. Parents travelling to work by bus would split up and travel separately so that if one of them died the other will return to tend to the family. Each and every Sri Lankan was touched by the brutality of that conflict.

People were disillusioned with politics and power and war. They were fearful of an uncertain future. The cycle of violence seemed unending. Sri Lanka became famous for its war and conflict.

It was a bleak time where we as a nation looked for inspiration - a miracle that would lift the pallid gloom and show us what we as a country were capable of if united as one, a beacon of hope to illuminate the potential of our peoples. That inspiration was to come in 1996.

An Identity Crisis

The pre-1995 era was a period during which Sri Lanka produced many fine cricketers but struggled to break free of the old colonial influences that had indoctrinated the way the game was played in Sri Lanka.

Even after gaining Test Status in 1981, Sri Lanka's cricket suffered from an identity crisis and there was far too little "Sri Lankan" in the way we played our cricket. Although there were exceptions, one being the much-talked about Sathasivam, who was a flamboyant and colourful cricketer, both on and off the field. He was cricketer in whose hand they say the bat was like a magic wand. Another unique batsman was Duleep Mendis, now our chief selector, who batted with swashbuckling bravado.

Generally, though, we played cricket by the book, copying the orthodox and conservative styles of the traditional cricketing powerhouses. There was none of the live-for-the moment and happy-go-lucky attitudes that underpin our own identity.

We had a competitive team, with able players, but we were timid, soft and did not yet fully believe in our own worth as individual players or as a team. I guess we were in many ways like the early West Indian teams: Calypso cricketers, who played the game as entertainers and lost more often than not albeit gracefully.

What we needed at the time was a leader. A cricketer from the masses who had the character, the ability and above all the courage and gall to change a system, to stand in the face of unfavourable culture and tradition, unafraid to put himself on the line for the achievement of a greater cause.

This much-awaited messiah arrived in the form of an immensely talented and slightly rotund Arjuna Ranatunga. He was to change the entire history of our cricketing heritage converting the game that we loved in to a shared fanatical passion that over 20 million people embraced as their own personal dream.

Arjuna's Leadership

The leadership of Arjuna during this period was critical to our emergence as a global force. It was Arjuna who understood most clearly why we needed to break free from the shackles of our colonial past and forge a new identity, an identity forged exclusively from Sri Lankan values, an identity that fed from the passion, vibrancy and emotion of normal Sri Lankans. Arjuna was a man hell-bent on making his own mark on the game in Sri Lanka, determined to break from foreign tradition and forge a new national brand of cricket.

Coming from Ananda College to the SSC proved to be a culture shock for him. SSC was dominated by students from St. Thomas' and Royal College, the two most elite schools in Colombo. The club's committee, membership and even the composition of the team was dominated by these elite schools.

Arjuna himself has spoken about how alien the culture felt and how difficult it was for him to adjust to try and fit in. As a 15-year-old school kid practising in the nets at the club, a senior stalwart of the club inquired about him. When told he was from the unfashionable Ananda College, he dismissed his obvious talents immediately: "We don't want any "Sarong Johnnie's" in this club."

As it turned out, Arjuna not only went to captain SSC for many years, he went onto break the stranglehold the elite schools had on the game. His goal was to impart in the team self-belief, to give us a backbone and a sense of self-worth that would inspire the team to look the opposition in the eye and stand equal, to compete without self-doubt or fear, to defy unhealthy traditions and to embrace our own Sri Lankan identity. He led fearlessly with unquestioned authority, but in a calm and collected manner that earned him the tag Captain Cool.

The first and most important foundation for our charge towards 1996 was laid. In this slightly over-weight and unfit southpaw, Sri Lanka had a brilliant general who for the first time looked to all available corners of our country to pick and choose his troops.

The Search for Unique Players

Arjuna better than anyone at the time realised that we needed an edge and in that regard he searched for players whose talents were so unique that when refined they would mystify and destroy the opposition.

In cricket, timing is everything. This proved to be true for the Sri Lankan team as well. We as a nation must be ever so thankful to the parents of Sanath Jayasuriya and Muthiah Muralitharan for having sired these two legends to serve our cricket at its time of greatest need.

From Matara came Sanath, a man from a humble background with an immense talent that was raw and without direction or refinement. A talent under the guidance of Arjuna that was harnessed to become one of the most destructive batting forces the game has ever known. It was talent never seen before and now with his retirement never to be seen again. Murali came from the hills of Kandy from a more affluent background. Starting off as a fast bowler and later changing to spin, he was blessed with a natural deformity in his bowling arm allowing him to impart so much spin on the ball that it spun at unthinkable angles. He brought wrist spin to off spin.

Arjuna's team was now in place and it was an impressive pool of talent, but they were not yet a team. Although winning the 1996 World Cup was a long-term goal, they needed to find a rallying point, a uniting factor that gave them a sense of "team", a cause to fight for, an event that not will not only bind the team together giving them a common focus but also rally the entire support of a nation for the team and its journey.

This came on Boxing Day at the MCG in 1995. Few realised it at the time, but the no balling of Murali for alleged chucking had far-reaching consequences. The issue raised the ire of the entire Sri Lankan nation. Murali was no longer alone. His pain, embarrassment and anger were shared by all. No matter what critics say, the manner in which Arjuna and team stood behind Murali made an entire nation proud. In that moment Sri Lanka adopted the cricketers simply as "our boys" or "Ape Kollo".

Gone was the earlier detachment of the Sri Lankan cricket fan and its place was a new found love for those 15 men. They became our sons, our brothers. Sri Lankans stood with them and shared their trials and tribulations.

The decision to no ball Murali in Melbourne was, for all Sri Lankans, an insult that would not be allowed to pass unavenged. It was the catalyst that spurred the Sri Lankan team on to do the unthinkable, become World Champions just 14 years after obtaining full ICC status. It is also important to mention that prior to 1981 more than 80% of the national players came from elite English schools, but by 1996 the same schools did not contribute a single player to the1996 World Cup squad.

The Unifying Impact of the 1996 World Cup

The impact of that World Cup victory was enormous, both broadening the game's grassroots as well as connecting all Sri Lankans with one shared passion. For the first time, children from outstations and government schools were allowed to make cricket their own. Cricket was opened up to the masses this unlocked the door for untapped talent to not only gain exposure but have a realistic chance of playing the game at the highest level.

These new grassroots cricketers brought with them the attributes of normal Sri Lankans, playing the game with a passion, joy and intensity that had hitherto been missing. They had watched Sanath, Kalu, Murali and Aravinda play a brand of cricket that not only changed the concept of one day cricket but was also instantly identifiable as being truly Sri Lankan.

We were no longer timid or soft or minnows. We had played and beaten the best in the world. We had done that without pretence or shame in a manner that highlighted and celebrated our national values, our collective cultures and habits. It was a brand of cricket we were proud to call our own, a style with local spirit and flair embodying all that was good in our heritage. The World Cup win gave us a new strength to understand our place in our society as cricketers. In the World Cup a country found a new beginning; a new inspiration upon which to build their dreams of a better future for Sri Lanka. Here were 15 individuals from different backgrounds, races, and religions, each fiercely proud of his own individuality and yet they united not just a team but a family.

Fighting for a common national cause representing the entirety of our society, providing a shining example to every Sri Lankan showing them with obvious clarity what it was to be truly Sri Lankan.

The 1996 World Cup gave all Sri Lankans a commonality, one point of collective joy and ambition that gave a divided society true national identity and was to be the panacea that healed all social evils and would stand the country in good stead through terrible natural disasters and a tragic civil war.

The 1996 World Cup win inspired people to look at their country differently. The sport overwhelmed terrorism and political strife; it provided something that everyone held dear to their hearts and helped normal people get through their lives.

The team also became a microcosm of how Sri Lankan society should be with players from different backgrounds, ethnicities and religions sharing their common joy, their passion and love for each other and their motherland.

Regardless of war, here we were playing together. The Sri Lanka team became a harmonising factor.

The Economic Impact of being World Champions

After the historic win the entire game of cricket in Sri Lanka was revolutionized. Television money started to pour into the cricket board's coffers. Large national and multinational corporations fought for sponsorship rights.

Cricketers started to earn real money both in the form of national contracts and endorsement deals. For the first time cricketers were on billboards and television advertising products, advertising anything from sausages to cellular networks.

Cricket became a viable profession and cricketers were both icons and role models. Personally, the win was very important for me. Until that time I was playing cricket with no real passion or ambition. I never thought or dreamed of playing for my country. This changed when I watched Sri Lanka play Kenya at Asgiriya. It was my final year in school and the first seed of my vision to play for my country was planted in my brain and heart when I witnessed Sanath, Gurasinghe and Aravinda produce a devastating display of batting. That seed of ambition spurted into life when, a couple of weeks later I watched on television that glorious final in Lahore. Everyone in Sri Lanka remembers where they were during that final. The cheering of a nation was a sound no bomb or exploding shell could drown. Cricket became an integral and all-important aspect of our national psyche.

Our cricket embodied everything in our lives, our laughter and tears, our hospitality our generosity, our music our food and drink. It was normality and hope and inspiration in a war-ravaged island. In it was our culture and heritage, enriched by our myriad ethnicities and religions. In it we were untouched, at least for a while, by petty politics and division. It is indeed a pity that life is not cricket. If it were we would not have seen the festering wounds of an ignorant war.

Bigger roles for the cricketers

The emergence of cricket and the new role of cricket within Sri Lankan society also meant that cricketers had bigger responsibilities than merely playing on the field. We needed to live positive lifestyles off the field and we need to also give back. The same people that applaud us every game need us to contribute back positively to their lives. We needed to inspire not just on the field but also off it.

The Tsunami was one such event. The death and destruction left in its wake was a blow our country could not afford. We were in New Zealand playing our first ODI. We had played badly and were sitting disappointed in the dressing room when, as usual, Sanath's phone started beeping. He read the SMS and told us a strange thing had just happened back home where "waves from the sea had flooded some areas". Initially we weren't too worried, assuming that it must have been a freak tide. It was only when we were back in the hotel watching the news coverage that we realized the magnitude of the devastation.

It was horrifying to watch footage of the waves sweeping through coastal towns and washing away in the blink of an eye the lives of thousands. We could not believe that it happened. We called home to check what is happening. "Is it true?" we asked. "How can the pictures be real?" we thought.

All we wanted to do was to go back home to be our families and stand together with our people. I remember landing at the airport on 31 December, a night when the whole of Colombo is normally light-up for the festivities, a time of music and laughter. But the town was empty and dark, the mood depressed and silent with sorrow. While we were thinking as to how we could help, Murali was quick to provide the inspiration.

Murali is a guy who has been pulled from all sides during his career, but he's always stood only alongside his team-mates and countrymen. Without any hesitation, he was on the phone to his contacts both local and foreign and in a matter of days along with the World Food Programme he had organised container loads of basic necessities of food, water and clothing to be distributed to the affected areas and people.

Amazingly, refusing to delegate the responsibility of distribution to the concerned authorities, he took it upon himself to accompany the convoys. It was my good fortune to be invited to join him. My wife and I along with Mahela, Ruchira Perera, our physio CJ Clark and many other volunteers drove alongside the aid convoys towards an experience that changed me as a person.

We based ourselves in Polonnaruwa, just north of Dambulla, driving daily to visit tsunami-ravaged coastal towns like Trincomalee and Batticaloa, as well as southern towns like Galle and Hambantota on later visits.

We visited shelter camps run by the Army and the LTTE and even some administered in partnership between them. Two bitter warring factions brought together to help people in a time of need.

In each camp we saw the effects of the tragedy written upon the faces of the young and old. Vacant and empty eyes filled with a sorrow and longing for homes and loved ones and livelihoods lost to the terrible waves.

Yet for us, their cricketers, they managed a smile. In the Kinniya Camp just south of Trincomalee, the first response of the people who had lost so much was to ask us if our families were okay. They had heard that Sanath and Upul Chandana's mothers were injured and they inquired about their health. They did not exaggerate their own plight nor did they wallow in it. Their concern was equal for all those around them.

This was true in all the camps we visited. Through their devastation shone the Sri Lankan spirit of indomitable resilience, of love, compassion, generosity and hospitality and gentleness. This is the same spirit in which we play our cricket. In this, our darkest hour, a country stood together in support and love for each other, united and strong. I experienced all this and vowed to myself that never would I be tempted to abuse the privilege that these very people had given me. The honour and responsibility of representing them on the field, playing a game they loved and adored.

The role the cricketers played in their personal capacities for post tsunami relief and re building was worthy of the trust the people of a nation had in them. Murali again stands out. His Seenigama project with his manager Kushil Gunasekera, which I know the MCC has supported, which included the rebuilding of over 1000 homes, was amazing.

The Lahore Attack

I was fortunate that during my life I never experienced violence in Sri Lanka first hand. They have been so many bomb explosions over the years but I was never in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In Colombo, apart from these occasional bombs, life was relatively normal. People had the luxury of being physically detached from the war. Children went to school, people went to work, I played my cricket.

In other parts of the country, though, people were putting their lives in harm's way every day either in the defence of their motherland or just trying to survive the geographical circumstances that made them inhabit a war zone.

For them, avoiding bullets, shells, mines and grenades, was imperative for survival. This was an experience that I could not relate to. I had great sympathy and compassion for them, but had no real experience with which I could draw parallels.

That was until we toured Pakistan in 2009. We set-off to play two Tests in Karachi and Lahore. The first Test played on a featherbed, past without great incident. The second Test was also meandering along with us piling up a big first innings when we departed for the ground on day three. Having been asked to leave early instead of waiting for the Pakistan bus, we were anticipating a day of hard toil for the bowlers.

At the back of the bus the fast bowlers were loud in their complaints. I remember Thilan Thushara being particularly vocal, complaining that his back was near breaking point. He joked that he wished a bomb would go off so we could all leave Lahore and go back home. Not thirty seconds had passed when we heard what sounded like fire crackers going off. Suddenly a shout came from the front: "Get down they are shooting at the bus."

The reaction was immediate. Everyone dived for cover and took shelter on the aisle or behind the seats. With very little space, we were all lying on top of each other. Then the bullets started to hit. It was like rain on a tin roof. The bus was at a standstill, an easy target for the gunmen.

As bullets started bursting through the bus all we could do was stay still and quiet, hoping and praying to avoid death or injury. Suddenly Mahela, who sits at the back of the bus, shouts saying he thinks he has been hit in the shin. I am lying next to Tilan. He groans in pain as a bullet hits him in the back of his thigh.

As I turn my head to look at him I feel something whizz past my ear and a bullet thuds into the side of the seat, the exact spot where my head had been a few seconds earlier. I feel something hit my shoulder and it goes numb. I know I had been hit, but I was just relieved and praying I was not going to be hit in the head.

Tharanga Paranvithana, on his debut tour, is also next to me. He stands up, bullets flying all around him, shouting "I have been hit" as he holds his blood-soaked chest. He collapsed onto his seat, apparently unconscious.

I see him and I think: "Oh my God, you were out first ball, run out the next innings and now you have been shot. What a terrible first tour." It is strange how clear your thinking is. I did not see my life flash by. There was no insane panic. There was absolute clarity and awareness of what was happening at that moment. I hear the bus roar in to life and start to move. Dilshan is screaming at the driver: "Drive…Drive". We speed up, swerve and are finally inside the safety of the stadium. There is a rush to get off the bus. Tharanga Paranawithana stands up. He is still bleeding and has a bullet lodged lightly in his sternum, the body of the bus tempering its velocity enough to be stopped by the bone.

Tilan is helped off the bus. In the dressing room there is a mixture of emotions: anger, relief, joy. Players and coaching staff are being examined by paramedics. Tilan and Paranavithana are taken by ambulance to the hospital.

