Tireless and uniquely generous
PL explores cricket’s charitable heart
I was out with a bloke driving the Addi Road community bus the other day, telling him about The Chappell Foundation dinner at the SCG on May 15 and he asked me if I thought cricket as a sport was more charitably conscious than other sports.
If so, he asked, would it be because cricketers are exposed to life in all its gradations when they travel?
It’s a hard thing to calculate, all sports seem to engage on some level or other, but I have become increasingly conscious over the years of how socially aware the game is and how active players and former players are on that front.
In previous days I’d been collecting signatures of previous Australian men’s Test captains on bottles of Grange and Hill of Grace to auction at the event which raises money for homeless youth. Mark Taylor was first out of the blocks and arranged for me to meet him at the Lord’s Taverners golf day at the Lakes course in Sydney.
Established in 1950 in London by a group of cricket loving BBC employees who watched the game from the Lord’s Tavern which is on St John’s Road near Lord’s, it established roots in Australia 38 years ago and quietly goes about raising money to assist the disabled and disadvantaged engage with sport.
Australian Primary Club members are “fined” every time an Australian batter makes a golden duck. It used to be only $1 a dismissal but is now $10. Members were called on less frequently before the explosion of T20 and women’s cricket, but nobody is complaining.
Steve Waugh suggested we meet in town on Saturday night where he was supporting a brain cancer fundraiser associated with surgeon Charlie Teo. This cause was personal for the former cricketer. Teo had operated on Waugh’s wife and his good mate Gavin Robertson.
Steve generously spent a morning in England back in 2019 fielding my questions about running a cricket charity. It’s a field he is well versed in and something to which he is quietly devoted.
It is easy to be cynical about wealthy cricketers and without doubt elite sports stars can be some of the more selfish and self obsessed people you engage with. It comes with the territory. They got to the top by being totally focussed on their goals and often with the assistance of a family and support network similarly predisposed. Life’s always been about them, but all have been through a club system.
Sporting clubs create community. Church did it once, schools do it to some degree, hobbies have a crack, book clubs are cute, men’s groups grim, but nothing unites like a sport’s club. They train us in the power of the collective, the importance of volunteering and the unique satisfaction of achieving something as part of a connected group of human beings.
At some point it dawns on all but the most selfish participants that someone attends committee meetings long into the night, others arrive obscenely early in the morning to prepare foods and fire bbqs, more still attend to the uniforms, the boundaries, the raffles, the fundraising events, the equipment and the inevitable personality clashes that come in such environments.
Parents learn that their child might be the centre of their universe but not out here where everybody gets a bat, or a bowl or a kick or a turn on the bbq.
I’ve travelled a lot with the Australian men’s Test side and notice how they quietly use the power gifted them by their talent and success to make others lives better.
An autograph, a photograph, a few snatched minutes on the side of a field can bring so much joy.
There was a girl from Missouri called Rose Thomson who showed up in the god awful hotel bar where we stayed in Ranchi for a Test match a few years back, she was out of place and out of sorts, but turned out she was stationed outside of town at the Yuwa school which works to save the impoverished girls of the region from child marriage and human trafficking. They run a brilliant soccer academy and have achieved significant results despite some local hostility.
Rose’d had a bad day and needed to decompress. We had a couple of drinks in the mirrored bar that had all the ambience of a Cold War discotheque and featured a rather handsome single woman at the end of the bar who smoked a constant chain of cigarettes and quietly served to customers needs in an adjoining room.
The Australian players, Rose said, had come out and spent time with the girls at the school. They’d sought no publicity. She spoke glowingly of how they showed up and mucked in, making an effort to engage with the kids when some may have thought the glow of their presence enough. No other cricketers had ever bothered to attend at that point.
The team makes a habit of doing such visits on every tour, but likes to keep it on the lowdown.
Two year’s running now (2019 and 2023) a young fellow from Gippsland way by the name of Tom Trewin has shown up at Lord’s during the Ashes and made his way with me to the boundary by the members before the day’s play. Every time his wheel chair has attracted the attention of players who make their way over to engage in a chat and have a picture taken.
Nathan Lyon went above and beyond, Justin Langer, Steve Smith and Steve Waugh too. There’s a bit on your mind one imagines before a day’s play but these guys get it. It gives him such a thrill as you could imagine. You don’t have to be a kid to get excited about meeting a Test star on the boundary at Lord’s.
And it’s all done with a nod and a quiet, never organised and never a big deal.
It’s hard to find a former player not engaged somewhere at sometime with a charitable event. Langer was guest of honour last year at The LBW Trust fundraiser, he flew across from Perth to Sydney to entertain a group at the charity’s dinner. He was enormous on the night.
This month Adam Gilchrist will do the same for The Chappell Foundation dinner at the SCG.
