By Lance Hodgins
Woodfull had just been hit above the heart by a ball, and the normally mild-mannered gentleman gave an earful to the English tour manager who had entered his dressing room.
It was the summer of 1932/33 and the English cricket side was determined to win back the Ashes at any cost. But they faced a major obstacle – superstar Don Bradman, who had scored nearly 1,000 runs two years earlier to take the Ashes home to Australia.
The English skipper, Jardine, had the solution: fast bowling with the ball intentionally pitched shorter than usual and made to rise head high – in line with the batsman’s body. Five or six fielders packed the leg side, close to the batsman, ready to catch him out as he defended himself.
Fast bowler Harold Larwood left the Australians battered and bruised. On the next day’s play, the Australian keeper Bert Oldfield had his skull fractured which outraged the Adelaide spectators and had the English fielders ready to use the stumps in self-defence if the crowd jumped the fence.
Feelings were intense and animosity between the two nations was at an all-time high. The Australian Cricket Board of Control sent a telegram to the English MCC protesting their unsporting behaviour and the use of “bodyline” tactics. They were fobbed off and it became an international incident to be eventually sorted out by government statesmen.
At the very same time, the Mornington Peninsula was going through its own controversy when a letter of protest appeared in the local press.
“Such bowling has already appeared in our local cricket. If the powers of the world’s greatest batsman are limited against it, what chances have boys just starting out got of overcoming it? Hopefully the NPCA [Northern Peninsula Cricket Association] will stamp it out.” – Arnold Noble.
Arnold Joseph Noble was a player and selector for the Tyabb Cricket Club. He had supported the local Cricket Association when they started up a B Grade competition to give younger players an opportunity to play the game and also get good coaching. He was not happy, however, with the way things were going in some of the matches.
“Even our champion Bradman couldn’t handle such vicious attacks. Are our local rules strong enough? Is the future of young cricketers being protected?
“A good cricketer can be made but it is just as easy to break him.”
“Any stick to beat a dog with”
Noble’s criticism had been vague and couched in general terms, naming no names. Nevertheless, it drew an immediate response from one particular club – Baxter. Their vice-captain, George Collett, stated that he played in B Grade and had never seen any bodyline bowling “by any stretch of the imagination.”
“I am convinced that Mr Noble is referring to a particular bowler on the Baxter team. I have played or watched every B Grade game and have never seen him deliberately bump the ball, bowl at the man, nor bowl at the pace everyone knows he is capable of. Furthermore there have never been more than two fieldsmen on the leg side at any time – more frequently only one, namely myself.”
Collett went on. “The Baxter secretary made it a condition of his acceptance to play that he would not be expected to bowl at anything like his top speed. Despite all assertions to the contrary, he has scrupulously kept to his word.”
“Many may know him from his past A Grade matches. Several experienced players from Tyabb, Hastings and Pearcedale have stated that they are quite satisfied as to his bowling fairness. Most of the critics have never seen his bowling.”
He accused Noble of having seen few B Grade games and therefore of making an unwarranted charge. He suggested that he was “unwittingly acting as the mouthpiece of others with a grudge to work off. Those who bear one against the player in question believe that any stick is good enough to beat a dog with.”
“Branding anyone as a ‘bodyline bowler’ is using the strongest terms in a cricket sense it is possible to use – the equivalent of calling anyone a larrikin in ordinary life or a welcher on the racecourse.”
“If the cap fits …”
Noble’s response was an easy one. He had never mentioned Baxter Cricket Club by name and Collett’s response simply supported the old saying that “if the cap fits then wear it.”
Noble defended his knowledge of Tyabb’s B Grade team. He had seen some of their games and as a selector he received regular reports of their form and happenings. He regarded them as a typical lot: a mixture of older players nearing retirement and young up-and-comers.
He knew that bodyline bowling WAS inflicted on one of their younger players and, although it didn’t involve the “leg-field trap” of seven fieldsmen, it was a vicious scheme to unsettle the batsman, and a tactic he deplored.
Furthermore, Noble had another matter to raise: the player in question had been recruited by Baxter from outside their district at the eleventh hour, just in time to qualify him for the finals. This placed those clubs with two teams at a disadvantage, as they had to nominate their best eight A Grade cricketers who were excluded from playing in B Grade finals.
Baxter Cricket Club had only one team. It was in its second year in the Northern Peninsula Cricket Association, and played in B Grade alongside Moorooduc and seconds teams from Hastings, Pearcedale and Tyabb.