We all sit in the dressing room and talk. Talk about what happened. Within minutes there is laughter and the jokes have started to flow. We have for the first time been a target of violence. We had survived.

We all realized that what some of our fellow Sri Lankans experienced every day for nearly 30 years. There was a new respect and awe for their courage and selflessness. It is notable how quickly we got over that attack on us. Although we were physically injured, mentally we held strong.

A few hours after the attack we were airlifted to the Lahore Air Force Base. Ajantha Mendis, his head swathed in bandages after multiple shrapnel wounds, suggests a game of Poker. Tilan has been brought back, sedated but fully conscious, to be with us and we make jokes at him and he smiles back.

We were shot at, grenades were thrown at us, we were injured and yet we were not cowed. We were not down and out. "We are Sri Lankan," we thought to ourselves, "and we are tough and we will get through hardship and we will overcome because our spirit is strong."

This is what the world saw in our interviews immediately after the attack: we were calm, collected, and rational. Our emotions held true to our role as unofficial ambassadors. A week after our arrival in Colombo from Pakistan I was driving about town and was stopped at a checkpoint. A soldier politely inquired as to my health after the attack. I said I was fine and added that what they as soldiers experience every day we only experienced for a few minutes, but managed to grab all the news headlines. That soldier looked me in the eye and replied: "It is OK if I die because it is my job and I am ready for it. But you are a hero and if you were to die it would be a great loss for our country."

I was taken aback. How can this man value his life less than mine? His sincerity was overwhelming. I felt humbled. This is the passion that cricket and cricketers evoke in Sri Lankans. This is the love that I strive every-day of my career to be worthy of.

Post 1996 Power Politics

Coming back to our cricket, the World Cup also brought less welcome changes with the start of detrimental cricket board politics and the transformation our cricket administration from a volunteer-led organisation run by well-meaning men of integrity into a multi-million dollar organisation that has been in turmoil ever since.

In Sri Lanka, cricket and politics have been synonymous. The efforts of Hon. Gamini Dissanayake were instrumental in getting Sri Lanka Test Status. He also was instrumental in building the Asgiriya international cricket stadium.

In the infancy of our cricket it was impossible to sustain the game without state patronage and funding. When Australia and West Indies refused to come to our country for the World Cup it was through government channels that the combined World Friendship XI came and played in Colombo to show the world that it was safe to play cricket here.

The importance of cricket to our society meant that at all times it enjoys benevolent state patronage. For Sri Lanka to be able to select a national team it must have membership of the Sports Ministry. No team can be fielded without the final approval of the Sports Minister. It is indeed a unique system where the board-appointed selectors can at any time be overruled and asked to reselect a side already chosen.

The Sports Minister can also exercise his unique powers to dissolve the cricket board if investigations reveal corruption or financial irregularity. With the victory in 1996 came money and power to the board and players. Players from within the team itself became involved in power games within the board. Officials elected to power in this way in turn manipulated player loyalty to achieve their own ends. At times board politics would spill over in to the team causing rift, ill feeling and distrust.

Accountability and transparency in administration and credibility of conduct were lost in a mad power struggle that would leave Sri Lankan cricket with no consistent and clear administration. Presidents and elected executive committees would come and go; government-picked interim committees would be appointed and dissolved.

After 1996 the cricket board has been controlled and administered by a handful of well-meaning individuals either personally or by proxy rotated in and out depending on appointment or election. Unfortunately to consolidate and perpetuate their power they opened the door of the administration to partisan cronies that would lead to corruption and wonton waste of cricket board finances and resources.

It was and still is confusing. Accusations of vote buying and rigging, player interference due to lobbying from each side and even violence at the AGMs, including the brandishing of weapons and ugly fist fights, have characterised cricket board elections for as long as I can remember.

The team lost the buffer between itself and the cricket administration. Players had become used to approaching members in power directly trading favours for mutual benefits and by 1999 all these changes in administration and player attitudes had transformed what was a close knit unit in 1996 into a collection of individuals with no shared vision or sense of team. The World Cup that followed in England in 1999 was a debacle: a first round exit.

Fortunately, though, the disastrous performance of the team proved to be a catalyst for further change within the dynamics of the Sri Lanka Cricket Team.

A new mix of players and a nice blend of youth and experience provided the context in which the old hierarchical structures within the team were dismantled in the decade that followed under the more consensual and inclusive leadership of Sanath, Marvan and Mahela. In the new team culture forged since 1999, individuals are accepted. The only thing that matters is commitment and discipline to the team. Individuality and internal debate are welcome. Respect is not demanded but earned. There was a new commitment towards keeping the team from board turmoil. It has been difficult to fully exclude it from our team dynamics because there are constant efforts to drag us back and in times of weakness and

doubt players have crossed the line. Still we have managed to protect and motivate our collective efforts towards one goal: winning on the field. We have to aspire to better administration. The administration needs to adopt the same values enshrined by the team over the years: integrity, transparency, commitment and discipline. Unless the administration is capable of becoming more professional, forward-thinking and transparent then we risk alienating the common man. Indeed, this is already happening. Loyal fans are becoming increasingly disillusioned. This is very dangerous because it is not the administrators or players that sustain the game- it is the cricket-loving public. It is their passion that powers cricket and if they turn their backs on cricket then the whole system will come crashing down.

The solution to this may be the ICC taking a stand to suspend member boards with any direct detrimental political interference and allegations of corruption and mismanagement. This will negate the ability to field representative teams or receive funding and other accompanying benefits from the ICC. But as a Sri Lankan I hope we have the strength to find the answers ourselves.

A Team Powered by Talent

While the team structure and culture itself was slowly evolving, our on-field success was primarily driven by the sheer talent and spirit of the uniquely talented players unearthed in recent times, players like Murali, Sanath, Aravinda, Mahela and Lasith.

Although our school cricket structure is extremely strong, our club structure remains archaic. With players diluted among 20 clubs it does not enable the national coaching staff to easily identify and funnel talented players through for further development. The lack of competitiveness of the club tournament does not lend itself to producing hardened first class professionals.

Various attempts to change this structure to condense and improve have been resisted by the administration and the clubs concerned, the main reason for this being that any elected cricket board that offended these clubs runs the risk of losing their votes come election time. At the same time, the instability of our administration is a huge stumbling block to the rapid face-change that we need. Indeed, it is amazing that that despite this system we are able to produce so many world-class cricketers.

However, the irony to this is that perhaps our biggest weakness has been our greatest strength. It is partly because of the lack of structure we are fortunate that the guys likes Lasith / Sanath / Murali and Mendis have escaped formalised textbook coaching. Had they been exposed to orthodox coaching then there is a very good chance that their skills would have been blunted. In all probability they would have been coached into ineffectiveness.

The Challenge Ahead for Sri Lanka

Nevertheless, despite abundant natural talent, we need to change our cricketing structure, we need to be more Sri Lankan rather than selfish, we need to condense our cricketing structure and ensure the that the best players are playing against each other at all times. We need to do this with an open mind, allowing both innovative thinking and free expression. In some respects we are doing that already, especially our coaching department anyway, which actively searches out for unorthodox talent.

We have recognised and learnt that our cricket is stronger when it is free-spirited and we therefore encourage players to express themselves and be open to innovation. There was a recent case where the national coaches were tipped off by a district coach running a bowling camp in the outstations. He'd discovered a volleyball player who ran to the crease slowly but then delivered the ball while in mid-air with a smash-like leap. His leap would land him quite a way down the pitch in the follow through. The district coach videorecorded his bowling for half an hour. National coaches in Colombo having watched the footage invited him out of curiosity a week later to come for formal training. The telephone call found him in a hospital bed tending a strained back as he had never bowled for such a long period as 30 minutes before in his life.

Another letter postmarked from a remote village in Sri Lanka had the writer claiming to be the fastest undiscovered bowler in Sri Lanka. A district coach investigating this claim found the writer to be a teenage Buddhist priest who insisted upon giving a demonstration of bowling while still dressed in his Saffron-coloured robes. Cricket in Sri Lanka tempts even the most chaste and holy.

On that occasion the interest in unique talent did not yield results. But the coaching staff will persevere in their search to unearth the next mystery bowler or cricketer who will take our cricket further forward.

Cricket's Heightened Importance in Sri Lanka's New Era

If we are able to seize the moment then the future of Sri Lanka's cricket remains very bright. I pray we do because cricket has such an important role to play in our island's future. Cricket played a crucial role during the dark days of Sri Lanka's civil war, a period of enormous suffering for all communities, but the conduct and performance of the team will have even greater importance as we enter a crucial period of reconciliation and recovery, an exciting period where all Sri Lankans aspire to peace and unity. It is also an exciting period for cricket where the re-integration of isolated communities in the north and east opens up new talent pools.

The spirit of cricket can and should remain and guiding force for good within society, providing entertain and fun, but also a shining example to all of how we all should approach our lives.

The war is now over. Sri Lanka looks towards a new future of peace and prosperity. I am eternally grateful for this. It means that my children will grow up without war and violence being a daily part of our lives. They will learn of its horrors not first-hand but perhaps in history class or through conversations for it is important that they understand and appreciate the great and terrible price our country and our people paid for the freedom and security they now enjoy.

In our cricket we display a unique spirit, a spirit enriched by lessons learned from a history spanning over two-and-a-half millennia. In our cricket you see the character of our people, our history, culture and tradition, our laughter, our joy, our tears and regrets. It is rich in emotion and talent. My responsibility as a Sri Lankan cricketer is to further enrich this beautiful sport, to add to it and enhance it and to leave a richer legacy for other cricketers to follow.

I will do that keeping paramount in my mind my Sri Lankan identity: play the game hard and fair and be a voice with which Sri Lanka can speak proudly and positively to the world. My loyalty will be to the ordinary Sri Lankan fan, their 20 million hearts beating collectively as one to our island rhythm and filled with an undying and ever-loyal love for this our game. Fans of different races, castes, ethnicities and religions who together celebrate their diversity by uniting for a common national cause. They are my foundation, they are my family. I will play my cricket for them. Their spirit is the true spirit of cricket. With me are all my people. I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.

Margot Foster: MUSA Blues Awards - 2015

21 November, 2014, Copland Theatre, University of Melbourne

Distinguished guests, parents of Blues and most importantly all of you here today who are about to be awarded a full blue or half blue in recognition of your achievements in sport during the recent Australian University Games in Sydney in October.

It is my pleasure to be here as the president of the Melbourne University Sports Association and as a law and arts graduate of this university.  It is the role of MUSA, one of the oldest university sports associations in the country, founded in 1904, to represent the clubs and their members, the athletes, to ensure their best interests are looked after when it comes to resources, facilities and of course training, coaching and support for athletes, teams and crews.  This is done in conjunction with the university’s sports administration department Melbourne University Sport.

University Blues are awarded to athletes for “outstanding sporting performance representing the university” at an Australian University Games or Championships.  Blues have been awarded by the University of Melbourne since 1870 and follow in the long established tradition established by Oxford and Cambridge universities who each have their blues:  the navy blue for Oxford and the light blue for Cambridge.  Their rivalry is highlighted most publicly in the annual Boat Race on the Thames.  That race, so long for men only is, I am pleased to say now complemented by a women’s race over the same gruelling distance of 6.8km rowed in the dead of winter.

You are here because you have been nominated by your club, your coach or by MUS.  Those nominations are then deliberated on by the Blues Advisory Board a group formally constituted under the auspices of the Melbourne University Sports Association.  It comprises a number of experienced people from across sport at the university who consider and take very seriously their responsibility to maintain the standard of blues from year to year and between and amongst the different sports  recommending the awarding of blues and half blues, the highest sporting acknowledgement the university can bestow.  The Melbourne University Sports Association council then approves those recommendations.  I am pleased to note thata Distinguished Service Award will also be awarded tonight to a very worthy recipient.

Thank you so much to the members of the MUSA Blues Advisory Board who were available to meet at short notice between the Sydney AUG and this occasion to make these important decisions.  Whilst all are not here I’d like to acknowledge Cheryl McKinna  (athletics and basketball), Bob Girdwood (AFL and MUSA DSA) - Lisa Lovell (tennis DSA) Iain Scott  (football), Tony Steele  (cricket and squash), Ben Yeo (Water Polo DSA) Megan Lane (touch) and the MUS nominee Rod Warnecke who assisted me in this task. 

The University of Melbourne has produced many fine athletes over the years who were awarded Blues prior to becoming well known performers on the international stage bringing acclaim to themselves, their country and of course the university.  Many were household names of their eras:  John Landy, 1500m Olympic bronze medallist at the Melbourne 1956 Games and a former governor of Victoria; Ralph Doubell the 800 m winner at the 1968 Mexico Olympics in world record time; the late Dr Phil Law  (boxing), after whom one part of the Lazer Law Medal is named, himself a pioneer in Antarctic exploration; Sir Roderick Carnegie, a captain of industry and Sir James Gobbo, former governor and Supreme Court judge were both rowers in the late 40s and 50s, Geoff Rees, the Chairman of the Board of Sport and Australia’s first lightweight rowing world champion,  Dr Donald Cordner who played for the Demons and won a Brownlow, Kathy Watt former science student turned photographer who won gold on the bike in the road race  Barcelona in 1992; Peter Antonie current president of Melb Uni Boat Club who represented Australia on more occasions than you could imagine winning lightweight and heavyweight gold medals in rowing which is no mean feat.  And whilst there are many more I could mention, as but a selection of the illustrious company you are joining and will no doubt happily keep, I will conclude with Alice McNamara who loves her rowing so much (and as part of her training, and just for fun, she won the Eureka stair climb for the third time last weekend) she keeps on keeping on representing both Australia and the university winning her ninth blue last year.

I am particularly pleased to be here and to welcome you tonight as I too am a Blue in rowing.  I was fortunate to grow up well knowing what a blue was all about:  my father, a dual water polo Olympian,  was awarded full blues in each of water polo, swimming and tennis, one of a handful of triple blues in different sports, and it was something to which I aspired though never thought I would achieve.    I would not be standing here but for the fact that when I was at Trinity College I was made to go rowing.  I resisted and resisted but eventually relented, went for a row one early morning, was hooked and the rest is history.  I rowed for Trinity and for Melbourne Uni and was then fortunate to be selected in Olympic, Commonwealth Games and World Championship crews winning medals along the way.  I was able to combine elite sport whilst running my legal practice and I am grateful always that I was able to do both simultaneously though I am not sure it is possible in these times.  I have much to thank university sport for and have no doubt that all of you enjoy the opportunities that participating in sport at uni has provided as much as I did.   I encourage you to stay connected to university sport via your club or MUSA – in either a playing capacity or as a volunteer in  sports administration.  There can be no finer example of this commitment than that of Alf Lazer, the other half of the Lazer-Law medal, whose contribution to university sport, and to athletics particularly, spanned some 60 years before his retirement last year. 

It is with disappointment that I am unable to remain with you for the balance of these celebrations but I have an annual commitment to the Olympians Club of Victoria dinner which is on tonight this night being the closest Friday to the opening day of the Melbourne Olympic Games which was on 22nd November 1956.  Unfortunately this clash was unavoidable.  It has been my delight to be with you however for this short time and it is my pleasure to invite the Patron of Melbourne University Sports Association Dr Geoff Vaughan AO, a blue and a former Wallaby to present your certificates recognising your wonderful achievements.

In conclusion I hope to hear of your continued engagement with university sportand wish you well for your studies and your careers and your sporting endeavours.  I also hope that as I did, and others in this room have, that you might be able to do combine and meet the myriad challenges of study and career and sport, to the very best of your abilities, and participate and enjoy and succeed in each area of endeavour at the same time for a long time. 

