Action in the Nets

 

Mr Gill seems to pop up quite a bit. Unusual fellow, but I do remember that a few of us decided to get a cricket team together to play in the Moore Park comp one season on the weekend. We asked Mr Gill for the loan of a cricket kit (think Murray Cox negotiated the deal) and he was forthcoming, but drew the line at a new ball each game (fair enough I suppose). However, do you recall the school bloody bowling machine?

 

One of my fondest memories. It was Mr Gill’s pride and joy for a while, and I think purchased early in our time at VBHS, which in turn corresponded with the cricketing feats of Bruce Francis and others. A golden age for VBHS cricket and Gill! This bowling machine made its debut at the top nets one afternoon with Mr Gill at the controls. Only big boys allowed to bat. The rest of us watched. I was mesmerised. This contraption stood at the bowlers mark, Gill to one side, balls to hand and what I now know to be the On/Off switch. The main aspect of this trebeche was a croquet like mallet, which pivoted on a shaft, powered by a noisy motor that caused it to scribe large circles with the mallet head whirling around menacingly and going past some sort of wire mesh slide that contained cricket balls. It was truly impessive. As I watched it get warmed up, I thought it was a bit like a machine gun we had in cadets.

 

Made sense at the time. Many years later, while watching an artillery battery commander issuing orders during a range practice it made even more sense (but I get ahead of myself). Mr Gill started it going and I recall as clear as if it were yesterday, an enormous grin on his face as he tinkered with the speed, then dropped in the odd ball, adjusted the mallet head and pronouced it ready to bowl. Mr Gill’s face took on a very red glow and he was in his element. I was in hook, line and sinker. No wonder they landed on the moon a few years later! With suitable warnings to stand clear and no batsman yet, the first ball was bowled. We watched as the first ball was dropped into the wire thingo and was despatched by the whirling mallet. The machine seemed to jump a bit I thought, which in turn seemed to give Mr Gill a bit of a start. The whirling mallet had passed close to his head. Ah yes the ball. Well that was a bonus treat – it flew at modest speed, wide enough on the pitch to be a wide and high enough to clip the galvanised pipe that formed the top part of the back of the net. A loud clang! It came back toward the still rumbling machine with greater accuracy than it had been bowled. Mr Gill deftly side stepped the return. Someone said that you would expect a full toss to cop that sort of treatment. Seemed fair enough to me. Mr Gill seemed to do a number of things with the bowling machine, not the least of which was get it on a good length.

 

Then he experiemented with speed and soon had the machine clanging, jumping, whacking and a couple of other noises that remain a mystery to this day. The cricket balls were now travelling like missiles. “just like the West Indies I heard him declare”. “Fuck that” cried an older boy who was planning on having a dig. Mr Gill declared the bowling machine fit for active service. A couple of brave lads had padded up and in turn headed for the crease. That’s when Mr Gill really did come to life. The game they play in heaven perhaps, but by now we mere spectators had worked out that heaven was in prospect if that bloody machine got up a head of steam. Of Mr Gill I can say this – he was now right into the game and the batsmen seemed to me to be more like targets and he more like Thomo. Mr Gill cleared the net and made adjustments in response to a request from another teacher (Mr Hare I think?) to see if it could bowl a bouncer. I recall Mr Gill saying something like “I can bowl a bouncer”. I simpy gawked at the stumps from a relatively safe distance awaiting the outcome of Mr Gill’s by now, various deft adjustments to the VBHS bowling machine. And down went the experimental bouncer.

 

The combination of a wild eyed, red faced Sportsmaster at the helm, in complete harmony with a bucking and rumbling machine with a radiply circulating croquet mallet, pushed to its limits, produced the goods. The ball fired out of the VBHS bowling machine landed halfway down the pitch and bounced with real menace, again clanging into the galvanised pipe at the top of the back of the net, then bounced straight back to the bowlers end. A few more followed till the machine seemed to jump a bit too much and began firing balls into the far top left of the net with the resultant return fire. The VBHS bowling maching seemed to struggling if noise and movement was anything judge. No batsmen faced this assault, but Mr Gill was exstatic! Mr Gill took a short break for a few minutes while balls were recovered, some recalibrating was undertaken and the speed dailed own to a gentle medium pace. He looked as proud as punch as a number of annointed ones got to have a dig against this bowling colossus. But there was no doubt in my mind, the best of it was over for Mr Gill.

 

I never saw the VBHS bowling machine much after that and it faded from memory. Often wondered what it got up to in later years. Probably moved to the cadet armoury and now sits in some far flung military surplus warehouse.

 

Postscript: Many years later while serving in the Army, a bowling machine made an unexpected appearance at the Battalion cricket team’s practice one afternoon. I think it was on loan from a local cricket club. I couldn’t believe it. It looked a lot like the VBHS bowling machine. I can tell you now, I looked at it with some reverence and great deal of suspicion. The Battalion Second in Command looked as proud as punch – I felt ill and said so, but was told to take a rest after training. He asked if any of us knew anything about this “contraption”. I said I did and I had seen this weapon in action some years earlier. When asked who was best to take command of it I had the answer – “See if you can locate a Mr Gill and failing that Sir, the fucking Mortar Platoon Officer”. I never enjoyed a strong relationship with this senior officer, but he did take one piece of advice and made the Mortar Platoon Officer responsible for the bowling machine, who I am bound to say went on to display some unnervingly similar characteristics to Mr Gill when firing the bloody thing at practice.

 

So, when I think of Mr Gill I think of the wall and the endless procession of cricketing greats (of which I was not one), red faced intensity, a rather unhinged countenance, a fearless master of the bowling machine and that bloody bowling machine day! I have thought of another mad activity masterminded by Mr Gill– the javalin throwing contest at the north end of the school grounds among the sand hills in the days before the science block was built. But that’s another story.

Peter Funnell