When Dougie Did The Double

This poem was displayed beside Doug Walters 1969 Baggy Green in a special exhibition in the SCG Museum in January 2012, to mark the 100th Test match played there. It captures the wonder of being a kid who only ever saw cricket in black and white and suddenly walks into the ground and sees his heroes in colour.

When Dougie Did The Double

Summer blazed in grainy black & white,

until I walked through a TV window

past stands of old corrugated iron and older wood,

into the vivid colours of my youth

and found a new home between

the Randwick and Paddington ends.

White skins were pink and brown

and black came in different shades

as a battle between willow and leather

made the sounds of resonant gun shots 

across an oval billiard table

of deep green, light green mown magic.

I passed my first Test watching a first.

National service done but, he still stood to attention

to clip laconically to leg or pull with surprising violence

and all recorded in scribbled tallies

in the vacant back pages of 6th class maths.

Such days, such firsts

never to be repeated

never to be forgotten.

Heroes dressed as heroes are,

all stains and flaws lost in the whiteness,

all the same, all different,

all heroes through twelve year old senses

fresh to colour and sounds and smells

too big to imagine or rich to swallow

without savouring the sensation.

Cut grass aromas new just now;

a bobbing towelling hat mosaic

in hues so bright I still squint;

the cheering politeness to both victor and vanquished;

and a crowd wit still entertaining

down this winding corridor of years.

Wonders not lost on an aging boy’s spirit.

I was there.

I still am.

(from "Six Nines", Kardoorair Press, 2009)