Ask Sono and Mitch Grandell — they seemed to have cracked the code pretty well.
Across a five-year span, the grandfather and grandson meticulously created and crafted a book documenting the first 50 years of Numurkah Youth Club Cricket Club since its 1972 amalgamation.
Rest assured, it’s a roller-coaster read.
From tales of beer runs and sledging surveys to the documentation of brilliance through the eras — Fred Brown to Ian Sartori to Liam Gledhill — the book is an all-encompassing account of the club’s handsome history.
It all started with a light bulb moment from Mitch, who initially only wanted to knock up a full record of player statistics of the past half-century.
“The first thing was just to try and get A-grade stats and get it all up to date and then when I was doing that and coming here (to the Shepparton News archives) I thought, ‘well, I might as well do the other grades,’” he said.
“I just did it on Excel; it was a bit harder to find the lower grades, but then we had the idea of having a 50-year celebration.
“Sono had a heap of photos and Ross Gledhill had a heap of photos in albums in the shed, so we thought we might as well try and get them into something.
“It was more of a developing thing, we didn’t set out to do it from the start.”
Mitch’s countless back and forth treks to the Shepparton Heritage Centre regularly featured chats with historians Peter Matthews and Geoff Allemand, who often had a tip or two to pass on about the book’s construction.
Sono happened to know someone at Nathalia Printers.
And thus, the Numurkah cricket almanac was born.
The timeline from Mitch’s light bulb moment to the laminated page wasn’t without its obstacles to overcome, though.
“The Numurkah library had microfiche of the ladders, but it was very difficult to get proper photos,” Mitch said.
“Even some of the articles were blurred — public holidays, no games printed — so it was a bit difficult to get everything.
“But just from talking to old players, anecdotal stuff, we could try and find a rough range for a particular game or try and nail down a particular match.
“There’s probably a lot missing, but we’ve tried to cover what we could.”
With Alan Thompson’s help, the book begins with a record of the club’s early history from 1884 to the 1972 merger between Numurkah Cricket Club and Numurkah Youth Club.
Then, the warts and all accounts start flooding the pages.
“When we started the youth club, we’d drink our beer under a tree and we’d light a little fire in the grass, build her up and that’s where we sat around and drank,” Sono said.
“No clubrooms, no nothing — now, look at it.
“To get money, we carted hay and all that stuff just to make money to buy the grog.
“On the first night we went hay carting, we made $200 and then we spent $300 on grog.
“We said ‘that’s not a very good idea’, but that’s the sort of thing it was in those days.”
All sorts of electric excerpts are dotted among the book’s 337 pages.
The feats: Numurkah’s first Cricket Shepparton A-grade premiership in 1973-74, John Fothergill’s 47-ball century and Fred Brown’s monster six that landed in the trees at the golf club.
The faux pas: Mark Brown’s entry about learning the f-word could be used as a verb, noun, adjective and adverb all in the same sentence as a 13-year-old.
The folly: A Shepparton News clipping of a survey asking which Cricket Shepparton player sledges the most (won by a certain, well-known real estate agent).
It’s a magnificent finished product and, with a slight tinge of regret, Mitch said he wished it had been ready for the club’s amalgamation and premiership reunion in February.
“We wanted to really launch it at the reunion night, but it sort of didn’t happen,” he said.
“It’s probably going to be a bit low-key really.
“We had a few pre-orders at the reunion, but to get to this point, it’s just more to get it together, so then people have got it as a record.”
While the book wasn’t ready, Sono assured reunion night wasn’t a bust.
“We had a great reunion, we got a lot of old blokes back — Ian Sartori and those blokes,” he said.
“They drank a bit of grog too, the boys.”
Those on the grog may not recall the tales told on reunion night, but thanks to Mitch and Sono, they won’t have to think too hard to remember.
