Hindmarsh Cricket Club

HINDMARSH CRICKET CLUB

The original name of the West Torrens Cricket Club was the Hindmarsh Cricket Club.

The earliest trace of the Hindmarsh Cricket Club is reported in the West Torrens Gazette (2 Jan 1914) as follows

In the 1857-58 season the first team of the old Hindmarsh Cricket Club played a series of matches under the captaincy of Mr. William Leaney………….

The same newspaper also reported that a meeting of this club was held (8 May 1862) at which a resolution was passed

…..one of the old balls be given to the Hindmarsh Juvenile Cricket Club and also that they have use of the old stumps

The West Torrens Gazette’s editor then went on to report that the gift of the ball was the start of the club which is today known as the West Torrens Cricket Club. The Hindmarsh C.C. had absorbed the Hindmarsh Juvenile Cricket Club (Junior sections of Clubs were often styled as a separate Club)

An informal meeting on the bank of a creek running past Lindsay’s Circus (now Hindmarsh Soccer Stadium) gave rise to the formalising of the Club with regular meetings, minutes of such meetings, rules, Financial transactions and uniform. The first of these formal meetings was on 6 March 1862. John Tait, in whose bedroom the meeting was held, was appointed Secretary, George Smith as Chairman and James King sen. as Treasurer.

The Register (6 February 1864) reported that a further cricket club the United Hindmarsh, Bowden and Brompton C.C. was formed at a public meeting on the previous evening. This was a junior club which fed players into the Hindmarsh C.C. as did other junior clubs in the area during the 19th century, notably the Bowden Tyros, Bowden Victorians, Croydon, West Torrens (no connection with the present Club), Hilton and Henley Park.

In 1871 the club became one of the foundation members of the South Australian Cricketing Association whose first Secretary was Johnny Pickering, a Hindmarsh player and the Club’s first centurion. The club temporarily withdrew from the S.A.C.A. due to lack of funds, but rejoined when a program of matches was arranged for the first time in 1873-74. Other clubs which took part in that first competition were Kensington, North Adelaide Young Men (the ‘Holy Boys’), Norwood, Quidnuncs and South Australian. Hindmarsh’s first match in the S.A.C.A. competition was played at Lindsay Circus (later Hindmarsh Oval) in which Kent 111 defeated the ‘Bricks’, who were all out for 66. The club was forced to withdraw before the next match as it did not have the required minimum number of five S.A.C.A. members to allow participation in matches, but resumed its place for the next season.

Until the end of the 1896-97 season players could play for any club of their choosing. However the S.A.C.A. introduced Electorate Cricket for the 1897-98 season in which there were to be seven clubs representing and named after the seven metropolitan House of Assembly Parliamentary electorates, with players being compelled to play for the club within whose electorate they resided. The new clubs were West Torrens, Port Adelaide, Sturt, East Torrens, North Adelaide, East Adelaide and West Adelaide.

It appears that only one club from the initial S.A.C.A. competition remained intact with the birth of electorate cricket. This was Hindmarsh, which other than the change of name to West Torrens, kept its original identity although Port-Austral and North Adelaide Young Men formed the basis of the new Port Adelaide Club and North Adelaide Clubs.

The newly named club West Torrens retained almost all of the Hindmarsh players and officials and continued to use Lindsay Circus, a piece of public parkland, as its headquarters. Lindsay Circus eventually became Hindmarsh Oval but when upgraded by the Hindmarsh Council it was officially opened on 18 February 1905 as Lindsay Circus Oval. The same delegates to the S.A.C.A. James Chittleborough and Frank King who represented the Hindmarsh Club for many years, continued to represent West Torrens. The Chronicle of 24 April 1886 reported that “ the Hindmarsh Club was re-organised at the beginning of the season, when the sensible course was adopted of restricting the selection to local men”. This made the club unique at the time, because while other clubs had suburban location names, the vast majority of their players resided elsewhere and were thus compelled to move to new clubs in 1897.

THE PLAYERS

Hindmarsh Cricket Club1st XI Debuts - Births and Deaths

The following list contains all of those players who have appeared in 1st XI grade matches for the Hindmarsh Cricket Club. It is a chronological list of participants and indicates their debut match.

To align with South Australia’s First class system of numbering, where two or more players make their debut in the same match the numerical order is determined as follows :

a. Batting order

b. If this does not determine the numerical order then a presumed batting order is used i.e. the batting order used in the next game in which they participated.

c. If this does not determine the order then players are listed in alphabetical order.

1. John Pickeringb. Hindmarsh 12 Jul 1849d. UnleyPark 19 Feb 1921