LES Eastaway has been a cricket tragic since he was a young boy.
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He started playing the game in the Manning in the 1960s. A batsman, he graduated to what he described as ‘lower level’ cricket here and in Sydney, where he lived for 30 years.
However, in the past six years cricket in the Manning has dominated the 66-year-old’s life. He’s just finish writing a book titled Cricket in the Manning. Since 2010 he’s been researching the game in the Manning from its origins late in the 19th century to the end of last season.
His book, to be launched at a date to be determined next month at Taree-Wingham Race Club’s Winning Post Function Centre, includes statistics, anecdotes, 130 photographs and pen portraits of some of the great players and characters.
“At a guess it’s taken me around 3000 hours to complete,’’ Les said.
He started research when living in Sydney in 2010 following what was a then regular chat over coffee with Taree old boy Jon Jobson at Hurstville Oval, the home of St George Cricket Club.
He was concerned that there was no definitive history of the game locally. So it became his passion to right that wrong.
In between he retired and relocated to Inverell.
“I’ve been to Taree at least 15 times since I started on the book,’’ he said.
Stays would be from three days up to 10. He’d spend his days poring over old copies of the Manning River Times or at the Taree library searching microfilm.
Les said he never lost his resolve. But he admits there were some frustrating times.
“I’d be staring at microfilm for hours at a time and come up with nothing,’’ he said.
“Then I’d strike a piece of gold.’’
His book centres mainly on the Manning first grade competition along with inter-district firsts - records, he says, are just too sketchy and time too limited to look at minor grades or junior competitions.
He’s spoken to countless cricketers, tapping their memories.
“Leith Woodwards was one of the first - he was a top batsman here in the 1950s and 60s,’’ he said.
“Leith’s 90 now. I spoke to him about four years ago.’’
George McCartney, Barry Gilmour, Craig Martin, Wayne Smoothy, Laurie Weeks, Duane Sheather, Gordon Cross and John Adamson were among others - Smoothy being particularly helpful with his vast knowledge of Wingham’s cricketing history.
Wingham, Les said, have been a dominant force in Manning cricket for more than a century.
“The club’s run of six successive premierships from 1925 to 1931 is the longest sequence of wins,’’ he said.
Les had found 37 father and son combinations who have scored centuries in first grade while there have been four bowlers who have taken all 10 wickets in first grade.
Les’s partner, Libby Kenney, also has an association with the game here.
Her father, Cec Kenney, was one half of the record opening partnership of 485 scored in 1939 with Merv Humphries at Central Park at Wingham - a record that will never be broken.
“Cec died when Libby was only young and as such she didn’t know a lot about his cricketing history,’’ Les said.
“We’ve managed to find realms of it now.’’
He’s visited Upper Lansdowne, Harrington, Moorland, Tinonee, Cundletown, Kimbriki, Wingham and Mt George in the past six years while he’s had phone conversations with ex-cricketers now living in Melbourne, Brisbane, Ivanhoe, the Gold Coast, Nowra, Booker Bay, Iluka, Darwin and Perth.
“I’m lucky I have a good phone plan,’’ he laughed.
“My petrol bill has been pretty big, as well.’’
Once the book has been launched, Les plans to take a well-earned rest, at least for a while.
“I have a small journal that I’d like to write in the back of my mind,’’ he said.
“But whether that happens I’m not too sure.’’