Initial Success - The First Premierships (Part Two)

After the disappointment of missing the final in 1946/47, Kiama First Grade did not make the same mistake the following season. Once the preliminary rounds had been completed, it was to be Kiama and Albion Park lining up against each other for a tilt at the title.

The teams had played each other twice during the season. Albion Park had a comfortable 54 run first innings victory in the match prior to Christmas, with Brian Raftery’s 69 being the stand out. Their second encounter had been in the final round of the competition, with the match drawn when Albion Park appealed against the light at 5.20pm on the second afternoon. At 6 for 135 chasing Kiama’s total of 183 a result either way had still been possible. Brian Raftery was again in the runs, compiling 59, while Ned McAdam for Kiama had scored 68. The two results perhaps had Albion Park holding the upper hand going into the final, but not by a great margin.

The final began on Saturday afternoon, April 3rd 1948, at the Shellharbour ground. It was a late end to the cricket season, one that threatened to run into the rugby league and rugby union seasons as a result. No one at the time knew just how late the season would run…

Kiama skipper Keith Young won the toss and duly elected to bat in what was a time honoured tradition. Just as impressive was their start. Openers Noel Simmons and Stewart Warnock played immaculately on the well prepared surface. Albion Park’s initial bowling attack of King, Guthrie, Lamerton and Parnell made no impression as Kiama reached 58 without loss. With no immediate ideas of where a break through might come, Kiama provided one for themselves, with a call for a sharp single from Warnock finding Simmons not up to the challenge, and the throw to the keeper’s end leaving him short of his ground.
The Kiama innings from this point was distinguished by three good partnerships, and then a gaggle of wickets immediately following them. Another good partnership took place between Warnock and McAdam, taking the total to 90, which must have been an imposing thought upon the opposition. Two wickets for two runs helped to bring the Park side back into contention. Warnock and John East (fully recovered from his broken arm from the previous season’s 2nd Grade final) then added 40 for the fourth wicket, before they both fell along with Col Raison in the space of one run.
“Shim” Tull and Malcolm Joyner then got together and scored 66 between them in an entertaining partnership which reinstated Kiama’s supremacy. From all reports available, “Shim” was never a man to die wondering with the bat in his hand, and was not one to allow the occasion to weigh him down. In his whirlwind innings, he smashed three sixes over the boundary, and a few others that landed just short to be call fours. His innings of 47 was only cut short when Noel Lamerton finally got a ball past his blazing bat to fell his stumps. The day’s play was called off not long after, and Kiama was set at 7 for 189 after the first Saturday’s play.

On the second Saturday, the Kiama team was able to add another 33 runs to their overnight total in losing their final three wickets. With a first innings total of 222, the Kiama side would have been well pleased as they took the field for Albion Park’s reply. Few sides lose matches with such a total on the board, and though this match would be played to an outright conclusion, it was just the start a team would want.

Albion Park began their first innings on that second Saturday afternoon, and made steady progress. The major difference from the Kiama innings was that there was no significant partnership to set the total up. The first wicket put on 30 runs, and the total had reached 1 for 51 without any danger, but from that point on wickets tumbled before another duo could get themselves set. Albion Park’s opener, Alan O’Keefe, was the mainstay of the reply, scoring 55 before he was the sixth man dismissed with the score still 102 in arrears of the Kiama first innings. The Kiama bowlers were rotated around in their attempt to find breakthrough’s, mostly with good success. Eight of the top nine Albion Park batsmen reached double figures, but only O’Keefe could go on to make a significant contribution, with partnerships broken with regularity. Albion Park ended that second day’s play at 9 for 155, and when play commenced again on the following Saturday Albion Park could muster only another five runs, leaving their first innings total at 160 runs, and a deficit of 62 runs.

Kiama began their second innings early on that third Saturday afternoon. With the match to be played until its conclusion, it was imperative that the team scored enough runs to defend when their opponents took to the crease in their final innings. No doubt the Kiama team would have seen a total of around 200 as perfect – along with their first innings lead, it meant Albion Park would have to chase down 262 in order to win the final, a score that would be difficult to achieve. Albion Park on the other hand would have been hoping to get through the Kiama side for anything around 100 runs, leaving them a chase similar to the total they had achieved in their first innings. One thing that is for certain is that neither side could have imagined how the match would now pan out.

