SA’s oldest surviving cricket club, Morphett Vale, reflects on its past and celebrates future as it marks its 170th year since formation
South Australia’s oldest surviving cricket club is celebrating 170 years since its formation. Do you know which club it is?
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LIKE many grand ideas, South Australia’s oldest surviving cricket club, Morphett Vale, is believed to have started over a few beers.
It was in 1849, just 13 years after SA’s government was established, when a handful of men got together at the Emu Hotel and formed a team.
Morphett Vale Cricket Club began by taking on sides from the police force and army in what was then a country town.
In 1889, Morphett Vale was one of the founding members of the now-defunct Southern Cricket Association.
“Morphett Vale’s team were all farmers,” says Terry O’Sullivan, a former president, captain and long-time player at the club who is a descendant of one of its co-founders.
“Morphett Vale wasn’t a very big town and the hotel was the meeting hole and one of my great uncles (Thomas O’Sullivan) owned the Emu Hotel.
“My family has been there since the beginning.”
This Saturday, the club will mark its 170th anniversary of its formation by inviting all past players and members to Morphett Vale Oval, its base since 1907, for a celebration that will feature presentations, live music, bouncy castles and, of course, cricket.
While Morphett Vale is considered SA’s oldest surviving cricket club, grade outfit West Torrens claims to be the oldest continuous.
There are doubts as to whether Morphett Vale fielded teams during the goldrush from the late 1850s to 1870 but West Torrens has been ongoing since 1857, beginning as Hindmarsh Cricket Club.
One of Morphett Vale’s oldest living former players, Ken Magor, is happy to see his club reach its latest milestone.
Magor, 83, played there from 1962 to the early ‘80s as a middle-order batsman and left-arm medium pacer, and captained for three seasons, after moving from Victoria to live in one of Morphett Vale’s original subdivisions.
“It was a country club in a country town with a small population,” says Magor, who still lives in the area and now plays bowls for Morphett Vale.
“I’d always played a bit of cricket – enjoyed cricket, so went with the local club.
“It’s good to see (the club still going).”
Although they are based at the same location and many members have been associated with both, the cricket and football clubs are distinctive.
The football club is known as the Emus and wears red and black as its colours but the cricket side has always worn sky blue and white, and never had a nickname.
Morphett Vale president Gavin Collins says the cricket club, which fields two senior and four junior teams, including a girls side, has been through some bad times “but we’ve stuck it out and we’re actually looking pretty good at the moment”.
He describes reaching 170 years as “a huge achievement”.
“There are a lot of past players who played through the ‘70s and ‘80s and ‘90s who still come to the club and they’ll get up on Saturday and tell us a few things about what happened back in their day,” Collins says.
Morphett Vale’s A grade now plays in the Adelaide and Suburban Cricket Association’s section four after switching from the southern competition when it folded in 2014.
“We’re in a rebuild at the moment but we’ve got a lot of young kids who are 17, 18, 19 years old and a few 20 or 21s,” Collins says.
“The future’s looking bright.”
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