Thank you.

Unknown: 'Cammo, dunno if I like ya', Coach post-game meltdown

Date unknown, a football ground, Melbourne, Australia

Was it seventy points we were up by at half time? Granty, seventy points? Yeah. We’ve lost by three. Go and f*** yourselves fellas.  I could rant and rave. I could rant and rave but I realised today that I am coaching a s*** football team. Today - today’s the day, not the day the teddy bear’s had their picnic, it was the day I realised I was coaching a bunch of blokes that aren’t - aren’t there? Physically, I don’t think we’re there. Mentally I don’t think we’re there. And it’s doing my f***en head in! I put the f***en time in each week, I’ll get Fammo to do the videos, I get bananas, I get lollies, I get Solo ... shove the f***en Solo up yer a***!

Seriously! Don’t open the can. Shove it up your f***en a***! I’m f***en sick of it! Each week, I put in till there’s no more to f***en put. I put in and I’m sick of it. Ben Kildo, you’ve had fifty five touches, win the f***en hard ball you red head c***! Cammo! ... dunno if I like ya. I love ya! But do you love playing footy? Morro, I’ll back you to the hills every week, cos I’ve got ya here. I’ve got ya here and I f***en love ya.  But get as a f***en goal ya c***! Ya f***en cost us the game! Go and root ya f***en mother! Cos yer shit! And we’ve lost! And you can all go f*** yourselves and next year I’m coaching St Albans.

Brendan McCartney: 'You hope you can be a guardian angel, when it's your turn', Rising Star speech - 2013

4 September, 2013, NAB Rising Star Award

You don’t get too much time to watch TV when you’re a senior coach but there are two ads that are favourites of mine ... the Rhonda and Ketut serial that just goes on and on and on, there’s Trent Too Goods just arrived on the scene so it’s going to be interesting to see the way it turns out, and my other favourite ad is the NAB ad, where Joel Selwood is explaining the virtues of what happens when you don’t kick well for goal to an eagerly listening young boy.

And it took me back to 2007 and it mightn’t surprise you to learn that Joel Selwood won this award that year, and every Monday morning he’d be in to do his clips with me at about seven thirty quarter to eight, and then he would proceed to go about the rest of his week. And one day he played exceptionally well but he kicked one goal four. He actually made a mistake. Joel Selwood made some errors, and another coach heard us doing our clips and he wandered in. And this is maybe where the ad has come from, I can’t guarantee it, but he was explaining to Joel in his own unique way, he had an incredible capacity this coach, and he now coaches the Port Adelaide football club, to give direct feedback without offending anyone, he’s an amazing coach and an amazing football person, and he explained to Joel: ‘Joel, if you kick the ball between the little stick and the big stick, you get one point. But if you kick it between the big sticks, you get six points! Now if you’d kicked all those balls between the big sticks, we would have won by eleven goals four, and not seven goals ... whatever it was’ . So maybe that’s where it came from, but, it almost was like Joel  talking to the little fella, and Kenny Hinkley talking to Joel.

We’re all here because we’ve been footified, i don’t know what they means, but I’m going to try to have a go at explaining it, what it’s done to me,. And it first hit me at the age of four, at the 1963 mid Murray grand final., between Niyah, and the all conquering Lalbert football cub, who hadn’t lost all year. The Niyah boys contained three McCartney brothers. The coach, my uncleBill, the gun centreman, Graham, my dad, and Uncle Doc, who was a famous senior sergeant in the west, who ended up becoming a great Western Bulldogs patron and member.

And he had a way with words, Doc. He once described himself as a cross between Buddy Franklin and Tony Lockett. A good mate of his, who was also a very good judge, refuted the above, but he said, there were a couple of correlations. Sure, Doc was a left footer, like Buddy. And just like Plugger, he had two arms and two legs. But he said that’s where the similarities ended. The person standing here talking that day was actually the mascot that day and I still have the photo to prove it.

In fact when it came time to run on the ground, I froze in a fit of panic and went no further. The sea of faces, I don’t know how many were there that day, certainly wasn’t an MCG crowd and the blue and gold streamers spooked me, and I stopped and I don’t remember much of the rest of the day. I was only four at the time. But what I learned over the journey, listening to my dad, and family and friends who came in and out of our house, was that to win that day, they’d have to play out of their skins, and they’d need a lot of luck. Because the team they were playing was all conquering, unbeaten, and they had a dead eye dick full forward who never, ever, missed.

Well legend has it that with two minutes to go, the dead eye dick got the ball twenty metres out from goal. You guessed the rest - he missed, and they hung on and won by a point.

Some forty years later, I was lucky enough to go back to that area, for their first grand final since the 1963 triumph. And help with training, and just give them a little bit of a talk about winning finals, and what it means to do your bit and play your role in a grand final, so your team and your club can get over the line. It’s funny where footy takes you. I grew up idolising those boys, who played in that premiership, and there’s no doubt about it, country towns are the world champs at pinning nicknames on people. In that team, Bluey, Tiger, Nifty, Happy, Lefty, Champ and my all time favourite, Chesty Coburn.

When you were born into our clan it wasn’t hard to be footified. Dad played at the highest level. Somewhere in our family exists the letter Footscray sent him to invite him to come down and train. That year was 1954. Pretty famous and symbolic in our club. The Rose brothers were family friends, Collingwood greats. And a Geelong player by the name of Bill Ryan was a great friend of dad’s. Bill Ryan was the Jeremy Howe of forty years ago. And for you young people in the room, YouTube him, number 26 at Geelong, it’s a lot of fun to watch.

As a way of life in our family, Sundays dominated the week. We went to church, and we only ever ate after the World of Sport panel. Only ever when the panel was finished. Sweets got fit around the mark of the day and the woodchop.  Young ones in the room,  you should youtube the World of Sport panel. It was orgnanised chaos, but some of the most amazing people came together and expoused the virtues of footy and who was going to win the flag. There was no 3.20 game there was nof.40 twilight game, so we got kicked outside to kick and scrap, and tackle and harass and wrestle for the rest of the day. And we did it as well as we could. It was fun being Jezza, Baldock, Hudson, Nicholls, again for the young people in the room I’ll translate the names, Cotchin, Murphy, Natanui and Hawkins. They were amazing players those boys in the old days, and I guess of the beauty of being able to be in the game for a long time is you see so many great people through the generations.

And don’t worry about the old boys, if a press was on, back in those days or if there was tagging, or an open forward line, or if they were packing up the stoppages, they all would have been fine.

It was a simple life, it was a good life, but it was a footy life. There’s six of us children in our clan, mum and dad are now gone, and they’ve all walked the footy journey with me in different ways and they all communicated in their own style.  During any one season, one sister will text, ‘Bren are you okay?’ ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ Another will send, ‘hang in there, you’ll be fine’. Sister number three will text, ‘Brenno, they’re hating you on facebook mate’, or two weeks later, ‘geez, don’t Tim and Andy just love you’ .

My youngest brother is a civilian. I use the word ‘civilian’ to describe non AFL footy people. He;s forever optimistic and full of great ideas. He’s a great footy man. My other brother, well he doesn’t text, not sure if he doesn’t want to, or doesn’t know how to. The translation for him not communicating is ‘get on with it, quit your sooking, and harden up.’

For me though,  it doesn’t really matter, just to know that they think enough is the important bit.

We’re a football family. Being footified can take you across a myriad of people, experiences and landscapes. It’s amazing the bonds, and memories and friendships it creates for you. I remember once on a cold wet day at North Geelong as a young and skinny kid, I was getting a lesson and it sort of went like this. A big burly opponent who I’d kicked a couple of goals on said, ‘son you get another kick, and I’m gonna belt you.’  Might surprise some people in the room, might not, I chirped back. My lights were about to go out when a guardian angel arrived. My coach Johnny Schofield arrived just in time and knocked him out. John Schofield, bless his soul, was Will Schofield’s dad. It’s a small world, footy.

A couple of years later on, an older boy, I was having my character challenged at half time by a really irate coach. Just a young man, making his way in a really competitive game of footy. I left the rooms at half time bereft of confidence, not really wanting to go back out there, we can all relate to that, with these words ringing in my ears - ‘if you don’t lift, you’re not going to get a game next week’. Right on cue, another guardian angel appeared. He put his arm around my shoulder and said, ‘you follow me around for the next ten minutes, and I’ll make sure you get a kick.’ He then preceded to give me three goals, one after the other. That man’s name, John Scarlett, Matthew Scarlett’s dad. It’s a small world, this game. 

In fact some events can leave an incredible impact on you. And you hope when you’re needed, you can be a guardian angel when it’s your turn, for the next generation. Isn’t that how it should be at a footy club, the older boys help the kids, and the leaders create the environment that is right.

The month of September is a great month anticipation and excitement, or in our case it’s a month of reflection. And you know for us, it’s the latter. It’s hard to switch off a footified football brain. You get asked your thoughts on who’s the best coach, who’s the best young player. And it got me thinking.  I was looking at the coaches in our game. I stopped at Al Clarkson, a coach I respect incredibly, and I started to imagine Clarko as a contestant on The Block. He’d be a handful, wouldn’t he? Scotty Cam would know he was alive.

And I started to think about our young players, and I linked it up with the show Survivor. O’Meara, Crouch, Vlaustin, Wines, imagine those boys as contestants on a show like that.  Competitive environment.

I look around the room and see the faces of young men, who are recognisable but not as recognisable as they will be in years to come. I also see the faces of people that I know well in the various clubs, who just work tirelessly to shape, mould and give their young boys the best opportunity.

But most of all I see the proud faces of the parents. It’s a proud badge, the parent of a young player who is better than most wears. It ‘s our national game, and every young boy wants to be the next star. So the parent of a young boy who is already recognisable in our talent pathways, they also become recognisable. There’s Brad Crouch’s dad. There’s Lachie Whitfield’s mum they say at the local footy, when in fact if you dig a bit deeper, they are no different to any other parent.  In fact if you scratch below the surface, what you have seen is they’ve gone above and beyond - the travel expenses, the support mechanisms they put in place, they’re the crutch for the bad news, and they’re the leveller for the good news. Usually their brothers and sisters have been footified as well., generally the whole family.

When I close my eyes, I can still hear the words of Margot Ottens in 1997. She said, ‘he’s a quiet boy,  a good boy. He won’t let you down.’ She was right about her boy Brad.  I still hear the words of Rick Harley when his son became All-Australian. He rang and said, ‘we both knew he would do something special one day.’ There was a lot a lot more to come for Tom. 

To share an after premiership beer with Ted Corey, Gary Enright, Cameron Ling’s dad, Andrew Mackie’s dad, wasn’t hard to guess where the decency, integrity, humility, and determination came from. To have Joe Giansiricusa spend game day on the road with us in Tasmania recently, and to hear him speak about it being one of the great days of his life, watching his boy Daniel prepare to play, to see the tension, feel the tension, embrace the unique smell of a footy change room, to witness the exhaustion and the fatigue of the boys after the game, he got to share that with his son.

I got the feeling that Joe was footified before that day, but even more so now. To the boys we draft to our club, my pledge to them always, and their parents, is that I’ll look after them, like they’re my own son. Responsibility is then mine to deliver on that pledge. It’s a responsibility I’m happy to accept, and something that has been building in me since that day in 1963.

One night recently - you do have some unique experiences with your boys - I was watching some vision, and I started to get frustrated at what I was seeing from this young man. So I messaged him, it went something like this: ‘I’m seeing some poor habits emerging in your game. Please come and see me tomorrow so we can work through them. ‘ Within thirty seconds came the reply, ‘Sweet m8. Can’t wait to c ya tomoz!’ It got me a little agitated, so I sent back, ‘this won’t be a social chat mate, we need to fix this up!’ Fifteen seconds later, ‘Sweet as, coach, can’t wait to get in there and get better! C ya tomoz!’ We worked through the vision the next morning, and as he walked out it got me thinking, about his future and this boy, the person the man that he’s going to be. His future is going to be brilliant. He’s a good listener, he works at his craft, and he can already deal with the tension, stress and scrutiny that this game throws at you. Young people with talent who have those life attributes, they are our next champions of the game, and I’m sure that there’s many in the room today.

And as this world changes, so quickly, the one thing that I don’t think we should forget is that the fundamental principles of life, they haven’t changed. Honesty, work ethic, respect, humility and commitment to doing what’s right. We’re all privileged to work in this industry. As tough as it gets, as brutal as it gets, we must all respect our clubs, respect the game, respect the governance of the game, and most of all, respect each other.

Thanks so much for listening.

John Harms: 'No, my father could not pass a cricket match' Australian Cricket Society - 2012

3 May, 2012, Australian Cricket Society, toast to cricket

Thanks to you Ken and the Cricket Society for the invitation to give this toast to a game we love. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Cricket is a brilliant game.

I can’t touch my toes, I have a gnarley finger that won’t bend in the cold, a liver which was enlarged by lingering in sticky-carpeted clubhouses throughout the 80s - and has never settled down – and, despite the therapy, I still wake screaming in the night as I re-live the dropping of the steepler which cost us a grand final…. yet I still believe that this great game has served me well. That grand final was just 26 years ago now, and, besides, it was the keeper’s catch.

No, cricket has served me well.

And it was always going to. Because of the many, many fine things my father did for me and for my three brothers, teaching us to love the game of cricket was one of the finest. He really loved it, and he helped us to really love it.

After I left home to go to university, I looked back on my childhood and I started to realise that my father had cricket in him. He had been an opening bowler with a classic Lindwall action and was sent in to bat at No 3. “to knock the shine off the ball”.

He played with us in the backyard, as did my mother, who had a wicked arm from hoicking spuds. She’d grown up on a potato farm in the Lockyer Valley.

Dad took time to teach us: to use our feet, to play the late cut “out of the keepers gloves”, to bowl leggies.

But I really knew Dad had cricket in him when I looked back at those Saturday afternoons when we would be driving around Toowoomba. We’d pass a cricket match at Newtown No. 1, or Godsall Street. Dad was one of those blokes who felt compelled to stop the car and watch for a while. “We’ll just get out and see what the opening bowler’s doing,” he’d say.  

So he’d bundle us out of the car and we’d walk to one end and watch for a few overs, and having worked out the batsman’s style he’d take us to that spot where the cricket ball was most likely to cross the boundary. And there we’d stand. I can remember as a tiny boy the rock-hard ball coming towards us, and we’d collect it, an under arm it back to the fieldsman whose heavy boots thundered across the ground towards us. He’d turn and throw a massive throw, over the moon. And jog back as the batting side continued to applause and yell things like “Shot, Macca.”

How would we ever hit the ball so hard? Or throw it so far?

No, my father could not pass a cricket match.

Nor could he pass on the opportunity to watch great batsmen. He was a clergyman; a pastor in the Lutheran church. So on Saturday afternoons he’d be busy preparing his sermon in his study with the radio on, Alan McGilvray describing the Test Match. Often it would get the better of him and he’d wander in to the lounge room to “see how the Australian batsmen were getting on”. Sometimes he’d stay.

I remember vividly Boxing Day of 1981 – it was a Saturday. He stayed all of that afternoon, to watch one of the great Test innings – the famous century from Kim Hughes (who will follow me to the lectern).

I should also mention that I rang my cousin Chris Harms today, who played for South Australia. Chris also has a therapist - from bowling at K.J. Hughes – whom he describes as “the scariest batsman he ever bowled at”.

Dad thought that was one of the great innings.

My father is no longer with us. He was a loving man; yet, for all of his capacity for love, and his pleasure in the aesthetic of sport and in fair play, he hated the Collingwood Football Club. He didn’t handle the loss to the Pies in the 2010 preliminary final too well – he died just after midnight.

