ABC Grandstand's Unsung Sporting Heroes by ABC Grandstand

Author:ABC Grandstand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

A true country gentleman

by Jocelyn McLennan

IT IS A heart-breaking task to have to sort through a house of belongings and memories when the time comes for elderly family members to move into an aged-care facility.

It is even tougher when it is your hero, your grandfather, who has to leave his beloved land and farm, and live in a strange town. Each special piece and photo I came across brought floods of memories of the wonderful times I spent with him in my childhood — and of tears. My father was often away working in shearing teams when I was very young, up to the age of eight, so I spent a great deal of time with my grandfather. I fondly remember riding around in his small Bedford truck, which we had named ‘Nen-nen’, due to sound it made when it started. Both my brothers and I learned to drive in it at a young age.

William Alexander McLennan, or Alec as he was fondly known, was born on 8 November 1911, in the wheatbelt town of Katanning in Western Australia. He grew up on his parents’ farm near the small town of Borden, in the shadows of the majestic Stirling Ranges. He was a modest and quietly spoken country gent who never said much about his youth or what he had achieved on the sporting field.

So you can imagine my delight when, while packing up his house, I found a cardboard box, tucked away in a corner of a back room, filled with his sporting memorabilia. I pulled out a trophy cup, looking forlorn and long forgotten. The cup was for the Hale School quarter-mile and half-mile (400 and 800 metres) championship in 1927. Inside the cup was a medallion, barely readable due to age, for the State Junior half-mile championship.

‘Wow, how good is this?’ I remember saying to my mother with delight. ‘He never told us.’

We always knew there must have been good sporting genes somewhere in the pool as his two sons were both very athletic. The younger, my uncle, was a ridiculously talented Australian Rules player, as were my two elder brothers.

My grandfather’s first love, however, had always been cricket, a sport whose culture reflected his own gentlemanly demeanour. He played well into his twilight years, making a hundred runs on his fifty-fifth birthday, while playing for his beloved local team of Borden, where he was a life member and where his name adorns the honour board many times. Perhaps the reason he never played Australian Rules was that it only was in its infancy when he was in his teenage and young adult years, but I am sure if he had played, he would have been an incredible football player as well — such was his natural talent.

He also would have made a wonderful radio sporting commentator, as he spent many hours, while working on the farm or quietly sitting in his kitchen over a cup of tea, listening to the likes of Alan McGilvray calling the cricket or George Grljusich calling the football.

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