Albion Park started exactly as they would have wanted, picking up two wickets with only ten runs on the board. Noel Simmons and Ned McAdam were both sent packing by Guthrie in what was a fiery start to the Kiama second innings. The rebuilding of the innings was left to arguably Kiama’s two most important players, Stewart Warnock and Keith Young. Another wicket or two would see Albion Park on a roll and in a position to exploit the middle order. However that was not to be. Both Warnock and Young took advantage of the good batting conditions and solidified Kiama’s chances. Their nerveless batting would have helped to ease their team mates concern, and by the time that Warnock finally fell for another excellent innings of 42, their partnership of 82 had led Kiama’s total to 92 and the lead had stretched to 154.
It was turning into a long afternoon for the Albion Park bowlers, with wickets hard to come by. John East joined Young in putting on 52 runs for the fourth wicket before he departed. His replacement at the crease was Shim Tull, who continued in the same vein.
At the other end, Keith Young was putting on a master class, showing no signs of weariness and pushing the total beyond the reach of the Albion Park side. His steady off side strokes were punctuated by a couple of thumping pulls through mid-wicket for boundaries. As the Albion Park bowlers tired, and began searching for any way to pick up his wicket, Young instead brought up his century, which he scored out of the total of 182. It was his second century in the two seasons of the SCDCA and perhaps his most important.
Late in the day, Kiama’s charge continued unabated. With his century raised, Young went on a rampage just before stumps, adding another 30 runs to his total in a matter of just ten minutes, including five boundaries. The partnership between Young and Tull was terminated at 77 and the score at 221 when Tull was adjudged LBW to Vin McBarron, and the third day’s play concluded a few balls later. Young was 130 not out, and Kiama was 283 runs in the lead with five wickets in hand. Surely victory was only a weekend away for the Kiama team.

Albion Park was in need of an amazing start when they gathered again at the Shellharbour ground on the fourth Saturday afternoon, and for them they got it. In the third over of the day both the night-watchman Graham Conn and Malcolm Joyner were bowled for ducks by King, and at 7 for 221 the fielding side could see some light at the end of the tunnel. With the lead having stretched to almost 300 though, it appeared that even if the final three wickets fell quickly, it would be a forlorn hope for Albion Park to be able to chase down such a total. Unfortunately for Albion Park, it was to be much, much worse.
Albion Park needed three more wickets on the fourth afternoon of the final, but they were not forthcoming. Young and Carson extended their partnership with few problems. Unlike Test matches that are played over this time period, the two teams kept coming back to a restored wicket each Saturday, meaning there were few unusual deviations for the batsmen and little for the bowlers to exploit. Carson was also no mug, having opened the batting on previous occasions. So the Kiama batsmen continued on their merry way, piling on the agony for the Albion Park bowlers, who by this time must have lost all enthusiasm for the contest. Though they must have known that there would be no declaration, to try and pick themselves up to pry out those three remaining wickets must have been near impossible. The partnership reached 103 before Carson was finally dismissed, and with the total at 8 for 324, and the lead at 386, one could have forgiven Keith Young if he had felt some mercy for his opponents at this point and declared. It was not to be - and with his own score on 199 you can probably understand that decision. Col Raison was the new batsman, and was the first to congratulate Young when he brought up his double century not long afterwards.
The lead passed four hundred by mid-afternoon on that fourth Saturday, and the game must have begun to lose its substance for the fielding team. How do you keep yourself going under such an onslaught? Where the result of the game has now become almost superfluous because of the total that would need to be achieved? Remember that it was now the end of April. The football seasons were in full swing, and that was where the attentions of most people had turned. And yet this final had to be played until a result was achieved, and the Kiama team were happy to continue to plod on – maybe even until winter arrived. You had to admire the Albion Park players for still being there, still playing the game, still striving to complete the innings, still turning up – even though in their hearts they knew that there was almost no chance of them winning the match.
Young was outscoring his partner 2 to 1 as he raced through the 200’s and began to approach yet another milestone, the magical triple century. The daylight was beginning to get watery in the sky, and autumn colours in the trees glowing a deeper gold, when finally Keith Young was found wanting. Perhaps in an attempt to bring up his 300 with a boundary, Young launched a wide ball in the air to cover, where he was caught by a substitute fielder who was covering one of the Albion Park players who had football commitments that afternoon. The partnership for the ninth wicket had been broken at 143 – which at the time of writing remains the record for the ninth wicket for Kiama in all Grades.