But he left us with many memories. And he has left his children and his children’s children with a love of the game, and a respect for the game.

Our Theo, named after my father, is the oldest of our three. When I stand before him saying, “Watch the ball. Watch the ball,” I hear my father’s voice.

I only hope I can instil in my children the same depth of appreciation of this wonderful game: the game of cricket.

To cricket.

Nigel 'Occa' Dransfield: "There was this chick that did this f*cken marathon" - 2002

2002, Shepherd's Bush Raiders v Regents Park, London Aussie Rules, London, UK

Occa's Shepherd's Bush were 45 point down in first quarter and won by 2 points. This speech almost certainly got them over the line.

Best way to win this f***en game is these c***heads here want us to get out of the centre. Best way to f***en stick it up everyone’s f***en a*** is to take this f***en last quarter.

Team: Cmon boys! Let’s go! C’mon!

Can you feel it now that we’ve got our hand on it! These c***s are f***en stopping! I’ve seen it before so don’t just stand there and do nothing. We’ve got the run of play now, so we can take this f***en game! Stick it up their f***en a***s they’re nothing!

[Inaudible, team yelling]

Look at each other in the eyes. You see the f***en desire there. Their f***en dead! They’re dead. We’ll take this game away from these c***s and take the bloody thing home. F*** these c***s we’re going to run all over them.

[edit]

Listen hard. I dunno if anyone saw the Olympics f***en somewhere in the eighties there was this chick that did this f***en marathon and she f***en fair enough she come f***en tenth or twentieth or something but that’s not important. The poor bitch was f***en running ... she actually f***en crawled to the f***en line. She didn’t f***en give up. She f***en pushed herself, she pushed herself, she pushed herself to near f***en exhaustion. That’s what I’m asking out of you blokes. To push yourselves right to the final hooter. [team] C’mon boys. And take this f***en prize away from these c***s. They don’t deserve it. We f***en do.

[Inaudible - yelling ] Let’s go take it off em!

Allan Jeans: 'In Every Game There is Going to Be a Crossroad' - reenactment

AFL Legends 'The Coaches'

Regardless of all the theories and the strategies and all this. All it is is basically this. The ability to win the ball under pressure, select the right option, and execute it correctly. And the other thing is when you haven't got the ball is the ability to apply pressure to the players at all stages.

You've earned this opportunity. Some of the greatest players that have ever played this game has never ever been in this situation. Don't waste it, regardless of what goes on out on the ground. And long as we have the respect of each other,  the respect of our supporters, anda the respect of the football community, then we have known we have done our best.

What you're gotta do is your gonna win this game today. Not only are you going to play it moment by moment, contest by contest, quarter by quarter, and regardless of what the scores is, do not accept what's going on. When the occasions come, lead by example, lift yourself and win the contest, that will win the game.

In every game there is going to be a crossroad, and when you get to that crossroad, you either step up, or step you down. It is entirely all up to you. You make the decision, not me.

Louis Van Gaal: '10 Matches, 13 points' - 2015

19 May, 2015, Manchester United Payer of the Year event, Manchester, United Kingdom

It's always difficult to give a resume of the season, but when you start a season with 10 matches and 13 points and you are a manager of a club, the most world famous club, then you play at home - and I am also a human being – and I have the experience of other clubs, that when you have that result, you are not very beloved by your fans.

But I came in the stadium of Old Trafford, 10 matches, 13 points, and I came in and thought to myself 'how do I have to behave myself?' and then the public were applauding, standing up, and I thought 'how is it possible that the fans are supporting me?'.

But thanks to that, we could continue, and not only me of course. My staff, but especially the players, because it is not so easy, when you are playing in such a great club as Manchester United, that you have 10 matches, 13 points, and a new manager who demands in another way from all the other managers. It's very difficult.

And with all the injuries, all the injuries of the first half of the season, and then we continue with the spirit in the team – unbelievable. And that's the credit to this team – the spirit in the team.

We came from, in my memory, 13th place to third position in the league. That was the highest classification, third position after such a bad start.

And then we had to believe, the players and also the staff, that we could end in second. I remember the meeting we had with the players, with the captain Wayne Rooney, saying we go for the second position in the league.

And I said 'YESSS!' [Van Gaal punches the air]. 'We GO for it! But, okay, Christmas time, Arsenal FA Cup, we lost. You remember the FA Cup game against Arsenal? We were the better team.

And the best player on the pitch in my opinion made an error and we lost that game. After that, the meeting I have just talked about was then.

Then you have to remember that we won six games in a row and then we went to Chelsea. You remember the away game at Chelsea? No, no, no, you have to listen.

At that time, we had 50 points and Wayne Rooney sat in the dressing-room and said 'We go for second place'. He said that, second position in the league table. Then six games in a row we won, then we go to Chelsea.

Who were the better team then? It's easy to say that now, in this room. I can believe it, but it's the truth. But we lost. We lost that game but can you imagine, when you have 80 per cent ball possession, 10 big possibilities, and they have three, they have three, and they win the game.

When we win that game, count the numbers of points we could have won, because after that we lost another two games, to lose three in a row.

But when you see that we had 13 points and Chelsea have 83 points [now], then we could have been champions.

So what I want to say to you is that we are VERY CLOSE [shouts] but, as a manager, I know that if it's not counting, we have to produce more.

And believe me, the players, also the staff, the organisation at Manchester United, shall do their utmost best and why? Because we have the best fans in the world. Thank-you for that and I will see you again next season.”

Van Gaal then came back on to the stage to thank a female saxophonist who had played at the event earlier in the evening.

I want to say something,” said Van Gaal, reclaiming the microphone. “Hello, hello, hey! Pay attention to the manager. Ryan Giggs said to me, and he is right, he is always right, but particularly in this case.

I have always said to you that you are the best fans in the world, but I was tonight a little bit disappointed, and I shall say why. I have seen a lady who plays the saxophone fantastically – give her a big applause!

Derrick Moore: 'I know your heart', pre-game Georgia Tech - 2007

4 October, 2007, Bobby Dodd Stadium, Georgia, USA

There’s nothing like family.  At the end of the day when the sun sets that’s all you have. Ultimately that’s all you need.

(It’s) about your brothers, bleed and sweat together.  Fought through summer.  All the lifting and running for moments like these because you don’t ever get them back.

Thank you guys for your heart and soul because that’s what you’re going to put into it tonight.  And you’re going to do it for the guy on your left and the guy to your right cause that’s all that matters.

Guy to your left.  Guy to your right.  You know what time it is.  It’s time to turn the Yellow Jackets loose.  We didn’t come hear to play around.  We came to take care of business.

We start with the abilities the coaches have passed down to you.  Let every man take his assignment seriously.  Let him go out with confidence.  Let him handle every moment.

Let him stand in the face of the challenger and don’t retreat.  Empower these men to do what they came here to do.  And we’ll sing in the end, ‘We’re gonna fight till we can’t fight no more.”

Coach Flowers: 'I am a champion', Leland High School JV football team - date unknown

Date unknown, Leland High School JV football team, California, USA

I will conquer what has never been conquered,
Defeat will not be in my creed.
I will believe where all those before me have doubted.
I will always endeavor to uphold the prestige, honor and respect of my team.
I have trained my mind and now my body will follow.

Who am I? I am a champion!

I will acknowledge the fact that I am an elite warrior,
Who arrived at the cutting edge of battle by any means necessary.
I accept the fact that my team expects me to move further, faster and fight harder than our opponents,
Never shall I fail my brothers.
I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong and morally straight.
I will shoulder more than my share of the task, whatever it may be,
One hundred percent and more because I have surrendered me for we.

Who am I? I am a champion!

Gallantly will I show that I am a specially selected and well trained warrior.
My heart and my soul will be the fuel to carry my body when my limbs are too weary.
Although I may falter, I will never lose focus as long as there is hope in my mind and my heart is still beating.
I will never give in to the evil that is weakness and I will fight that evil with my dying breath.

Who am I? I am a champion!

Energetically will I meet my enemies, many will challenge me, but none will stop me from my goal.
I am not the strongest, I am not the fastest,
I am good because I have found something worth fighting for, and I will fight with all my might.
Surrender is not a champions word.
I will never leave a brother to fall at the hands of an enemy,
And under no circumstances will I surrender, for my ears are deaf to the word cant.

Who am I? I am a champion!

Readily will I display the discipline and strength required to fight on to my objective,
And I will complete my mission.
I will rise when I have fallen to rip the heart from my enemy and leave it beating on the ground.
My enemy will both fear and respect me.
If he does not, I will make him respect me with all that I have to give.

Who am I? I am a champion!

History will remember my name but he does not have to be kind,
For I have denied his criticisms and put in my own praise.
Nobody will define me, and nobody will tell me what I cant achieve.
None will say that I havent given all that I have to give and none will take my glory.
For those who have stood by me I will fight for, and for those who have deserted me I will crush.

Who am I? I am a champion!

Rahul Dravid: 'Three formats cannot be played in equal numbers', Bradman Oration - 2011

14 December, 2011, Bradman Oration, Canberra, Australia

Thank you for inviting me to deliver the Bradman Oration; the respect and the regard that came with the invitation to speak tonight, is deeply appreciated.

I realise a very distinguished list of gentlemen have preceded me in the ten years that the Bradman Oration has been held. I know that this Oration is held every year to appreciate the life and career of Sir Don Bradman, a great Australian and a great cricketer. I understand that I am supposed to speak about cricket and issues in the game - and I will.

Yet, but first before all else, I must say that I find myself humbled by the venue we find ourselves in. Even though there is neither a pitch in sight, nor stumps or bat and balls, as a cricketer, I feel I stand on very sacred ground tonight. When I was told that I would be speaking at the National War Memorial, I thought of how often and how meaninglessly, the words 'war', 'battle', 'fight' are used to describe cricket matches.

Yes, we cricketers devote the better part of our adult lives to being prepared to perform for our countries, to persist and compete as intensely as we can - and more. This building, however, recognises the men and women who lived out the words - war, battle, fight - for real and then gave it all up for their country, their lives left incomplete, futures extinguished.

The people of both our countries are often told that cricket is the one thing that brings Indians and Australians together. That cricket is our single common denominator.

India's first Test series as a free country was played against Australia in November 1947, three months after our independence. Yet the histories of our countries are linked together far more deeply than we think and further back in time than 1947.

We share something else other than cricket. Before they played the first Test match against each other, Indians and Australians fought wars together, on the same side. In Gallipoli, where, along with the thousands of Australians, over 1300 Indians also lost their lives. In World War II, there were Indian and Australian soldiers in El Alamein, North Africa, in the Syria-Lebanon campaign, in Burma, in the battle for Singapore.

Before we were competitors, Indians and Australians were comrades. So it is only appropriate that we are here this evening at the Australian War Memorial, where along with celebrating cricket and cricketers, we remember the unknown soldiers of both nations.

It is however, incongruous, that I, an Indian, happen to be the first cricketer from outside Australia, invited to deliver the the Bradman Oration. I don't say that only because Sir Don once scored a hundred before lunch at Lord's and my 100 at Lord's this year took almost an entire day.

But more seriously, Sir Don played just five Tests against India; that was in the first India-Australia series in 1947-48, which was to be his last season at home. He didn't even play in India, and remains the most venerated cricketer in India not to have played there.

We know that he set foot in India though, in May 1953, when on his way to England to report on the Ashes for an English newspaper, his plane stopped in Calcutta airport. There were said to be close to a 1000 people waiting to greet him; as you know, he was a very private person and so got into an army jeep and rushed into a barricaded building, annoyed with the airline for having 'breached confidentiality.' That was all Indians of the time saw of Bradman who remains a mythical figure.

For one generation of fans in my country, those who grew up in the 1930s, when India was still under British rule, Bradman represented a cricketing excellence that belonged to somewhere outside England. To a country taking its first steps in Test cricket, that meant something. His success against England at that time was thought of as our personal success. He was striking one for all of us ruled by the common enemy. Or as your country has so poetically called them, the Poms.

There are two stories that I thought I should bring to your notice. On June 28, 1930, the day Bradman scored 254 at Lord's against England, was also the day Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested by the police. Nehru was, at the time, one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian independence movement and later, independent India's first Prime Minister. The coincidence of the two events, was noted by a young boy KN Prabhu, who was both nationalist, cricket fan and later became independent India's foremost cricket writer. In the 30s, as Nehru went in and out of jail, Bradman went after the England bowling and, for KN Prabhu, became a kind of avenging angel.

There's another story I've heard about the day in 1933, when the news reached India that Bradman's record for the highest Test score of 334 had been broken by Wally Hammond. As much as we love our records, they say some Indian fans at the time were not exactly happy. Now, there's a tale that a few even wanted to wear black bands to mourn the fact that this precious record that belonged to Australia - and by extension, us - had gone back. To an Englishman. We will never know if this is true, if black bands were ever worn, but as journalists sometimes tell me, why let facts get in the way of a good story.

My own link with Bradman was much like that of most other Indians - through history books, some old video footage and his wise words. About leaving the game better than you found it. About playing it positively, as Bradman, then a selector, told Richie Benaud before the 1960-61 West Indies tour of Australia. Of sending a right message out from cricket to its public. Of players being temporary trustees of a great game.

While there may be very little similarity in our records or our strike-rates or our fielding - and I can say this only today in front of all of you - I am actually pleased that I share something very important with Sir Don.

He was, primarily, like me, a No.3 batsman. It is a tough, tough job.

We're the ones who make life easier for the kings of batting, the middle order that follows us. Bradman did that with a bit more success and style than I did. He dominated bowling attacks and put bums on seats, if i bat for any length of time I am more likely to bore people to sleep. Still, it is nice to have batted for a long time in a position, whose benchmark is, in fact, the benchmark for batsmanship itself.

Before he retired from public life in his 80s, I do know that Bradman watched Sunil Gavaskar's generation play a series in Australia. I remember the excitement that went through Indian cricket when we heard the news that Bradman had seen Sachin Tendulkar bat on TV and thought he batted like him. It was more than mere approval, it was as if the great Don had finally, passed on his torch. Not to an Aussie or an Englishman or a West Indian. But to one of our own.

One of the things, Bradman said has stayed in my mind. That the finest of athletes had, along with skill, a few more essential qualities: to conduct their life with dignity, with integrity, with courage and modesty. All this he believed, were totally compatible with pride, ambition, determination and competitiveness. Maybe those words should be put up in cricket dressing rooms all over the world.

As all of you know, Don Bradman passed away on February 25, 2001, two days before the India v Australia series was to begin in Mumbai.

Whenever an important figure in cricket leaves us, cricket's global community pauses in the midst of contests and debates, to remember what he represented of us, what he stood for, and Bradman was the pinnacle. The standard against which all Test batsmen must take guard.

The series that followed two days after Bradman's death later went on to become what many believe was one of the greatest in cricket. It is a series, I'd like to believe, he would have enjoyed following.

A fierce contest between bat and ball went down to the final session of the final day of the final Test. Between an Australian team who had risen to their most imposing powers and a young Indian team determined to rewrite some chapters of its own history.

The 2001 series contained high-quality cricket from both sides and had a deep impact on the careers of those who played a part in it. The Australians were near unbeatable in the first half of the new decade, both home and away. As others floundered against them, India became the only team that competed with them on even terms.

India kept answering questions put to them by the Australians and asking a few themselves. The quality demanded of those contests, sometimes acrimonious, sometimes uplifting, made us, the Indian team, grow and rise. As individuals, we were asked to play to the absolute outer limits of our capabilities and we often extended them.

