Lingard Goulding still wicketkeeping for Goodwood Cricket Club at 73
LINGARD Goulding has raced Formula One's Jackie Stewart and run 21 Dublin Marathons but the 73-year-old is still awaiting his first cricket premiership.
LINGARD Goulding has raced Formula One great Jackie Stewart, run 21 Dublin Marathons, been a school headmaster and written a book.
There is at least one thing the 73-year-old Irishman is still hoping to achieve - his first cricket premiership.
Goulding, a wicketkeeper in Goodwood's C3 team, is believed to be the oldest player in the Adelaide Turf Cricket Association and one of the oldest in SA.
For the past nine years he has played and coached juniors at Goodwood (formerly Richmond Clarence Park) and donned the whites for Irish team Knockharley during European summers.
On Saturday he returned to the field for the first time in six months after recovering from a broken shoulder - an injury he sustained taking part in a relay game with junior cricketers.
Despite the injury and his age, Goulding has no intention of retiring.
"I'll keep going as long as my body doesn't disintegrate," says Goulding, who scored his last century aged 68.
"My powers are obviously on the wane but for an old creature I still keep wicket rather tolerably.
"A premiership is still the aim - I'd absolutely love to (win one) before I retired."
Goulding has teammates as young as 17 and says he is a target for the opposition's sledgers.
"I get stuff like 'send grandad back to the pavilion', but nothing unpleasant."
To stay in shape, Goulding rides to Norton Summit, is a vegetarian and sometimes plays squash with Adelaide-based former West Indies captain Carl Hooper.
He also curates cricket ovals and coaches at Christian Brothers College.
"Various fingers point in funny directions ... but I live in hope to play for another few years.
"I still enjoy it."
Goulding played school cricket at England's Winchester College, where he was teammates with future Indian captain the Nawab of Pataudi, but only sporadically between the ages of 23 and 53.
The sport was his secondary passion behind motor racing and his teaching commitments also got in the way.
Goulding was a semi-professional Formula 5000 driver during the 1960s, competing on the European circuit and also twice in combined races against Formula One world champions like Stewart and Graham Hill.
"It was fun to be in that circuit for a while but I was never terribly successful.
"I was able to put in some fast times but never had the consistency that the very top people had."
Goulding was headmaster at Headfort School in Kells, Ireland, from 1977-2001 and wrote a book on the school's history in 2012.
Adding to his colourful life is the fact he is "technically" a baronet - a hereditary title initially bestowed on his great grandfather Sir William Goulding, a former railways director.
"But I choose not to use it.
"If I had inherited the Order of Australia for something I'd done I'd be happy to have it but not because my great grandad did something."
It was after finishing at Headfort that Goulding decided to come to SA, joining Goodwood once he had called a few local clubs.
"It's a love of the game and the perhaps the fact that I didn't play a lot in my better years that has kept me going."
Goulding will live in a city apartment until April before returning to Ireland, where he resides at Headfort and will again wield the willow at club level.
He plans to continue that cycle and rejoin Goodwood next season.