Keith Young had been dismissed for 297. It had been an innings of determination and concentration, pushing on beyond the point where most batsmen would have thrown their wicket away, their job well and truly done. Though the spirit of the bowlers would have waned as the innings wore on, it would still have been an effort on Young’s part to continue on his relentless run purge, given that in the end it was only he himself who could have given his wicket away. He had batted for the better part of ten hours over two afternoons, and recorded what is still far and away the highest individual score by a Kiama batsman in the Club’s history.

Another twenty runs were added by the final pair, before the innings was finally brought to a conclusion at 487 at stumps on that fourth Saturday afternoon, April 24th 1948. The Albion Park bowlers had put in marathon efforts. King, Guthrie and Stubbs had shared eight of the ten wickets between them whilst bowling sixty percent of the overs. They now had a week in which to prepare themselves for the task of chasing 550 runs in which to win the 1st Grade Premiership, a task that, if they succeeded in, meant in all probability that the season wouldn’t finish until the end of May.

The fifth Saturday of the final was May 1, 1948 – the first (and only) time the cricket season stretched into the month of May. Albion Park began their second innings with only ten batsmen, though surely no one would have been surprised if they had more than one player unavailable or missing. It is impossible to tell how the Albion Park team approached this day. Did they have any belief at all that they could win? Did they go into the day just looking to accumulate as many runs as possible for as few lost wickets as possible? Did they think that attack was the best form of defence, and hope to flay the bowling attack around and scare them into submission? Or did they just believe the whole thing was a lost cause, and play accordingly?
Like I said, it is impossible to know. What we do know is that the Park lost several early wickets, quickly falling to 4 for 33, and from that point on it was really only a matter of time. A defiant 49 not out from Hickey in the middle order was full of bluster, as the ten man batting side was dismissed for 111 runs, leaving Kiama as victors by a ridiculous margin of 438 runs.
Was it relief that Albion Park felt at the conclusion of that game? You can only imagine so. Five weekends for a match – even a final – is long enough, without having to go through what they did. No doubt it was this match that eventually brought in the rule to restrict the final to just two playing days. In Kiama’s case though, if it had been in force in 1948 it would have dimmed what is a magnificent spectacle in the history of the Club.

Kiama Vs Albion Park

2-Innings Match Played At Shellharbour, 03-Apr-1948, S.C.D.C.A 1st Grade

Kiama Win Outright by 438 runs

Round	Final
Toss won by	Kiama
Home Side	(neutral)
Comment	Match took five Saturdays to complete. Kiama won the First Grade Premiership [1st]. Stewart Warnock half-century [3]. Keith Young century [2]. With his 52nd run in 1st innings, Stewart Warnock reached 500 1st Grade runs [1st]. With his 24th run in 2nd innings, Keith Young reached 500 1st Grade runs [2nd]. With his 2nd wicket of 2nd innings, Stewart Warnock reached 50 1st Grade wickets [1st]. Day 1 Kiama 7/189 (Joyner 19* Carson 0*)

Kiama 1st Innings 222/10 All Out (Overs 72)

Batsman	Fieldsman	Bowler	Runs
Noel Simmons	run out		29
Stewart Warnock	c W Parnell	b Noel Lamerton	54
Ned McAdam	c C King	b Lou Stubbs	19
Keith Young*	c Vin McBarron	b Noel Lamerton	1
John East	c K Anderson	b Kevin Hickey	19
Shim Tull		b Noel Lamerton	47
Col Raison	st K Anderson	b Kevin Hickey	0
Malcolm Joyner		b C King	28
Alan Carson		b C King	15
Graham Conn	not out		7
George Carson+		b E Guthrie	1
extras		(b2 lb0 w0 nb0)	2
TOTAL		10 wickets for	222

FOW
1-58(Noel Simmons) 2-90(Ned McAdam) 3-92(Keith Young) 4-132(John East)
5-133(Stewart Warnock) 6-133(Col Raison) 7-189(Shim Tull) 8-211(Alan Carson)
9-219(Malcolm Joyner) 10-222(George Carson)