Now, whenever India and Australia meet, there is expectation and anticipation - and as we get into the next two months of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, players on both sides will want to deliver their best.

When we toured in 2007-08, I thought it was going to be my last tour of Australia. The Australians thought it was going to be the last time they would be seeing Sachin Tendulkar on their shores. He received warm standing ovations from wonderful crowds all around the country.

Well, like a few, creaking Terminators, we're back. Older, wiser and I hope improved.

The Australian public will want to stand up to send Sachin off all over again this time. But I must warn you, given how he's been playing these days, there are no guarantees about final goodbyes.

In all seriousness, though, the cricket world is going to stop and watch Australia and India. It is Australia's first chance to defend their supremacy at home following defeat in the 2010 Ashes and a drawn series against New Zealand. It is India's opportunity to prove that the defeat to England in the summer was an aberration that we will bounce back from.

If both teams look back to their last 2007-08 series in Australia, they will know that they should have done things a little differently in the Sydney Test. But I think both sides have moved on from there; we've played each other twice in India already and relations between the two teams are much better than they have been as far as I can remember.

Thanks to the IPL, Indians and Australians have even shared dressing rooms. Shane Watson's involvement in Rajasthan, Mike Hussey's role with Chennai to mention a few, are greatly appreciated back home. And even Shane Warne likes India now. I really enjoyed playing alongside him at Rajasthan last season and can confidently report to you that he is not eating imported baked beans any more.

In fact, looking at him, it seems, he is not eating anything.

It is often said that cricketers are ambassadors for their country; when there's a match to be won, sometimes we think that is an unreasonable demand. After all, what would career diplomats do if the result of a Test series depended on them, say, walking? But, as ties between India and Australia have strengthened and our contests have become more frequent, we realise that as Indian players, we stand for a vast, varied, often unfathomable and endlessly fascinating country.

At the moment, to much of the outside world, Indian cricket represents only two things - money and power. Yes, that aspect of Indian cricket is a part of the whole, but it is not the complete picture. As a player, as a proud and privileged member of the Indian cricket team, I want to say that, this one-dimensional, often cliched image relentlessly repeated is not what Indian cricket is really all about.

I cannot take all of you into the towns and villages our players come from, and introduce you to their families, teachers, coaches, mentors and team-mates who made them international cricketers. I cannot take all of you here to India to show you the belief, struggle, effort and sacrifice from hundreds of people that runs through our game.

As I stand here today, it is important for me to bring Indian cricket and its own remarkable story to you. I believe it is very necessary that cricketing nations try to find out about each other, try to understand each other and the different role cricket plays in different countries, because ours is, eventually, a very small world.

In India, cricket is a buzzing, humming, living entity going through a most remarkable time, like no other in our cricketing history. In this last decade, the Indian team represents more than ever before, the country we come from - of people from vastly different cultures, who speak different languages, follow different religions, belong to all classes of society. I went around our dressing room to work out how many languages could be spoken in there and the number I have arrived at is: 15, including Shona and Afrikaans.

Most foreign captains, I think, would baulk at the idea. But, when I led India, I enjoyed it, I marvelled at the range of difference and the ability of people from so many different backgrounds to share a dressing room, to accept, accommodate and respect that difference. In a world growing more insular, that is a precious quality to acquire, because it stays for life and helps you understand people better, understand the significance of the other.

Let me tell you one of my favourite stories from my Under-19 days, when the India Under-19 team played a match against the New Zealand junior team. We had two bowlers in the team, one from the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh - he spoke only Hindi, which is usually a link language for players from all over India, ahead even of English. It should have been all right, except the other bowler came from Kerala, in the deep south, and he spoke only the state's regional language, Malayalam. Now even that should have been okay as they were both bowlers and could bowl simultaneous spells.

Yet in one game, they happened to come together at the crease. In the dressing room, we were in splits, wondering how they were going to manage the business of a partnership, calling for runs or sharing the strike. Neither man could understand a word of what the other was saying and they were batting together. This could only happen in Indian cricket. Except that these two guys came up with a 100-run partnership. Their common language was cricket and that worked out just fine.

The everyday richness of Indian cricket lies right there, not in the news you hear about million-dollar deals and television rights. When I look back over the 25 years I've spent in cricket, I realise two things. First, rather alarmingly, that I am the oldest man in the game, older to even Sachin by three months. More importantly, I realise that Indian cricket actually reflects our country's own growth story during this time. Cricket is so much a part of our national fabric that as India - its economy, society and popular culture - transformed itself, so did our most-loved sport.

As players we are appreciative beneficiaries of the financial strength of Indian cricket, but we are more than just mascots of that economic power. The caricature often made of Indian cricket and its cricketers in the rest of the world is that we are pampered superstars. Overpaid, underworked, treated like a cross between royalty and rock stars.

Yes, the Indian team has an enormous, emotional following and we do need security when we get around the country as a group. It is also why we make it a point to always try and conduct ourselves with composure and dignity. On tour, I must point out, we don't attack fans or do drugs or get into drunken theatrics. And at home, despite what some of you may have heard, we don't live in mansions with swimming pools.

The news about the money may well overpower all else, but along with it, our cricket is full of stories the outside world does not see. Television rights generated around Indian cricket, are much talked about. Let me tell you what the television - around those much sought-after rights - has done to our game.

A sport that was largely played and patronised by princes and businessmen in traditional urban centres, cities like Bombay, Bangalore, Chennai, Baroda, Hyderabad, Delhi - has begun to pull in cricketers from everywhere.

As the earnings from Indian cricket have grown in the past 2 decades, mainly through television, the BCCI has spread revenues to various pockets in the country and improved where we play. The field is now spread wider than it ever has been, the ground covered by Indian cricket, has shifted.

Twenty seven teams compete in our national championship, the Ranji Trophy. Last season Rajasthan, a state best known for its palaces, fortresses and tourism won the Ranji Trophy title for the first time in its history. The national one-day championship also had a first-time winner in the newly formed state of Jharkand, where our captain MS Dhoni comes from.

The growth and scale of cricket on our television was the engine of this population shift. Like Bradman was the boy from Bowral, a stream of Indian cricketers now come from what you could call India's outback.

Zaheer Khan belongs to the Maharashtra heartland, from a town that didn't have even one proper turf wicket. He could have been an instrumentation engineer but was drawn to cricket through TV and modelled his bowling by practising in front of the mirror on his cupboard at home, and first bowled with a proper cricket ball at the age of 17.

One day out of nowhere, a boy from a village in Gujarat turned up as India's fastest bowler. After Munaf Patel made his debut for India, the road from the nearest railway station to his village had to be improved because journalists and TV crews from the cities kept landing up there.

We are delighted that Umesh Yadav didn't become a policeman like he was planning and turned to cricket instead. He is the first cricketer from the central Indian first-class team of Vidarbha to play Test cricket.

Virender Sehwag, it shouldn't surprise you, belongs to the wild west just outside Delhi. He had to be enrolled in a college which had a good cricket programme and travelled 84kms every day by bus to get to practice and matches.

Every player in this room wearing an India blazer has a story like this. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the heart and soul of Indian cricket.

Playing for India completely changes our lives. The game has given us a chance to pay back our debt to all those who gave their time, energy and resources for us to be better cricketers: we can build new homes for our parents, get our siblings married off in style, give our families very comfortable lives.

The Indian cricket team is in fact, India itself, in microcosm. A sport that was played first by princes, then their subordinates, then the urban elite, is now a sport played by all of India. Cricket, as my two under-19 team-mates proved, is India's most widely-spoken language. Even Indian cinema has its regional favourites; a movie star in the south may not be popular in the north. But a cricketer? Loved everywhere.

It is also a very tough environment to grow up in - criticism can be severe, responses to victory and defeat extreme. There are invasions of privacy and stones have been thrown at our homes after some defeats.

It takes time getting used to, extreme reactions can fill us with anger. But every cricketer realises at some stage of his career, that the Indian cricket fan is best understood by remembering the sentiment of the majority, not the actions of a minority.

One of the things that has always lifted me as a player is looking out of the team bus when we travelled somewhere in India. When people see the Indian bus going by, see some of us sitting with our curtains drawn back, it always amazes me how much they light up. There is an instantaneous smile, directed not just at the player they see - but at the game we play that, for whatever reason, means something to people's lives. Win or lose, the man on the street will smile and give you a wave.

After India won the World Cup this year, our players were not congratulated as much as they were thanked by people they ran into. "You have given us everything," they were told, "all of us have won." Cricket in India now stands not just for sport, but possibility, hope, opportunities.

On our way to the Indian team, we know of so many of our team-mates, some of whom may have been equally or more talented than those sitting here, who missed out. When I started out, for a young Indian, cricket was the ultimate gamble - all or nothing, no safety nets. No second chances for those without an education or a college degree or second careers. Indian cricket's wealth now means a wider pool of well paid cricketers even at first-class level.

For those of us who make it to the Indian team, cricket is not merely our livelihood, it is a gift we have been given. Without the game, we would just be average people leading average lives. As Indian cricketers, our sport has given us the chance do something worthwhile with our lives. How many people could say that?

This is the time Indian cricket should be flowering; we are the world champions in the short game, and over the space of the next 12 months should be involved in a tight contest with Australia, South Africa and England to determine which one of us is the world's strongest Test team.

Yet I believe this is also a time for introspection within our game, not only in india, but all over the world. We have been given some alerts and responding to them quickly is the smart thing to do.

I was surprised a few months ago to see the lack of crowds in an ODI series featuring India. By that I don't mean the lack of full houses, I think it was the sight of empty stands I found somewhat alarming.

India played its first one-day international at home in November 1981, when I was nine. Between then and now India have played 227 ODIs at home; the October five-match series against England was the first time that the grounds have not been full for an ODI featuring the Indian team.

In the summer of 1998, I played in a one-dayer against Kenya in Kolkata and the Eden Gardens was full. Our next game was held in the 48-degree heat of Gwalior and the stands were heaving.

The October series against England was the first one at home after India's World Cup win. It was called the 'revenge' series meant to wipe away the memory of a forgettable tour of England. India kept winning every game, and yet the stands did not fill up. Five days after a 5-0 victory 95,000 turned up to watch the India's first Formula One race.

A few weeks later I played in a Test match against West Indies in Calcutta, in front of what was the lowest turn out in Eden Gardens' history. Yes we still wanted to win and our intensity did not dip. But at the end of the day, we are performers, entertainers and we love an audience. The audience amplifies everything you are doing, the bigger the crowd the bigger the occasion, its magnitude, its emotion. When I think about the Eden Gardens crowds this year, I wonder what the famous Calcutta Test of 2001 would have felt like with 50,000 people less watching us.

Australia and South Africa played an exciting and thrilling Test series recently and two great Test matches produced some fantastic performances from players of both teams, but were sadly played in front of sparse crowds.

It is not the numbers that Test players need, it is the atmosphere of a Test that every player wants to revel in and draw energy from. My first reaction to the lack of crowds for cricket was that there had been a lot of cricket and so perhaps, a certain amount of spectator-fatigue. That is too simplistic a view; it's the easy thing to say but might not be the only thing.

The India v England ODI series had no context, because the two countries had played each other in four Tests and five ODIs just a few weeks before. When India and West Indies played ODIs a month after that the grounds were full, but this time the matches were played in smaller venues that didn't host too much international cricket. Maybe our clues are all there and we must remain vigilant.

Unlike Australia or England, Indian cricket has never had to compete with other sports for a share of revenues, mind space or crowd attendance at international matches. The lack of crowds may not directly impact on revenues or how important the sport is to Indians, but we do need to accept that there has definitely been a change in temperature over, I think, the last two years.

Whatever the reasons are - maybe it is too much cricket or too little by way of comfort for spectators - the fan has sent us a message and we must listen. This is not mere sentimentality. Empty stands do not make for good television. Bad television can lead to a fall in ratings, the fall in ratings will be felt by media planners and advertisers looking elsewhere.

If that happens, it is hard to see television rights around cricket being as sought after as they have always been in the last 15 years. And where does that leave everyone? I'm not trying to be an economist or doomsday prophet - this is just how I see it.

Let us not be so satisfied with the present, with deals and finances in hand that we get blindsided. Everything that has given cricket its power and influence in the world of sports has started from that fan in the stadium. They deserve our respect and let us not take them for granted. Disrespecting fans is disrespecting the game. The fans have stood by our game through everything. When we play, we need to think of them. As players, the balance between competitiveness and fairness can be tough but it must be found.

If we stand up for the game's basic decencies, it will be far easier to tackle its bigger dangers - whether it is finding short cuts to easy money or being lured by the scourge of spot-fixing and contemplating any involvement with the betting industry.

Cricket's financial success means it will face threats from outside the game and keep facing them. The last two decades have proved this over and over again. The internet and modern technology may just end up being a step ahead of every anti-corruption regulation in place in the game. As players, the one way we can stay ahead for the game, is if we are willing to be monitored and regulated closely.

Even if it means giving up a little bit of freedom of movement and privacy. If it means undergoing dope tests, let us never say no. If it means undergoing lie-detector tests, let us understand the technology, what purpose it serves and accept it. Now lie-detectors are by no means perfect but they could actually help the innocent clear their names. Similarly, we should not object to having our finances scrutinised if that is what is required.

When the first anti-corruption measures were put into place, we did moan a little bit about being accredited and depositing our cell phones with the manager. But now we must treat it like we do airport security because we know it is for our own good and our own security.

Players should be ready to give up a little personal space and personal comfort for this game, which has given us so much. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

Other sports have borrowed from cricket's anti-corruption measures to set up their own ethical governance programmes and we must take pride in belonging to a sport that is professional and progressive.

One of the biggest challenges that the game must respond to today, I believe, is charting out a clear road map for the three formats. We now realise that the sport's three formats cannot be played in equal numbers - that will only throw scheduling and the true development of players completely off gear.

There is a place for all three formats, though, we are the only sport I can think of which has three versions. Cricket must treasure this originality. These three versions require different skills, skills that have evolved, grown, changed over the last four decades, one impacting on the other.

Test cricket is the gold standard, it is the form the players want to play. The 50-over game is the one that has kept cricket's revenues alive for more than three decades now. Twenty20 has come upon us and it is the format people, the fans want to see.

Cricket must find a middle path, it must scale down this mad merry-go-round that teams and players find themselves in: heading off for two-Test tours and seven-match ODI series with a few Twenty20s thrown in.

Test cricket deserves to be protected, it is what the world's best know they will be judged by. Where I come from, nation versus nation is what got people interested in cricket in the first place. When I hear the news that a country is playing without some of its best players, I always wonder, what do their fans think?

People may not be able to turn up to watch Test cricket but everyone follows the scores. We may not fill 65,000 capacity stadiums for Test matches, but we must actively fight to get as many as we can in, to create a Test match environment that the players and the fans feed off. Anything but the sight of Tests played on empty grounds. For that, we have got to play Test cricket that people can watch.

I don't think day-night Tests or a Test championship should be dismissed.

In March of last year I played a day-night first-class game in Abu Dhabi for the MCC and my experience from that was that day-night Tests is an idea seriously worth exploring. There may be some challenges in places where there is dew but the visibility and durability of the pink cricket ball was not an issue.

Similarly, a Test championship, with every team and player driving themselves to be winners of a sought after title, seems like it would have a context to every game.

Keeping Tests alive may mean different innovations in different countries - maybe taking it to smaller cities, playing it in grounds with smaller capacities like New Zealand has thought of doing, maybe reviving some old venues in the West Indies, like the old Recreation Ground in Antigua.

