Foreword
As our great Club enters its 86th season this provides an opportunity to reflect, for a moment, on our rich History that has been a key part of the history of the West Pennant Hills and Cherrybrook district.
Our Club was formed when the Great Depression was just starting. We saw World War II when the Association suspended competition between 1942 and 1945 due to the number of players involved. Those with long-term memories recall the orchards and chook farms along New Line Road and when West Pennant Hills was seen as being so far away from Hornsby that the Association ran a bus service to get people from distant areas such as St Ives to games.
This History successfully brings together the unique culture of our Club that has been built over so many years. The statistical history in our Club Wisden is equal to the best of any cricket Club. What this History achieves though is the capturing of the stories over the generations. The anecdotes and photos brings life to our past. It also gives direction to our future as it is difficult to know where you are going without first knowing where you have come from.
The one common theme that comes out as you read this History is that it is built on the efforts of our volunteers. Every person who has in some way contributed, has volunteered their time. It is worth keeping this in mind that Noah’s Ark was built by volunteers and the Titanic by professionals.
We would like to call out the magnificent contribution of our Volunteers over the years – our Team Managers, Coaches, Team Scorers, Umpires, Seniors Team captains, those who run the BBQ’s, enter the scores each week and the parents, Grand Parents and partners who come along to support the boys, girls, and men who play – approximately 21,000 players.
The people on our Leadership Teams across all Divisions: Kanga / In2Cricket, Junior Boys, Junior Girls and Seniors are exceptional and have been for many years. This also comes out as you read through the history and can almost touch and feel the characters, what they have achieved and the times that they were operating in.
This History is an amazing work that ranks up there with the best Club sporting histories we have seen. The work started off just on 30 years ago. Ross Anderson, our Club Director of Operations, has spent between 3,000 to 5,000 hours in producing the content of this History. David Carey, supported by Ross, spent just on 10 years sourcing every Seniors Scorebook / ‘D Sheet’ Team statistical season summary to build our Club Wisden. Since 1946 there are just a handful of season’s that are not recorded making our statistical records the envy of any Club. James Makin has taken this to the next level by building a database that allows the information to be managed and now feeds into MyCricket with systems based updates.
As you read our History reflect for a moment on the privilege we all have of being involved in this great Club and the opportunity we have to make a contribution to our as yet unwritten history – our future.
Barry McDonald – Chairperson
Andrew Miedler – President
August 2016
Our History - A Few Thoughts
While statistics are an important part of cricket, this History of our Club is more a story than a detailed historical document. It gives us insights into where we have come from – the characters, the stories and achievements and tries to put this into a context so that you can get a feel for what it was like at the time.
West Penno has a great history and this document only reflects where we are at a point in time. It is documented so that those folk who follow us understand where we have come from so that our future can be shaped with this knowledge.
Many people have been involved in bringing this document together. Whenever individuals are called out some people are always missed so with this in mind I would like to mention those folk who have made significant contributions to this work. David Carey spent over 10 years and countless hours in sourcing and recording the playing statistics in a database of every Senior player since 1946. We have all but a handful of years of statistical data – an amazing achievement. James Makin has taken this to the next level with a sophisticated data model that feeds into MyCricket. The work that James has done to identify the unique A1 Grade Player Number has also been valuable.
Our history can’t be complete without mentioning those people who have contributed through their leadership over many years. Barry McDonald, Jim Fuggle and Keith Robinson provided great leadership for over 50 years and especially in developing the platform for our unique culture.
Arthur Souter was the visionary who started and then drove Kanga and Girls cricket. John Coulthard further developed Kanga into a rich source of our future players and volunteers. Graham Chivers has taken Girls cricket to a new level after the hard work during set-up by John Porter and Edwina Chappell. Geoff Newman, our Juniors Director who introduced the Participation over Results Policy and then developed by Julian Bish, has been a key to our successful growth in the Juniors.
Add to this our long-term players who have also added so much as both players and administrators – Andrew Fiedler, Bill Peterkin, Steve Quanborough to name but a few. Add to this our current Club Executive, led by Andrew Miedler and Barry who are driving the next level of change. Our website has also been fundamental to bringing our Club together and for this we thank Peter W Lees who developed and administered the website between 2002 and 2016.
Many details are based on fact, some are rumours but may well be fact and there are still many stories to be told. Our history is a living document at a point in time with more stories and characters involving people yet to even be born awaiting us. This is the result of the work of many people – please enjoy.
Ross Anderson – Director Operations
