…ahead of the Grasshoppers tour to India in February, brought back a host of golden memories of the first tour back in 1981/2 when a bunch of Irish cricketers defied the Apartheid ban and toured South Africa. The affable Alan has toured all over the world as a Grasshopper, and it says much for their cavalier spirit that the seeds sown by John Elder and Graham Crothers over 27 years ago, have proved so fruitful for those who followed. However, there can surely have been no other tour as controversial as the South Africatrip, not least because amongst the eighteen players there were eight full international players.
Apartheid is a dreadful concept, but only those who visited South Africaat its height could have a full appreciation of its depravation. There were certainly no supporters of the reigning political regime within the Grasshoppers party, and it’s really a matter of personal conscience how individual sportsmen view political boycotts. The Grasshoppers didn’t support apartheid because they toured South Africain 1981, but they came home with a fuller appreciation of it. Unfortunately the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement took a different stance, and their attempts to discredit those who travelled and the Irish Cricket Union, went as far as to suggest the trip was funded by South African businessmen.
Unfortunately that was well off the mark, and the fund-raising and organization that went into that historic tour, bonded the party long before they set off just after Christmas in 1981.
The tour had many highlights and was centred on Johannesburgand Durban. Dr. Ali Bacher welcomed the party warmly, and the journey from Dublininexplicably took us all over the place before we touched down. Whoever booked through AirPortugal must have struck a great deal, as there are surely shorter ways to get there. One compensation was the free wine on board, the start of many sessions that made this tour special.
Our first visit to Wanderers cricket ground was awesome, and upon hearing of our arrival the local press entertained us to a delightful lunch. Lunches, dinners and barbeques became highlights of the tour, as the hospitality was extremely generous, not least from North’s former professional Kevin Skjoldhammer who played against us twice, and treated us royally to a New Year’s Eve party at his home. Our manager Dixon Rose took an involuntary dip in the pool that evening, but managed to come back to the surface with his beer still in hand, but sporting a growl that stayed for several days. Dixonwas dubbed “damager” for some of his tantrums, but he was a very efficient organizer, if a poor loser at cards. Indeed we had some of the sharpest card players in Irish cricket on that tour, with Billy Kirk and Dermott Monteith in full flight, Monty playing in at least four currencies. I roomed with the dapper Maurice Moore and we had one memorable kill at the card table, much to the chagrin of our peers, but with ten cases of the best South African wine in our room, we still had enough energy to celebrate at 3-30am!
Monty was a great tourist and one of the nicest things about cricket tours is that you see cricketers that you have played against for years in a different context. Friendships are made forever, and he was certainly one person who got the most out of cricket tours on and off the field. The same could be said for the suave Doc Crothers and his constant companion big Jimmy Kirk. The cricket was great fun, and with players like John Elder, Simon Corlett, Alfie Linehan, Chris Harte, Paul Jackson, Stephen Wake and Davy Napier in the ranks, there was no shortage of talent. But tours revolve around characters, and in Phillip “Bilko” Billingsley, Phillip Nixon, Johnny Shaw, Brian Ferris and Simon’s extrovert dad Charles, we had our fair share of personalities. Charles was a wonderful character, a dinosaur of African plantocracy, Simon’s greatest fan, and a mean singer with a bellyful of ale on board. What a man.
Games were won and lost, and new friends made on the way in the true spirit of the Grasshoppers. We played against South African legends Denis Lindsay and Roy McLean, and New Zealand legend John Reid who was visiting his son at the time. We also watched the great Graham Pollock, Mike Proctor, Barry Richards, Clive Rice, and Jimmy Cook as guests of the Natal Cricket Association, before the beer tent took advantage of our good nature and dehydration needs. Then there was the trip to Sun City to watch the million dollar golf event, and an unforgettable golf lesson from Jack Nicklaus and Sean Connery. We had a little detour into Soweto en route, then a puncture, which was fixed single-handedly by the Growler within minutes, and an amazing journey back to the hotel in an electric storm that frightened the hell out of all of us. We had a similar experience in the skies flying home, and I doubt if anyone expected to reach Dublin at the height of the storm. When we did get home we had a gruelling journey north with most roads under several feet of snow!
If Alan and his fellow Grasshoppers get as much enjoyment from their tour toIndia, they will be blessed.
Clarence Hiles
Editor