When I was around seven years old, I remember my father taking a Friday off so that we could watch three days of Test cricket together. On occasions he couldn't, I would accompany one of his friends, just to soak in a day of Test cricket and watch the drama slowly unfold.

What we have to do is find a way to ensure that Test matches fit into 21st century life, through timing, environments and the venues they are held in. I am still convinced it can be done, even in our fast-moving world with a short attention span. We will often get told that Test matches don't make financial sense, but no one ever fell in love with Test cricket because they wanted to be a businessman. Not everything of value comes at a price.

There is a proposal doing the rounds about scrapping the 50-over game completely. I am not sure I agree with that - I certainly know that the 50-over game helped us innovate strokes in our batting which we were then able to take into Test matches. We all know that the 50-over game has been responsible for improving fielding standards all over the world.

The future may well lie in playing one-day internationals centered around ICC events, like the Champions Trophy and the World Cups. This would ensure that all 50-over matches would build up for those tournaments.

That will cut back the number of one-day internationals played every year but at least those matches will have context. Since about I think 1985, people have been saying that there is too much meaningless one-day cricket. Maybe it's finally time to do something about it.

The Twenty20 game as we know has as many critics as it has supporters in the public. Given that an acceptable strike rate in T20 these days is about 120, I should probably complain about it the most. The crowd and revenue numbers, though, tell us that if we don't handle Twenty20 correctly, we may well have more and more private players stepping in to offer not just slices of pie, but maybe even bigger pies themselves.

So I'll re-iterate what I've just said very quickly because balancing three formats is important:

We have Test cricket like we have always had, nation versus nation, but carefully scheduled to attract crowds and planned fairly so that every Test playing country gets its fair share of Tests. And playing for a championship or a cup, not just a ranking.

The 50-overs format focused around fewer, significant multi-nation ICC events like the Champions Trophy and the World Cup. In the four-year cycle between World Cups, plan the ODI calendar and devise rankings around these few important events. Anything makes more sense than seven-match ODI series.

The best role for Twenty20 is as a domestic competition through official leagues, which will make it financially attractive for cricketers. That could also keep cricket viable in countries where it fights for space and attention.

Because the game is bigger than us all, we must think way ahead of how it stands today. Where do we want it to be in the year 2020? Or say in 2027, when it will be 150 years since the first Test match was played. If you think about it, cricket has been with us longer than the modern motor car, it existed before modern air travel took off.

As much as cricket's revenues are important to its growth, its traditions and its vibrancy are a necessary part of its progress in the future. We shouldn't let either go because we played too much of one format and too little of the other.

Professionalism has given cricketers of my generation privileged lives and we know it, even though you may often hear us whining about burn-out, travel and the lack of recovery time.

Whenever we begin to get into that mindset, it's good to remember a piece of Sachin's conversation with Bradman. Sachin told us that he had asked Sir Don how he had mentally prepared for big games, what his routines were. Sir Don said, that well, before a game he would go to work and after the game go back to work. Whenever a cricketer feels a whinge coming on, that would be good to remember.

Before I conclude, I also want to talk briefly about an experience I have often had over the course of my career. It is not to do with individuals or incidents, but one I believe is important to share. I have sometimes found myself in the middle of a big game, standing at slip or even at the non-strikers end and suddenly realised that everything else has vanished. At that moment, all that exists is the contest and the very real sense of the joy that comes from playing the game.

It is an almost meditative experience, where you reconnect with the game just like you did years ago, when you first began, when you hit your first boundary, took the first catch, scored your first century, or were involved in a big victory. It lasts for a very fleeting passage of time, but it is a very precious instant and every cricketer should hang on to it.

I know it is utterly fanciful to expect professional cricketers to play the game like amateurs; but the trick, I believe, is taking the spirit of the amateur - of discovery, of learning, of pure joy, of playing by the rules - into our profession. Taking it to practice or play, even when there's an epidemic of white-line fever breaking out all over the field.

In every cricketer there lies a competitor who hates losing, and yes, winning matters. But it is not the only thing that matters when you play cricket. How it is played is as important for every member of every team because every game we play leaves a footprint in cricket's history. We must never forget that.

What we do as professionals is easily carried over into the amateur game, in every way - batting, bowling, fielding, appealing, celebration, dissent, argument. In the players of 2027, we will see a reflection of this time and of ourselves and it had better not annoy or anguish us 50-year-olds.

As the game's custodians, it is important we are not tempted by the short-term gains of the backward step. We can be remembered for being the generation that could take the giant stride.

Thank you for the invitation to address all of you tonight, and your attention.

Gideon Haigh: 'Yet even now, amateurism endures, and mightily,' Bradman Oration - 2012

24 October, 2012, Bradman Oration, Melbourne, Australia

I need hardly say what an honour it is to deliver the tenth Bradman Oration. I won't say it's daunting. That would be unfaithful to the spirit of perhaps the most dauntless cricketer who ever lived. But it is a privilege and an onerous one.

Last year, Rahul Dravid delivered perhaps the best and certainly the most-watched of all Bradman Orations, a superbly crafted double-century of a speech on which, I remember thinking at time, it would be hard to improve.

Now I find myself coming in after Rahul, a job so huge that India has traditionally left it to Sachin Tendulkar. By that marker, I can really only disappoint. All I have in common with the Little Master is that we are both grimly staving off retirement - although, of course, the potential end of Tendulkar's career is a matter of moment to 1.2 billion Indians, while the potential end of mine concerns only my wife who would then need to find something for me to do around the house at weekends.

I'm a cricketer. The game is the longest continuous extrafamilial thread in my life, and I'm attached to it as tightly as ever. I started pre-season training in April. I own a cat called Trumper. And while it's hardly uncommon to have a cricket bat in the house, not everyone can claim to have one in the kitchen, one in the living room, one in the bedroom and one in the outside dunny.

I represented my first club, the St James Presbyterian under-12Bs in Geelong, when I was 9; I played my first game at the mighty Yarras in 1993, and I'll play my next one this weekend. The rest of my life has been contoured accordingly. I married my wife during a Christmas break; we became parents during the next Christmas break; on neither occasion did I miss a training [session], let alone a game. We delayed our honeymoon until it was a bit more convenient. Until an Ashes series in England, anyway. I certainly thought it was convenient.

They do say that the first step to dealing with addiction is admitting you have a problem. Okay, here's my problem. I'm no bloody good. Oh, I'm not terrible. But, I mean, you can be terrible in a hilarious and companionable kind of way. Me, I'm just mediocre in a hanging-on-for-dear-life-oh-God-let-it-end-soon kind of way, one of those park cricketers who answers to the designation 'allrounder' because I basically do nothing very well, everything equally badly.

The ineptitude, moreover, is now exacerbated by physical decrepitude. I don't even need to playing now to be reminded of my age. This was brought home to me a few years ago when the Yarras were joined by a gangling youth, [by the] name of James Harris. Following my time-honoured philosophy that the lamest and most obvious nickname usually has the best chance of sticking, I naturally dubbed him Rolf - which I quickly regretted, as a look of incomprehension crossed his face.

Anyway, I'm hanging in there. Sir Donald's contemporary Ernie McCormick once said that the moment to retire came when you took off one boot, then the other 15 minutes later. I'm stable at around about 10 minutes.

And, you know, lack of ability can add something to one's cricket experience. When Michael Clarke hits one through the covers, he's simply doing what he and everyone else expects; me, I'm getting a pleasant surprise. The top level player inhabits a world of pitiless absolutes; for me, and the likes of me - for we are legion - we're in the realm of the relative, where 'not-so-bad' is good enough.

That's particularly so because of what I might call the compensatory pleasures. A few seasons ago, I broke the Yarras' games record - a triumph of availability over ability if ever there was. On doing so, I was forwarded a spreadsheet of all the guys I'd played with in that time: about 400 of them. A few brought back no memories at all - that's another function of getting older. But so, so many brought back happy memories, of shared struggles, shared gags, moments of joy, of disappointment, of relief, of redemption. There were a couple of d**kheads in there too - no club is without them, I dare say. But the proportion I've encountered at the Yarras has been vanishingly small.

And, well, as we also know, that a club d**khead might be a d**khead, but he's your d**khead. I've always liked a remark by Freddie Jakeman, who played for Nottinghamshire in the 1950s. He said: "Out of every hundred cricketers there's probably two sh*ts. And if the 98 of us can't look after those two, we're a poor bunch."

I'm sure you understand what I mean. The club. We all have one. We might not see it much any more. But it's like a first love - never forgotten.

As a junior cricketer, I always took for granted that there would always be a game for me. As a senior, the most rewarding parts of cricket have been keeping the show going at a club that's mainly had moths in its trophy cabinet and IOUs in its till.

For grassroots cricket in the twenteens, I can tell you, is as precarious as it ever was. It's not so long since we had a $3500 utilities bill turn up when we had $50 in the bank. Could we, wondered the president, become the first club to operate without electricity? Really, added the treasurer, the most profitable option would be to play no games at all, and simply to hold barbecues. The secretary rather liked the sound of this, having himself been unanimously elected at the annual meeting while on his honeymoon in Bali, and still to evolve an exit strategy. Alas for him anyway, we dug deep and found a way, which you tend to over time.

Clubs are dependent on the goodwill of sponsors, who ask for little, offer much, and deserve whatever exposure you can give them. And I think everyone gains from knowing that the friendly staff at the Windsor Community Bank can assist with all your financial needs, that the calamari at the Union Hotel is delicious, that Lachlan Fisher at Fisher Cricket Bat and Willow is a prince among men … and that FlosFlorum is not only tops for flowers but lent us their van so we could retrieve our new bowling mats. Of course I may be wrong about that, but when you're personally in charge of your club's sponsorships you have to be a bit shameless, don't you think?

Clubs are likewise dependent on the good offices of their local council. Sometimes these remind me of an old gag. How many council recreation officers does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: none because it's no longer their job to change lightbulbs; there's an independent contractor for that, but his tender was so low that you'll get a candle only if you ask nicely. Actually that's not an old gag - I made it up. But it sounds like it resonates with a few people.

Mainly, of course, they're dependent on people, and it's often where you find those people at their best, because they are putting others' interests first, and giving the gift of time, in which we generally these days feel so poor.

I find the generosity of people towards their fellow man and woman through the medium of cricket deeply moving, and motivating. Behind the apparently ordinary individuals who volunteer their aid to the cause of sport, furthermore, unsuspected gifts can also lie.

I like that story that Tony Greig tells about arriving in Adelaide for the Rest of the World tour in 1971, and being met at the airport by this dowdy, bespectacled old chap whom he took as some local association gofer there to carry his bag. When they had a bit of a chat, the old codger seemed to know a thing or two about the game. (South African accent) 'Play some cricket, did you, old man?' Greigy asked. (Reedy voice) "Oh, y'know, a bit," said the old bloke. Just then Garry Sobers arrived and headed straight towards Greigy's companion. "Hello Sir Donald," he said.

Sir Donald's epic career, in fact, was bookended by administrative roles. Some of you will know that his first job at Bowral Cricket Club was as the first team scorer; I dare say that his books added up too. He was picked for his first game as a 12-year-old, in the time-honoured tradition, when the XI was a man short.

When Sir Donald's playing day was done, the master of the game became its foremost servant. While everyone revels in 6996 and 99.94 - and we were never going to get through the evening without an invocation of those totemic numbers - a stat I love is that he also attended, for nothing, 1713 meetings of the South Australian Cricket Association. I also love the fact that someone bothered to make that into a stat.

We inhabit a modern world in which vast and minute attention falls on a very thin layer of highly paid, wildly promoted and hugely glamourised elite athletes who regard the attribute of 'professionalism' as the highest praise. I mean, everyone wants to be a professional nowadays: to do a professional job, to obtain professional standards, to produce work of professional quality, to exhibit professional pride. The porn star Randy Spears has explained that he manages to work up some lust for 30% of the women he has sex with in X-rated movies; the rest of the time, he is "just being a professional".

Yet even now, amateurism endures, and mightily. About a quarter of Australians participate in a sport organised by a club, association or other organisation each year. What proportion are paid for it, do you think? Probably closer to 0.1% than 1%.

Club cricket remains our game's biggest participation sector, with 3820 clubs in 570 associations enumerated at the most recent cricket census. And I suspect there's something about battling through and totally ar*eing everything, just scraping teams together and barely making books balance, that becomes part of the pageant. You're aiming to keep petrol in the roller, beer in the fridge and change in the till. But you're maintaining a preparedness to laugh when, due to a breakdown in communication, it ends up that there's change in the fridge, the till's full of petrol and the roller's full of beer.

We like our clubs to be successful, of course, but maybe not so successful that they become big, rich, complex, impersonal. That might become a little too much like everyday life - from which, when we take the cricket field on the weekend, we are usually seeking some distance. There's an interesting contrast, I fancy, between those groups we form ourselves, for our own enjoyment and beneficiation, and those formed for us, for maximum economic efficiency. The modern corporate world has developed to a fine art the act of building empires of strangers. For our own parts, we seem to prefer environments where it remains possible to know everyone's name, where we're connected by the intangibles of friendship and mutual reciprocity rather than by the formality of titles, ranks, reporting lines and organisational matrices.

I'd go further. This is something Australians have historically been good at. The theory and practice of forming cricket clubs is in our blood and in our history. Within two years of this city's settlement, citizens had founded the Melbourne Cricket Club, dedicated by one of its founders to 'men of all classes, the plebian mingling with the peer, in respectful feeling and good fellowship' - a character which it's arguable it has maintained … assuming you can wait 20 years to find out.

Melbourne's first significant rival was Brighton Cricket Club, still prospering, 170 years young. Tasmania's oldest surviving clubs date from round the same time, South Australia's oldest surviving clubs from about a century and a half ago. They are older, therefore, than a majority of Australia's legislatures, an overwhelming number of our municipalities, and all but a tiny handful of our commercial enterprises.

This is something Australians have historically been good at. The theory and practice of forming cricket clubs is in our blood and in our history

The overwhelming proportion of clubs, of course, do not endure anywhere near so long. They rise and fall because of geography, demography, availability of participants, accessibility of organisers, facilities and funds. But the habits they instil are those that build communities: of giving and sharing, of volunteering and responding, of balancing interests, nurturing culture, respecting history and generally joining in common purpose. Grassroots cricket can even, I fancy, claim an influence on the foundation of the Australian commonwealth.

Cricket has always taken a certain pride in having provided an inspiriting example to the inchoate nation, the idea of a unified Australian team pre-empting that of a unified Australia. But there's more to this. When you focus on the political actors in the period around federation, it is striking how varied and how deep were their cricket connections.

Four key figures in federation, George Reid, Edmund Barton, Charles Kingston and Thomas Playford, also served as at least vice-presidents of the cricket associations in their respective states. Whilst a 22-year-old assistant accountant in the colonial treasury, Reid was elected delegate to the New South Wales Cricket Association by the Warwick Cricket Club - the same club, incidentally, as Dave Gregory, Australia's first captain.

After nine years, Reid became association treasurer, and he continued serving as association president whilst he was the premier of New South Wales, resigning only in the year before he became prime minister. Reid was not himself a noted player although he might have made a handy sight screen, being roughly as wide as he was tall, and he certainly sledged like an Australian cricketer. Once while addressing an audience from a hotel balcony in Newcastle, he nonchalantly propped his belly on the balustrade. "What'll you name it, George?" called a heckler. Reid replied: "If it's all p**s and wind as I expect, I'll name it after you, young feller."