Baxter had a shaky start to the season but they soon picked up their game thanks to regulars Richards and Bryant and some new recruits.
“We are striving to improve the standard of our cricket,” explained Collett, “by scouring our territory to gain the B Grade premiership and possibly field both A and B Grade teams in the future.”
Their latest recruit, the player in question, was “a great teacher and role model – a rattling good club man and a thorough sportsman.”
By the time the finals rolled around they held real hopes of taking out the premiership. They breezed through the semi-final by easily defeating Tyabb, but were then beaten in the final by Hastings, despite the excellent bowling of their latest recruit who took 5/42 and 4/28.
By now Arnold Noble’s target was out in the open: he named him as Geoffrey Cahill from Frankston. Noble described him as “an all-round player of representative class who really is too good for B Grade cricket. Witness the centuries he has made in A Grade cricket!”
The cricket season had finished but the war of words continued and began to get personal. Collett claimed that Noble’s suggestions for improving the game reminded him of his own chickens scratching around for a few pieces of food. He referred to Noble as “the little loquacious wicketkeeper” with far too much to say and, in return, was called “the Baxter hen-farmer”.
Noble stood on his cricketing record. At 33 years of age he had played on the Peninsula for twenty years, during which time he had captained the NPCA team and umpired for the Association. He had seen many good players come and go, and “would continue to make suggestions for improving the game , even if they raised the indignation of Mr Collett. I will not be slow to condemn practices or tactics which one considers may bring the game into disrepute.”
Collett observed that such comments always seem to come after Tyabb had lost a match, and felt that this didn’t help an unbiased assessment of his suggestions.
“There is but one conclusion – the matter is personal, an echo of some of the spite and ill-feeling engendered in A Grade cricket in the past and nursed by one or two well-known identities down the Peninsula. These particular gentlemen could not have seen Mr Cahill bowling in B Grade … and therefore our word is worth at least as much as their’s or Mr Noble’s.”
The bombshell letter
The argument then focussed on a letter from the NPCA which Collett is reputed to have received, questioning the sourcing of Cahill from outside their district.
Collett admitted that his Club had received such a letter from the Cricket Association executive. It had been a veritable bombshell, arriving only two days before their semi-final. There had been no time to respond to it – to refute it or test its legality.
“We were taken to task for playing residents of Frankston. But what about Seaford – who use players from there? Are we meant to refuse any Frankston player who wants to play with us? People I have spoken to have ridiculed the executive for their action.”
Collett stated that he had no authority to publish it – and did not intend to do so!
The end result
It was now late May and into the football season. The English cricket team had returned home where the bodyline controversy continued to rage on. Bowler Larwood made an outburst in London’s Daily Express with the intention of placing the matter in the public arena and letting “Mr Justice public opinion” have his say. At home, the protagonists from Baxter and Tyabb felt the same way and continued their own very public war of words in the local press.
“The Australian cricketers realise the viciousness and dangers of bodyline and basher bowling,” said Noble. “Down at Tyabb we know something about it too. In my desire for the local cricket board of control to stamp it out, I aroused the indignation of the Baxter deputy captain.”
Noble challenged Collett and the Baxter Club to release the contents of The Letter.
“By importing several players from Frankston, including that fine all-rounder Geoffrey Cahill, Baxter clearly showed their plan to win the B Grade premiership. They did not break any rules but they did not help the spirit of the game by bringing in a representative player at the last minute.”
Noble went on with some satisfaction.
“But there is many a slip between cup and lip. When Hastings beat them in the grand final, it was a premiership well-received by the cricketing fraternity. It must be narking some people that Hastings are flying the pennant.”
Noble waited a few weeks for a response – but none came so he weighed in again.
“The Baxter chicken farmer has fired his last shot and knows his supply of ammunition is exhausted. Now it behoves this ‘little loquacious wicket-keeper’ to step in to bat on a rather easy wicket. Mr Collett has all along had to bat upon a very treacherous pitch, well knowing that the opposition held all the key positions.”
Noble then offered to tell the inside story on The Letter. The NPCA delegates had been alerted to the importation of Frankston players and they strongly disapproved. They had written a letter to the Baxter Club who ignored it and played Cahill anyway. The younger members of the other teams, particularly Tyabb, had kept ducking away from the flying deliveries of the “shock troops” and were quickly dismissed.
Some people doubted whether the NPCA would allow Baxter to compete in the 1933/34 season but by the time cricket came around again, they had managed to enter two teams. Their A grade team did well and almost made the finals – but they were without the services of a fast bowler.
Peninsula Essence February 2025