ENGLAND VS SOUTH AUSTRALIA : First Class Cricket Test at Unley Oval 1903?

Posted by Sandra Ker, Antiquarian Print Gallery, South Australia 1989-2020. Antique Prints & Maps Dealer www.historyrevisited.com.au on 20th Nov 2020

Arthur Thomas

This is photographic evidence of the only First Class Cricket Match in SA played away from the haloed grounds of the Adelaide Oval. I stumbled upon this vision at Christmas 2013 in the Unley Council Chambers. A local resident had worked tirelessly to knit the separate glass panoramic plate images together digitally, housed at the magnificent Unley Museum. Assuming it was a local football game, local team Sturt vs "Opponent X", I was surprised by the word “Cricket” in the title.

A bit of search engine action and page-turning later it was indeed a little know local fact that in 1903 the enigmatic Lord Hawkes was on tour with an amateur cricket team, the Marylebone Cricket Club. They were scheduled to arrive in Adelaide in late March but found the usual venue, the Adelaide Oval, was inconveniently booked. Who dared to displace the "Kings of Cricket"? The South Australian League of Wheelmen for an International Cycling Race Spectacular, that's who! England Cricket had no choice but to cancel the game by telegraph from New Zealand. It may have been a fact of history, that the 1903 cricket tour bypassed Adelaide entirely...but for Mr. Arthur Thomas of the Sturt Cricket Club stepping up and offering Unley’s local oval as a worthy alternative. The Wheelmen feared the competing Unley Cricket Test would distract cycle attendances. Fortunately, the newspapers reported that fans of each sport are unlikely to desert their favorite sport. The journalists were correct as both were resounding successes. Indeed, the celebrated Major Taylor was a major draw-card to the Adelaide Oval event.

Arthur C. Thomas is known as the "Father of the Sturt Football Club", which he established on March 23, 1890. However, all sports have an off-season. Enter his cunning plan: on August 9 1890 he also established the Sturt Cricket Club."Thomas knew that the forming of this club would give the young men of Unley the chance to play cricket in their district". Australian Rules Football was devised to offer local cricketers, "rather than allow this state of torpor to creep over them, and stifle their new supple limbs fit in the off-season [instead] allow young men who loved the sport to once again play in their own district." When news came that the impressive Lord Hawkes may not visit Adelaide, Mr. Thomas saw a sterling opportunity to promote their district oval as a worthy alternative. He telegraphed the English team in New Zealand who gladly accepted. The team traveled on THE OVERLAND train from Melbourne, and booked into the South Australian Hotel, conveniently situated opposite the Railway Station on North Terrace, sadly demolished in 1971. So it has been written into the tomes of South Australian history, and captured with the technology of the period, that Unley hosted a First-Rate Cricket match due to the proactive vision of Arthur Thomas. It is also proof that “if you build it they will come”.

The cherry on the cake was the local Sturt bowler, Henry Hay, who bowls the hat trick enabling victory to the SA cricketers, upgraded from British Colonials since The 1901 Federation (The reconstructed panoramic is also on display at Sturt Social establishment, BarZar,)

What would Henry Hay think about bowling a Pink Ball that was introduced to Test Cricket in 2015? It is interesting that Stephen Fry on his excellent show QI reminded us that the baby gender colors were reversed in the pre-twentieth century: Pink was the juvenile version of manly Red, and girls were serene pale blue as that is the color of The Virgin Mary cloak. Henry Hay would have no reservations in 1903 as the color symbolism was very different. Today Pink is more of a symbol of support for Breast Cancer Research.