Consult the NSW Cricket Association annual reports in Reid's time, furthermore, and you'll find three future premiers, James McGowen, Joseph Carruthers and John Storey, acting as delegates for their clubs, Redfern, University and Balmain respectively. Carruthers and Storey, interestingly, were born rivals: Carruthers a hot-shot lawyer and dyed-in-the-wool conservative, Storey a state-school-educated boilermaker and a self-described 'evolutionary socialist'. What made them unlikely lifelong friends was representing the same parliamentary XI. As Carruthers wrote in his memoirs: 'There were other men of different shades of political belief in the cricket team, and I can say of them as I say of Storey and myself, that the bitterness of party strife disappeared during contact with one another in the cricket field."

In this city, around the turn of the century, the presidents of the St Kilda, East Melbourne, Richmond and Prahran Cricket Clubs were respectively also Australia's first treasurer (Sir George Turner), Melbourne's first federal member (Sir Malcolm McEachern), and the local members for their suburbs (George Bennett and Donald Mackinnon). Again, cricket exerted a surprisingly broad appeal: Turner was a stolid bookkeeper, McEachern a bold entrepreneur, Bennett a radical Catholic from Banffshire who championed the eight-hour-day, Mackinnon a silver-haired Presbyterian educated in classics at Oxford, later to become both president of the Victorian Cricket Association and Australia's wartime director-general of recruiting.

Admittedly, the era's foremost political figure, Alfred Deakin, professed no great love for cricket. But when he wanted to describe Australian politics in the era of its split between Labour, free traders and protectionists, Deakin deployed a famous cricket metaphor: it was, he said, like a cricket match featuring three XIs - an idea so outlandish that it has not even occurred to Mike McKenna yet.

In Deakin's ministry, meanwhile, was a Queenslander rejoicing in the name Colonel Justin Fox Greenlaw Foxton, who in cricket rose highest of all: he was simultaneously chairman of the Australian Board of Control and Grand Registrar of the United Grand Lodge of Queensland after nearly 30 years in local and federal politics.

While researching this oration, I dug out press reports of the Athenian Cricket Club which Foxton helped to found in Ipswich in the 1860s when he was a teenaged articled clerk. There obviously wasn't much happening in Queensland a hundred and fifty years ago, because Brisbane's Courier gave extensive coverage to the Athenians' inaugural annual meeting, held in Ipswich's Church of England schoolroom in March 1867, where Foxton, then just 17, presented the treasurer's report, which was deemed 'most satisfactory'.

The report continued: 'There has been a decided improvement in the play in the last 12 months both on account of the accession of new members and the natural result of practice. It is to be regretted that practice is not more numerously attended; the ground has not been in good order and this has rendered play unsteady.' Colonel Justin Fox Greenlaw Foxton would not have recognised what cricket has become today, but he would have been right at home at the Yarras committee meeting I attended last week. Ground's a bit rough - tick. Attendance at training a bit spotty - tick. Unsteady play - big tick. Otherwise, ticking over well.

Cricket and politics have never interpenetrated in this country as deeply as in others - thankfully so. But there is something significant, I think, about club cricket having loomed so large in the lives of so many involved in the early fashioning of this nation. As I observed previously, in order that everyone bats, bowls and fields in club cricket, some must get organised, elect officials, hold meetings, weigh interests, manage finances, and delegate responsibilities - skills readily transferable to wider fields.

We can couch this more generally too. For numberless millions of Australians since, a sports club has been their original and most tangible experience of day-to-day democracy, and their greatest means of investment in civic amenity. The historian John Hirst has called Australia's a 'democracy of manners'. Australia, he observes, is short on inspirational rhetoric where democracy is concerned: our constitution is silent on citizenship; our curricula have no great tradition of civic education. What we have instead, says Hirst, is a way that 'Australians blot out differences when people meet face to face' and 'talk to each other as if they are equals'. In no environment has this tended to happen more spontaneously than when individuals band together in pursuit of a sporting goal. Club sport remains, I would argue, the most inclusive, evolved and constructive means by which Australians express their instinct to associate.

Better yet, our clubs are distinguished to this day by actually working. In our daily lives we are regularly beset by institutions that leave us feeling powerless, voiceless, helpless. Government institutions. Commercial institutions. Financial institutions. Religious institutions. Media institutions. It's easy to think: What does it matter what I do? What influence can I possibly have? At the little sporting institutions we make for ourselves, we aren't powerless; we can and do make a difference; we can put a shoulder to the wheel and feel the thing move.

It's a sorry reflection on the times that so few, outside an immediate circle, seem to grasp that. As if the thrall of the television remote and the atomisation of the working week were not enough, community sport has suffered gravely from the climate of financial stringency and sterile users-pays philosophies.

'But we subsidise sporting clubs in our community,' complain local governments, oblivious to the way sporting clubs subsidise local governments by mobilising free labour and local expertise, contributing to social cohesion and civic texture. In fact, the minuscule funding support local sport receives has colossal multiplier effects. And if this can't readily be ascertained by economic models, then the answer is new models, because the old ones aren't working any more.

But I can't hold local governments wholly responsible. I also fear that from time to time a sort of mechanistic view of grassroots cricket prevails within cricket itself. It is regarded simply as kind of squeaky and unpainted front gate to one of those glorious 'pathways' one hears so much of - ah, the pathway, paved with gold, strewn with primrose petals. 'New markets' is the clarion call; but what of the old? All we've got to recommend us is that we love the game - and we wonder, from time to time, whether the game still loves us.

Some of you would have seen the figures of the recent Australian cricket census, which were touted as showing cricket to be the country's biggest participation sport at the same time as it disclosed a 3.5% decline in the club cricket population.

We don't have the advantage of exist interviews, of course, but I wonder how many of those individuals passed out of the game because they don't like the way it is run, and promoted, and headed. I don't wish to spread alarm, but this would not wish to be remembered as the cricket generation that grew so obsessed with flogging KFC and accumulating Facebook likes that it let its core constituencies fade away.

Tomorrow, an annual meeting of Cricket Australia will finally phase out the system by which it has been governed since 1905, under which its board has been composed of the nominees of state associations drawn from the delegates of their premier, district and grade clubs. It's a system that has had a lot of critics, me among them, and I'm not about to mourn its passing. But it has always exhibited one particular virtue - that of recognising the integral role of the club in the cricket of this country, and the value of the volunteer in a sporting economy that could not otherwise function. And it would be remiss of cricket if it simply marched into its corporatist future without a backward glance, or a sideways acknowledgement of cricket's hardiest faithful.

In that spirit, I'd like to close this speech the old-fashioned way, by proposing a toast. To the club. It's the beginning of us all. To your club. For all that it has done for you; to all that you have done, and might yet do, for it.

Ladies and gentlemen: to the club.

Richie Benaud: 'Meeting people and being mixed up in cricket has been one of my great joys', Hall of Fame speech - 2007

5 February, 2007, Crown Palladium, Melbourne, Australia

Distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen, thank you.

That is one of the most moving receptions I’ve ever been given, and I’m extremely grateful and privileged to be inducted into the hall of fame this evening.

In the twenty five who are already in the Australian cricket hall of fame, I played with or against eight of them , and I watched another eight from various stands around the Sydney Cricket Ground. And as I believe this particular hall of fame to be the best in the world, because it is, well it’s quite difficult to get into,  but I do believe it’s the best in the world. I’m a selector and I know how many great players are not in there at the moment, and it is an outstanding thing Cricket Australia and the Melbourne Cricket Club have done to set it up and have, now, twenty-seven people in there.

I was lucky when I started off in cricket with New South Wales because there were three players in there who were mentors. Ian was kind enough to mention that I in some small way might have helped him by being a mentor. I had Arthur Morris and Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall in the New South Wales and Australian side when I first played, and they were simply wonderful.

For all young players, not just me, but for every young playerthat they came across, they showed them the way to play, and the way to behave, and taught them that cricket had a lot of spirit in it, and could be played with spirit, but it had always to be, the right spirit.

You saw a little earlier Sir Donald Bradman talking about Charlie Macartney, and it’s a particular honour for me to be inducted with Charlie Macartney tonight. Don Bradman was talking there seeing Charlie Macartney make 170 in the whitewash series of 1920-21, and the thing was he had gone to the ground with his father, and he’d said that he’d never rest until he played on that great ground, once he’d seen Macartney make that 170. Well coincidence is everything because my father, in 1921 was aged sixteen, and he was a pretty good country schoolboy cricketer, and his parents gave him for his seventeenth birthday present, he was born on Feb 28, for his seventeenth birthday present they gave him the train tickets from Coraki which is way up on the north coast, and money for the accommodation, so that he could see the test match. And whenever I asked him about the great players, he said, ‘well I know that Bradman must be the best, because everyone says he is and players who played with him say Bradman was the best.’ He said, ‘but aw, Macartney, he was the greatest player that I ever saw. ‘ And there was always a touch there that he’d feel disloyal, if he hadn’t mentioned Macartney in the same breath or even better than Don Bradman.

We had Glenn McGrath talking about being a country boy over there, and all the land he owns in the outback at the moment. Well I’m a country boy as well. In the Herald Sun this morning,  there was a photograph of a little kid, that was me, with a bat almost as tall as myself, batting behind a motorcar. And that was when, my father was a schoolteacher, and we’d been to Penrith and to Koorawatha and Jugiong, my father was playing for the Jugiong school, and then he played for the representative Jugiong side if that’s not too grandiose a term, and the motor car was a 1929 Chevrolet, when you have a look at the Herald Sun later when you get home, you’ll see that it was pretty old. Now I was six years old at the time, and that was the match Jugiong against Berramagra, and I’ll bet not even Glenn McGrath has been to Berramagra.

Now one of the great things about being in cricket is the people you meet. I came to Adelaide and bowled against Ian Chappell very early in his career and he made a hundred against New South Wales. And it was a pretty good hundred I can tell you. But there was one thing about it that worried me. Les Favell was a good mate of mine. He was Chappelli’s skipper at the time. And we got off the field and it was 106 degrees, and we were absolutely knackered. And I went and said to Favell, ‘what’s with this young Chappell? He’s a pretty good player, ‘ and he said, ‘Yeah he is, he gave you a bit of a hammering, didn’t he?’ I said ,  ‘yeah, but he kept grinning at me. Is he all right?’ And Favell said, ‘Don’t worry about that. He was just gritting his teeth and he does it every ball, and he’ll make a lot of runs.’

Meeting people and being mixed up in cricket has been one of my great joys. I thank you all very much indeed, it is a privilege and an honour to be inducted, I’ve had a lot of assistance along the way from players in whose teams I played, and captains, and from everyone else whose had the pleasure of playing this game, this great game, and also from Daphne, a splendid lady who is much loved.

Thank you.

Michael Parkinson: 'Sir Donald Bradman was one of two men I most wanted to interview but never did', Bradman Oration - 2003

18 December, 2003, Bradman Oration, Brisbane, Australia

There is a certain irony in me being invited to give a speech in the name of Sir Donald Bradman in that he was one of two men I most wanted to interview but never did.

Never got close. Never even met him.

The other one who got away was Frank Sinatra but at least I was introduced to that great man.

I was taken to a party hosted by Sinatra with a great friend of mine, the songwriter Sammy Cahn. Sammy said "I'll introduce you and once Frank has met you then I'm sure one day he'll do the interview." So I met Sinatra. "Frank this is Mike" said Sammy. "Hi Mike" said Frank. I circulated for a while. I was the only person in the room I didn't recognise. Time to go and I went up to Frank "Goodbye Frank" I said. "Goodbye David" said Frank. The Don even more elusive than that.

But why was he top of my list. Because he dominated a game more than any player before or since. Because he gave a nation pride and status. Because he was one of the first great superstars of sport and because for all his celebrity, remained a private and elusive figure. What more does an interviewer want? No player embodied the principles of the game more than Sir Donald Bradman. There has been no more ardent custodian of the games traditions.

So anyone making a speech bearing his name needs to be aware of the standards he set and to investigate if they are being tampered with. And that is what we will attempt to do tonight.

First of all I should present my credentials. The problem with television fame is it distorts everything including the real sense of who and what you are.

What I am is a frustrated cricketer. I would have given anything to have played professionally. My father, an even more ardent Yorkshiremen than his son, went to his grave believing me to be a failure. Just before he died he said to me "You've done alright haven't you lad?" I said I had. "Made a bit of money, interviewed all those Hollywood stars, hob-nobbed with the rich and famous" he said. "It's been good" I said. He thought a bit, then he said "but think on lad, it's not like playing cricket for Yorkshire is it?" What he was defining was the difference between fame and immortality.

He saw everything in cricketing terms. If he stepped outside and it was a lovely day he wouldn't say "nice day" or whatever. He'd feel the sun on his face and say "we'll bat".

In a restaurant he would ask the bemused waiter for the scorecard instead of the menu. He wanted to call me Melbourne because I was born shortly after we had won a Test match in that city. When my first son was born we had just won in Pakistan. He rang me up. "What are you calling the lad?" he said. "Andrew" I replied. "Thought about Karachi" he said.

He was a coal miner, a fast bowler with an action modelled on his hero Harold Larwood and a humorist and he taught me not just how to love the game but how to respect it.

He was not a neurotic man but he was obsessed by what he considered to be the greatest mystery of them all - how could Don Bradman's batting average be double that of Len Hutton. In other words how could anyone be twice as good as Hutton?

He took me to Headingley in 1948 to find out. Now to say that Don Bradman liked batting at Headingley is like saying Romeo fancied Juliet. It misses the point. Bradman loved batting in Yorkshire and the Yorkshire crowd adored him. His Test average at Headingley is 192. He made 33 when we watched him. Made up for it in the second innings with 170 odd.

There is an affinity between Yorkshire and Australia. It was a Yorkshireman, Captain Cook born in Whitby, who had the good sense to bump into this island.

A Yorkshire firm, Dorman Long, built the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Fred Truman told me that. We were gazing from the Opera House to the Harbour Bridge and Fred said "Yorkshire firm built that you know Parky". Then he said "this lot still haven't paid us for it".

So I grew up feeling a kinship with Australia and when I first came here in the late 70's I was not disappointed. Mind you I had a fine guide and mentor in Keith Miller.

Keith was my boyhood hero. He was probably the cricketer who inspired me more than any other. As soon as I saw him on that 48 tour of England I was smitten, a severe case of hero worship which, I am glad to say, has lasted to the present time.

It was Neville Cardus who described him as `the Australian in excelsis'. John Arlott said that if he had to choose one cricketer to hit a six, get a wicket or a blinding catch to save his life it would be Keith Ross Miller.

To my young eye he was the most glamorous man I had ever seen. Not only was he a swashbuckling athlete but he flew fighter bombers during the war and once, returning from a mission took a detour to fly over the birthplace of Beethoven, his favourite composer.

In modern parlance, how cool was that?

The war affected him greatly. I once asked him why he played in such a carefree manner and he replied that anyone who'd ever had a Messerschmidt up his arse would thereafter greatly enjoy the prospect of playing cricket for a living.

I played in the same team as him. In the 60's we both worked for the Daily Express in London and we had an annual fixture against the Daily Mail.

Keith had an interest in a race meeting at Ascot that afternoon and had arranged for a friend to stand by the sightscreen signalling the results as they came in. He was at first slip and I was at second. He was looking at his friend who was about to announce the winner of the opening race when the batsmen flashed at our quick bowler and the ball flew to my right hand.

It was too quick for me. I never moved. I gave it up.

At that moment miller took off, dived across me, made the catch, rolled over, gave me the ball and still gazing at his friend said "I wonder what won the 2.30".

What he didn't say, but he was thinking, was "we catch those in Australia".

I have always thought that the perfect medal to be struck to celebrate all that is meant by Australian cricket, would have Don Bradman on one side and Keith Miller on the other.

What they symbolize is the Australian character at its very best.