Bowler	O	M	R	W
C King	9	1	24	2
E Guthrie	14	1	44	1
Noel Lamerton	13	3	29	3
W Parnell	11	1	31	0
Kevin Hickey	19	0	72	2
Alan O'Keefe	3	0	12	0
Lou Stubbs	3	1	8	1

Albion Park 1st Innings 160/10 All Out (Overs 58)

Batsman	Fieldsman	Bowler	Runs
Alan O'Keefe		c&b Graham Conn	55
W Raftery		b Shim Tull	15
Noel Lamerton	c Malcolm Joyner	b Stewart Warnock	10
Brian Raftery	c Malcolm Joyner	b Shim Tull	10
Kevin Hickey	c Stewart Warnock	b Malcolm Joyner	11
Lou Stubbs*		b Stewart Warnock	1
W Parnell		b Graham Conn	20
K Anderson	lbw	b Malcolm Joyner	11
Vin McBarron	c Col Raison	b Graham Conn	13
E Guthrie	run out		8
C King	not out		0
extras		(b6 lb0 w0 nb0)	6
TOTAL		10 wickets for	160

FOW
1-30(W Raftery) 2-51(Noel Lamerton) 3-72(Brian Raftery) 4-94(Kevin Hickey)
5-97(Lou Stubbs) 6-120(Alan O'Keefe) 7-135(K Anderson) 8-149(Vin McBarron)
9-155(W Parnell) 10-160(E Guthrie)

Bowler	O	M	R	W
Malcolm Joyner	14	2	35	2
Shim Tull	14	1	33	2
Stewart Warnock	9	2	18	2
Graham Conn	18	3	52	3
Ned McAdam	3	0	10	0

Kiama 2nd Innings 487/10 All Out (Overs 154)

Batsman	Fieldsman	Bowler	Runs
Noel Simmons	c Kevin Hickey	b E Guthrie	2
Stewart Warnock	c Lou Stubbs	b C King	42
Ned McAdam	c C King	b E Guthrie	0
Keith Young*	c sub	b Noel Lamerton	297
John East		c&b Lou Stubbs	18
Shim Tull	lbw	b Vin McBarron	22
Graham Conn		b C King	0
Malcolm Joyner		b C King	0
Alan Carson	c C King	b Lou Stubbs	43
Col Raison	not out		43
George Carson+		b Lou Stubbs	10
extras		(b7 lb2 w1 nb0)	10
TOTAL		10 wickets for	487

FOW
1-2(Noel Simmons) 2-10(Ned McAdam) 3-92(Stewart Warnock) 4-144(John East)
5-221(Shim Tull) 6-221(Graham Conn) 7-221(Malcolm Joyner) 8-324(Alan Carson)
9-467(Keith Young) 10-487(George Carson)

Bowler	O	M	R	W
C King	33	2	95	3
E Guthrie	31	2	92	2
Lou Stubbs	27	1	74	3
Noel Lamerton	28	3	92	1
W Parnell	12	0	51	0
W Raftery	3	0	11	0
Vin McBarron	13	1	34	1
Kevin Hickey	7	1	27	0

Albion Park 2nd Innings 111/9 All Out (Overs 32)

Batsman	Fieldsman	Bowler	Runs
W Raftery		b Stewart Warnock	11
Alan O'Keefe	c Col Raison	b Stewart Warnock	2
Noel Lamerton	c Alan Carson	b Shim Tull	19
W Parnell		b Stewart Warnock	0
Lou Stubbs*		b Stewart Warnock	11
Kevin Hickey	not out		49
Vin McBarron	lbw	b Keith Young	3
K Anderson		b Graham Conn	2
E Guthrie		b Keith Young	2
C King	lbw	b Graham Conn	3
extras		(b2 lb5 w2 nb0)	9
TOTAL		9 wickets for	111

FOW
1-4(Alan O'Keefe) 2-20(W Raftery) 3-20(W Parnell) 4-33(Noel Lamerton)
5-53(Lou Stubbs) 6-64(Vin McBarron) 7-75(K Anderson) 8-80(E Guthrie) 9-111(C King)

Bowler	O	M	R	W
Malcolm Joyner	5	1	13	0
Stewart Warnock	12	1	41	4
Shim Tull	3	1	6	1
Graham Conn	6	1	20	2
Keith Young	6	0	22	2