It is our (I’m a volunteer director) seventh annual fundraising dinner. In the past Ricky Ponting, Tim Paine, Shane Warne, Pat Cummins, all three Chappell brothers and Jimmy Barnes (never played a game of cricket in his life, but agreed because his marvellous manager John Watson is a cricket tragic) have agreed to be the special guest on the night.
None asked for a cent and all went above and beyond, Cummins donated his time and then his own money on the way out at the end of the night, Ponting’s wine company provided bottles of his wine to the dinners and most of the aforementioned have their own charitable endeavours.
Ricky and Rhianna have raised millions to support families whose children have cancer. They do it quietly, but I went out once with them on a hospital visit and left with an ache that would not dissipate.
Steve Waugh’s efforts with Mother Teresa in India suggest a deep vein of humanity in a man who greeted sporting life with a singularly ruthless determination.
Glenn McGrath’s foundation do enormous work for women with breast cancer.
Alyssa Healy is tireless and uniquely generous.
Usman Khawaja is one of the modern side whose foundation and humanitarian instincts stand out, but he is not alone. Most of them have charitable side gigs. Many small acts add up. David Warner’s St Andrews Beach Brewery provided the beers for The Chappell Foundation’s first golf day in Melbourne recently. Damien Fleming and former football star Isaac Smith gave up their day for the event and then happily engaged with Tiffany Cherry in a light-hearted Q&A afterward.
Lisa Sthalekar set up the charity’s Sports Star Sleep Out, a thankless task that occupied months of her life. Mitchell Starc and Alyssa have spent the night sleeping rough to raise money at the event along with a host of team mates too long to list.
Last year’s Chappell Foundation dinner raised nearly half a million dollars for homeless youth and provided a lifeline to a host of coal face charities keeping children from harm. Our charity has no employees, no overheads and ensures donated money gets right to the source. Even our lawyers and accountants work pro bono.
Gideon recently put a picture of Paul McGrath’s brilliant rendition of the Trumper photograph using old cricket ball leather on a recent post which we will be auctioning on the night. It’s a wonderful piece of art.
The celebrated Ben Quilty has donated a work for the second year running, but on my desk as I type is a unique item that I really want to stay there but will also be auctioned.
Cathy Weiszman is the woman responsible for some of the great sports statues around the SCG. My favourite is Fred The Demon Spofforth which is by the nets out the back. The possessed look in those eyes reminds me of South Africa’s Dale Steyn when he got into that demonic mood.
Cathy has kindly donated the bronze study of the Paul Roos statue that captures the famous “here it is” moment when the coach raised the premiership cup his fans who’d waited 72 years for that moment.
I love it. There’s something about things cast in bronze and I always remember Gideon referring to Nathan Lyon’s Giacometti-like form in the early days of his cricket (marriage and the passing of time has rendered the comparison a little redundant).
Maybe I’ll bid for it myself but I suspect its going to attract a bit of interest.
Anyway, I’m off to get Ian Chappell’s signature on those aforementioned bottles.
The 2024 Chappell Foundation dinner is on Wednesday, May 15, at the Sydney Cricket Ground’s Noble Dining Room
ERRATUM/ME CULPA
Jimmy Barnes is owed a full and abject apology from the author. He has played ONE game of cricket and ONE game earlier.
The story of the said game is recorded in his third book Killing Time and was forwarded to me by the Helen Littleton, head of non fiction at Harper Collins and for my money the sharpest person in Australian publishing. Barnes relates that he was talked into playing a hit and giggle by soccer star Craig Johnston to raise money for charity. The rock star showed up at Southhampton on the day only to discover it was a serious game against an Australian Indigenous XI. Bill Wyman log the Rolling Stones and David Essex were on the singer’s side but so too were former players including Steve Waugh and Clive Lloyd, with whom Barnesy batted.
Steve donated cricket gear to the singer who’d shown up dressed in rock start rags.
Wyman made a golden duck and was furious but the opposition loved Barnesy calling him back from a golden duck after the bowler volunteered it was a no ball and dropping a couple of easy chances. It’s a good story well told and I especially enjoyed the bit where Barnes tried to cheer up Wyman by saying that at least his daughter had shown up to watch him play. The bass player pointed out it was his wife not his daughter. I met his wife once. And her mum. We went nightclubbing in Melbourne. Daughter had the hots for one of my mates and we drove both of them to the airport after the night on the town. A few months later she was married to Wyman who was a man whose tastes in very young women disturbed many.
There’s a picture of Jim batting but I don’t know how to show it here …
Lalor
“Sporting clubs create community”. They sure do, and better than most, but as you rightly point out, sports “stars” often learnt the value of philanthropy by growing up in small community based sporting clubs. A few years ago a local footy club near me raised nearly $100,000 for mental health following the suicide of a young player. My old cricket club raised tens of thousands of hard earned dollars, during Covid no less, to send a player to the US for cancer treatment; thankfully he is now thriving and back playing again. Cricket should be proud of its tradition of fund raising, across all levels of society.