Bradman was of course, a genius. He also epitomised the Aussie battler, the man of few words but great deeds. Miller was the handsome, sunkissed playboy who laughed at life and didn't give a stuff.

Bradman was the outback and the fight against nature, Miller was Bondi Beach and a celebration of the good life.

Any country capable of producing two such singular men has reason to be optimistic as well as proud.

It was Miller and Jack Fingleton who introduced me to Australia. Jack was a great personal friend of mine, a man I admired as a fine writer of the game - one of the very best - and a man who I enjoyed for his droll Aussie wit.

I interviewed him three times on my talk show. Each occasion he wound himself up into a terrible state of nerves. On the first time he rang me up saying he couldn't sleep because he was worried his false teeth didn't fit properly. I said I couldn't advise him on the issue as it seemed to be a unique problem. He turned up to do the show on the ABC and I noticed he was speaking funny, that his top lip wasn't moving. He explained that in order to make sure his teeth stayed in place he had added a fixative to his morning toilet and had overdone it to the extent his top set were now firmly glued to his top lip. Using industrial solvents we managed to unglue him before the show.

The last time I interviewed him he rang me from his hotel room to talk about the show. We talked about how nervous he was and how he wished he could think of something original to say or do. Then he said: "Tell me Mike, has anyone ever croaked on your show"?

Dear Jack, he stayed with us in England and bought us a rose. "It's called a Geoffrey Boycott," he said. "Why" I asked. "It takes a long time to bloom," he said. It is still there, a reminder of a dear man. I think of him as much as I miss him, which is a lot.

He and Miller decided to hold a lunch in Sydney where I might meet one or two of their friends. At the lunch were Ray Lindwall, (Peg) Bill O'Reilly, Alan Davidson, Harold Larwood, Arthur Morris and Neil Harvey. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

In fact when I do die and if I do go to heaven I want the same dining arrangements.

So all this by way of explaining why I have always felt at home in Australia and why I have had a long and abiding admiration for Australian cricket and the men who play it. Since I started watching and playing the game more than fifty years ago much has changed. Significantly the most important and fundamental changes have occurred in Australia . World Series Cricket changed the face of the game, Kerry Packer and his acolytes, condemned at first as the anti-Christ and his followers, are now seen as the architects of the modern game. It wasn't simply they marketed and promoted the one day game as the fact that the very nature of the new game demanded different skills and, as important, level of fitness from players. It was the death of the old pro and the start of a time when only the fittest could expect to compete.

What one-day cricket did was expand the market, involve a new audience to the extent that in terms of commercial potential it has made Test cricket a sideshow. The traditional game, that which separates it from the rest - because it is the ultimate test - is not about to disappear - yet.

Cricket - Test cricket - is an awkward game to slot into the ultra competitive TV market of the third millennium and the trick in the future will be for TV companies and cricket executives to meet the challenge while not sacrificing either the unique quality of the game nor its integrity.

And if we really are mindful of the game's integrity, and if we believe that the duty of succeeding generations of people involved with cricket is to protect its reputation, then we must be concerned about what I perceive to be a growing problem in the modern game.

Bowling with an illegal action: chucking. This a particular bee in my bonnet.

It would be wrong to say there is an epidemic but I believe there are enough dodgy actions in the game to create a suspicion the problem might be a growing one. Even more worrying is the nagging thought that no one administrators, umpires, commentators seems able or willing to confront the problem.

They will tell you one thing privately yet are reluctant to go public with their doubts. The argument that certain players have been investigated in the past and cleared of chucking doesn't mean to say they don't chuck. Because a man takes a drug test and is clear doesn't mean he need never be tested in future.

I think there is enough disquiet on the issue to warrant the authorities taking a fresh look at the problem. There can be no leeway, no excuses medical or otherwise. Now I don't wish to embarrass my hosts and their guests by raising this contentious subject. On the other hand it seems to me to be particularly relevant to an occasion honouring a man who made his views on throwing very clear during a time in Australia when three or four bowlers were suspected of having illegal actions.

The world's a much more complicated place nowadays. Sporting decisions become political issues. There is the relatively new mine field of political correctness to negotiate. Nonetheless it would be wrong to compromise on this matter and I sincerely hope that those charged with the future of the game don't let it down.

It is no good administrators and the media criticising the conduct and attitudes of players and spectators when they themselves could be accused of sidestepping controversial issues. It is important cricket sticks to its principles. That it does not choose the convenience of political expediency.

If you want to know the consequences of negligence on such issues then I will ask you to consider what has happened to football in England . There you have a game awash with money and bereft of any principle. The culprits are some players, ill-educated and witless who behave without concern for the world around them.

They are helped in their misdemeanours by greedy managers, unscrupulous agents, inert chairmen and a palsied governing body. Much of it sanctioned, by a media dominated by former players, who are more intent preserving some misplaced sense of loyalty instead of doing what they ought to be doing which is exposing and condemning corruption - and I use the word in its widest sense - of any kind.

Cricket is not to be compared with soccer, except as an example of what can happen to a game when money distorts values and those who are paid as watchdogs act as lapdogs.

That said let me congratulate cricket Australia on the way it is promoting what it calls `the spirit of cricket', and it will be interesting to see how cricketers the world over react to the vexed question of behaviour on the field.

From what we saw in Adelaide there are signs the players are taking heed. A truly epic encounter in burning heat was made even more memorable because of the spirit in which it was played. So well behaved were the Aussies the umpires were pleasantly concerned and asked the management if everything was alright.

Sledging is not new. Fifty years ago, playing cricket in Yorkshire, I grew up on it. One of the great joys of cricket is the verbal banter between players. It's a long day not to have a word or two.

That's alright. There's a humour in it. But no-one expects to go to work to hear crude sexual allegations about their wives or mothers, or to be insulted by a fellow international cricketer using the vocabulary of the yob, nor, worst of all, to be the victim of racial abuse.

No one wants to neuter a player or a team's competitive instinct. On the other hand to win gracefully and with style is the most important lesson of all because it shows the athlete has not lost his sense of perspective, that he understands what he is engaged in is a game, a pastime, an entertainment and that set against the important things in life - like family, birth, loss, famine, cruelty, war - it doesn't matter. If a game has any purpose in the grand design it is because it doesn't matter except as an antidote to things that do.

This Australian cricket team is one of the best of all time.

But they have been described as `ugly Australians'. The social researcher, Hugh McKay has suggested the Australian public loves to see them winning but finds it hard to love them.

I am tempted to say here that if you don't want them we do, and that if manners are all you have to worry about we devoutly wish we had your problems. Moreover judging by the impeccable standards seen at Adelaide this week both Aussies and Indians can be proud of their contribution to a magnificent occasion.

It is good to see `cricket Australia' addressing the situation at grass roots by working on leadership training with young cricketers. It is this attention to every aspect of producing young cricketers that has given Australian cricket a clear lead on the rest of the world. We - the rest - must be careful the gap does not become unbridgeable.

Having a great Australian team like Steve Waugh's, is a joy to savour but the rest of the world must learn how to match a system which started under Allan Border, and reached its peak under Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh.

The contrast in producing test cricketers between your country and mine is as extreme as can be imagined. Steve Waugh suggested the other day it might take England 50 years to catch up. There is a rumour he was joking. I don't think so. If I spoke for a day or so I would only scratch the surface of the difference and when you think of the problems of West Indian cricket and its decline you begin to understand that while this Australian team gives us reason to rejoice there is also a genuine concern about the future of the international game.

I would like to use this occasion honouring one great Australian cricketer and captain to pay tribute to another. Steve Waugh bows out of cricket at Sydney in a few days time. He can do so in the knowledge of a job well done.

If Test cricket is a different and better and more exciting game now it is because he made it so. No man born ever wanted to win more than Steve Waugh and yet he wasn't afraid of losing. What he hated was a boring draw.

As a player his record tells us he was one of the greats. But statistics tell you nothing of his remorseless and sometimes ruthless approach to his chosen occupation. He has made a significant contribution to the world of cricket and the highest compliment I can pay is to observe that had he been born in Yorkshire he would have been perfect.

And finally I take it as a sign from the gods that a speech in the name of the greatest Test batsmen of them all should have taken place in a week when we witnessed one of the great test matches. India won and deservedly so but cricket was the real winner.

What we saw demonstrated why test cricket is the ultimate examination of technique, temperament, nerve, sinew and intellect. Why, at its best, its rhythms build to an irresistible climax like a great symphony.

At such times I realise why cricket engages this spectator like no other game. Why it gives this cynical observer hope for the future. Why it deserves the title `Sovereign King of Games'.

Lou Gehrig: 'Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth' - 1939

July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, Yankee Stadium, New York

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.

So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for.

Jim Valvano: 'If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day', Don't Give Up, ESPYs - 1993

3 March, 1993, ESPY Awards, LA, USA

Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. That’s the lowest I’ve ever seen Dick Vitale since the owner of the Detroit Pistons called him in and told him he should go into broadcasting.

I can’t tell you what an honor it is to even be mentioned in the same breath with Arthur Ashe. This is something I certainly will treasure forever. But, as it was said on the tape, and I also don’t have one of those things going with the cue cards, so I’m going to speak longer than anybody else has spoken tonight. That’s the way it goes. Time is very precious to me. I don’t know how much I have left, and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I will have said something that will be important to other people, too.

But, I can’t help it. Now I’m fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how’s your day, and nothing is changed for me. As Dick said, I’m a very emotional and passionate man. I can’t help it. That’s being the son of Rocco and Angelina Valvano. It comes with the territory. We hug, we kiss, we love.

When people say to me how do you get through life or each day, it’s the same thing. To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.

I rode on the plane up today with Mike Krzyzewski, my good friend and wonderful coach. People don’t realize he’s ten times a better person than he is a coach, and we know he’s a great coach. He’s meant a lot to me in these last five or six months with my battle. But when I look at Mike, I think, we competed against each other as players. I coached against him for 15 years, and I always have to think about what’s important in life to me are these three things. Where you started, where you are and where you’re going to be. Those are the three things that I try to do every day. When I think about getting up and giving a speech, I can’t help it. I have to remember the first speech I ever gave.

I was coaching at Rutgers University, that was my first job, oh that’s wonderful (reaction to applause), and I was the freshman coach. That’s when freshmen played on freshman teams, and I was so fired up about my first job. I see Lou Holtz here. Coach Holtz, who doesn’t like the very first job you had? The very first time you stood in the locker room to give a pep talk. That’s a special place, the locker room, for a coach to give a talk. So my idol as a coach was Vince Lombardi, and I read this book called Commitment To Excellence by Vince Lombardi. And in the book, Lombardi talked about the first time he spoke before his Green Bay Packers team in the locker room, and they were perennial losers. I’m reading this and Lombardi said he was thinking should it be a long talk, or a short talk? But he wanted it to be emotional, so it would be brief.

So here’s what I did. Normally you  get in the locker room, I don’t know, 25 minutes, a half hour before the team takes the field. You do your little x and o’s, and then you give the great Knute Rockne talk. We all do. Speech number 84. You pull them right out, you get ready. You get your squad ready. Well, this is the first one I ever gave, and I read this thing.

Lombardi, what he said was he didn’t go in, he waited. His team wondering, where is he? Where is this great coach? He’s not there. Ten minutes, he’s still not there. Three minutes before they could take the field, Lombardi comes in, bangs the door open, and I think you all remember what great presence he had, great presence. He walked in, and he walked back and forth, like this, just walked, staring at the players. He said, “All eyes on me.”

I’m reading this in this book. I’m getting this picture of Lombardi before his first game, and he said, “Gentlemen, we will be successful this year, if you can focus on three things, and three things only. Your family, your religion and the Green Bay Packers.” They knocked the walls down, and the rest was history.

I said, that’s beautiful. I’m going to do that. Your family, your religion and Rutgers basketball. That’s it. I had it. Listen, I’m 21 years old. The kids I’m coaching are 19, and I’m going to be the greatest coach in the world, the next Lombardi. I’m practicing outside of the locker room, and the managers tell me you got to go in. Not yet, not yet, family, religion, Rutgers Basketball. All eyes on me. I got it, I got it. Then finally he said, three minutes, I said fine. True story. I go to knock the doors open just like Lombardi. Boom! They don’t open. I almost broke my arm. Now I was down, the players were looking. Help the coach out, help him out. Now I did like Lombardi, I walked back and forth, and I was going like that with my arm getting the feeling back in it. Finally I said, “Gentlemen, all eyes on me.” These kids wanted to play, they’re 19. “Let’s go,” I said. “Gentlemen, we’ll be successful this year if you can focus on three things, and three things only. Your family, your religion and the Green Bay Packers,” I told them. I did that. I remember that. I remember where I came from.

It’s so important to know where you are. I know where I am right now. How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal. You have to be willing to work for it.

I talked about my family; my family’s so important. People think I have courage. The courage in my family are my wife Pam, my three daughters, here, Nicole, Jamie, LeeAnn, my mom, who’s right here too. That screen is flashing up there 30 seconds like I care about that screen right now, huh? I got tumors all over my body. I’m worried about some guy in the back going 30 seconds? You got a lot, hey va fa napoli, buddy. You got a lot.

I just got one last thing; I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get your emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day, and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm,” to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality.

Now I look at where I am now, and I know what I want to do. What I would like to be able to do is spend whatever time I have left and to give, and maybe, some hope to others. Arthur Ashe Foundation is a wonderful thing, and AIDS, the amount of money pouring in for AIDS is not enough, but is significant. But if I told you it’s ten times the amount that goes in for cancer research. I also told you that 500,000 people will die this year of cancer. I also tell you that one in every four will be afflicted with this disease, and yet somehow, we seem to have put it in a little bit of the background. I want to bring it back on the front table.

We need your help. I need your help. We need money for research. It may not save my life. It may save my children’s lives. It may save someone you love. And ESPN has been so kind to support me in this endeavor and allow me to announce tonight, that with ESPN’s support, which means what? Their money and their dollars and they’re helping me – we are starting The Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. And its motto is “Don’t give up . . . Don’t ever give up.”

That’s what I’m going to try to do every minute that I have left. I will thank God for the day and the moment I have. If you see me, smile and give me a hug. That’s important to me too. But try if you can to support, whether it’s AIDS or the cancer foundation, so that someone else might survive, might prosper and might actually be cured of this dreaded disease. I can’t thank ESPN enough for allowing this to happen. I’m going to work as hard as I can for cancer research and hopefully, maybe, we’ll have some cures and some breakthroughs. I’d like to think, I’m going to fight my brains out to be back here again next year for the Arthur Ashe recipient. I want to give it next year!

I know, I gotta go, I gotta go; and I got one last thing, and I said it before, and I want to say it again. Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.

I thank you, and God bless you all.

Click here to donate to the V-Foundation to support cancer research..

Jack Buck: 'We have been challenged by a cowardly foe', 9-11 poem - 2001

17 September, 2001, Cardinals v Brewers, St Louis, USA

I would like to read a poem which I have written for this occasion, after which there will be a special 21-gun fireworks salute.

Since this nation was founded ... under God
More than 200 years ago
We have been the bastion of freedom
The light that keeps the free world aglow
We do not covet the possessions of others
We are blessed with the bounty we share.

We have rushed to help other nations
... anything ... anytime ... anywhere.

War is just not our nature
We won't start ... but we will end the fight
If we are involved we shall be resolved
To protect what we know is right.

We have been challenged by a cowardly foe
Who strikes and then hides from our view.

With one voice we say, "There is no choice today,
There is only one thing to do.

Everyone is saying -- the same thing -- and praying
That we end these senseless moments we are living.

As our fathers did before ... we shall win this unwanted war
And our children ... will enjoy the future ... we'll be giving.

[21 gun salute]