Last year, The Bugle published an article about the 100th anniversary of the Gerringong and District Cricket Association. There were five clubs that existed, Gerringong Town (The Seagulls) Toolijooa, Omega, Crooked River and Foxground. When the Association folded in 1938, all those clubs ceased to exist. This was a pity as they were such a big part of the community in those days. 

Foxground 90 years ago was such a vibrant community with a school, church and post office. There have been get-togethers from time to time, whereby old residents have met and remembered the good times. Horris Kemp, the schoolteacher, was a favourite topic.

I was talking to Brad Speering, President of the Gerringong Cricket Club, about this and he said “no worries, I have established a social competition of cricket with five teams starting this year.”

The teams will have the names of the five clubs from 100 years ago. He has even designed brightly coloured shirts. The name ‘Foxground Renegades’ will be prominently displayed on one of the shirts. 

I felt a tinge of excitement thinking about how proud the ghosts all of the residents of the old Foxground village would feel seeing the old Foxground Cricket Club live again, if only in a social competition.

It got me thinking about an old article my father, Clive Emery, wrote about a cricket game between Foxground Cricket Club and a visiting group from Tonga. It does not have a date but I am sure it would have been in the 1930s sometime as that is when my father lived in Foxground.

I wanted to share his story of the day as it mentions such a large number of those wonderful people from that community:

Other writers may tell of their games, but I will restrict myself to one in particular that was as a fun game which the Foxground team played against a Tongan team brought to Australia by the members of the Methodist Church fraternity, Tonga being under their jurisdiction.  The game was to be played during the week, so as not to impinge on the Saturday competition games.  

All hands and the cook attended as if it was an International game.  School holidays were on, so most of the boys from the Foxground School were present, hoping to be included in the game if needed, which we were, since the Tongans brought along fifteen hefty fellows, all anxious to be part of the teams.  It was therefore decided that all should have a bat, so our team picked enough of the schoolkids to make up to fifteen as well.  It was the first and only time all the fielding positions ever invented were fully manned. We could almost hold hands around the batsmen!

It was a terrific morning with plenty of sunshine. I had the stove hot before I went to the milking yard, to assist mother with her cooking for the great day, and I know most of the women in the Foxground Valley were doing the same, for we were doing the entertaining and a big crowd was expected.

Irvine Thompson would be taking his kerosene can along, blackened by the many services it had rendered for the making of tea, and a factory can of water for all purposes.  Mollie Foley would be making her prize-winning sponges, cemented together with ample whipped and flavoured cream.

My mother would be making enough scones and sandwiches to feed an army, and this would be replicated in the homes of all our players and supporters.

Our home ground was really in Broughton Village, a mile south of Foxground, and an assortment of cars and sulkies gathered about and horses were tethered to a fence in the shade of the gum trees beyond the boundary line by the time Stanton’s truck load of happy Tongans arrived.  They were dressed in the home costumes of shirt and skirt, with happy smiles and bare feet with pink soles and heads of massed curly hair.   It was the first time most of the schoolmates had seen men coming to play cricket with bare feet, and thought it an odd thing to do, especially as we had a couple fast bowlers in Stan Leaney and Jack Thompson!

The ladies arrived with their baskets of food, and Wenty Craig helped them across the stream that was one boundary of the ground.  The pole bridging the stream was a bit daunting for them, so members of our team took their baskets across and then helped the ladies safely across to the shade of four gum trees where the meal was to be held, Irvine suggesting we should not trust them to carry the food across, else it might be lodged in the stream and be lost, but if a lady fell in she would surely survive and he could dry her off when he had the fire going to boil the water for tea. 

Venie Craig took him up on that, and said if she fell in she would take him with her, which he parried declaring if he had to fall in he hoped it would be with a younger woman, which brought a grimace, and a rather scalding response.

By common consent the visitors were allowed to have first bat, and Stan opened the bowling, with Wenty stating he would be one umpire and Billy Winter at other end.  Before the game started I heard Wenty whispering in Billy’s ear that he could close his eyes a bit to appeals, and Billy nodded his approval.

Harry Miller was our wicket-keeper, and advised Stan to bowl on the off, not so much for the comfort of the visitors as much as for himself to get a good sight of the fast deliveries he had to stop. 

 The wickets began to fall, but the Tongan captain, a huge fellow about fifteen stone proved a defiant batsman and began to take charge of our bowlers, and Irvine called upon Stan to lob one on his big toe nail as the way to get him out, but Wenty declared it would be a no-ball if he did, but Irvine said he would be able use the toenail for a shovel (as it was larger than a crown piece). 

Meanwhile, Stan kept bowling on the off as directed, then he bowled one on   the leg side that the batsman could not handle, and neither could Harry, for it struck him right in the middle of his large paunch and knocked the wind out of him for a while, and he had to sit down and have the spot massaged by the slip fieldsmen to get his wind back.

This caused a deal of merriment for the Tongan batsmen, but not as much as when Alan Motley slipped on the pole and dangled his feet in the stream, unable to resurrect himself, and had to shuffle along the pole to the other side.

Then it was lunch time, and Irvine, who had the can of tea boiled and wanted to call everyone to lunch, so he asked one of the Tongans how to call their fellows to lunch, and the fellow said: ‘Kai-Kai’, so Irvine kept calling out: ‘Kai-Kai’, until his wife told him to shut-up, ‘he sounded like a young magpie swallowing a grub!’

 The luncheon was a hilarious occasion. Everyone was in a joyous mood, and suitable speeches were made, with Irvine declaring Mollie Foley’s sponge cakes were high enough to make a milking-stool, when she proudly accepted as praise when she brought them forth.

The Tongans had scored one hundred and five runs and would have scored more if the ball had not been hit into the stream. A thorough search was required to find it and so much time was lost.

With luncheon over, the Foxground team went in to bat.  The two Thompson boys Jack and Tom opened for us, while the rest of our team sat under the Coral trees to watch, along with my sister Olive who was the Foxground scorer.  One of our chaps hit a ball high into the air and it was going to come down where we sat, so Billy Winter, who had been relieved of umpiring, made to catch it, but the nor-east wind caused it to swerve and, in its descent, caught Billy right on the nose, which sent him to the stream to stop the bleeding. He had to have a handkerchief knotted around his head to protect the skinned area. 

He explained how he ‘had his eye on the ball, and the wind caught it, and…’ but Wenty Craig assured him if he had his eye on it he would have a black eye and not a bloody nose! 

Meanwhile, we sat and applauded every stroke and run, to try and urge our players to greater efforts. It was all great fun; even the tricks played on the unsuspecting spectators by Frank Thompson, one of our schoolmates, when he tickled the ears of the intense barrackers with a straw of paspalum grass and had them repeatedly slapping at the imaginary flies all the while.

Frank was our fifteenth batsman and managed to win the game on an overthrow! 

We loaded our visitors on the lorry and gave them three mighty cheers and a basket of left-over food as they moved off, while we rolled up the mats and stacked the gear away. 

Altogether it had been a great day; one not to be remembered for the game itself, but by the comradeship and good humour of players and spectators alike, not to mention of course, the Billy tea and superlative luncheon provided by the ladies.’