Phil Hughes: Home town hero remembered six years after death that shocked Australian cricket
Six years on from one of the most tragic days in Australian cricketing history, the collective memory of Phil Hughes still shines bright in his humble hometown of Macksville on the NSW Mid-North Coast.
Mid-North Coast
Don't miss out on the headlines from Mid-North Coast. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Half way between Sydney and Brisbane on the banks of the Nambucca River there’s a town that stretches about 3km in length along the old Pacific Highway.
It has the same hallmarks of most quiet, iconic Australian country towns best known for the quality of its Chinese takeaway, the success of its local rugby league team and the temperature of its beer.
All three have their own pride of place in Macksville, on the NSW Mid-North Coast, a town of about 3000 people which is better known today as the birthplace of one of Australia’s finest young cricketers, the late Phil Hughes.
“He was a well respected kid around the [Nambucca] Valley,” Macksville newsagent Joe Welsh said.
“You’d see him around the place, you always spoke to him, everyone did – he was a good kid, a good Macksville boy.”
“And what happened too him … it’s just crazy – wasn't’ it.”
Six years ago to the day, on November 27, 2014, Phil Hughes, at just 25, died tragically with his family by his side at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, two days after the country took a collective gasp of air when they saw the ‘prodigious’ young batsmen fall to the ground in the middle of the SCG.
A fast Sean Abbott bouncer bit the turf and bounced up under Phil’s guard, catching him below the helmet and knocking him to the ground. The ball, bowled to Phil during a state Sheffield Shield encounter between South Australia and NSW, struck a main artery in Phil’s neck, which he never recovered from.
It was a sad day for many, including Phil’s good family friend and former Macksville High School teacher, Errol Noble.
“I watched that day’s event,” he said, “supporting him and wanting him to succeed during that match, so he would be back in the test side in the next week or two.
“I could tell you what happened the ball before, and the ball before, I was glued to it.
“But when the incident happened, and I’m just sitting watching at the dining table here at home, I felt emotionally involved … and any time I think about that moment thereafter, it’s very sad.”
Growing up in Macksville as a teenager, Phil Hughes was unlike any other junior cricketer the Nambucca Valley had ever seen.
A first grade cricketer from the age of about 12, ‘Hughesy’ had a knack for manipulating a field and frustrating the opposition captain.
“His old man [Greg] and his brother Jason, they did a lot of work with him,” friend and former playing partner, Dane Luffman, said.
“He played opener, he always opened. Did he ever bowl? He thought he could. He liked trying, and he had fun doing it, but he knew he wasn’t a bowler.
“He trained hard. He just used to go to the nets and Greg would just throw balls at him.
“He’d be in the nets until Greg’s arm had had it, and then they’d get the bowling machine out.
“He just had a huge love for it. He didn’t really do much else, he didn’t like school, cricket was just what he loved.”
Former school principal, Peter O’Neill, described Phil as a “non-academic”.
“A fairly average student,” he said, “but a prodigy on the cricket pitch.”
“His nickname was ‘Boof,’ by the way, but you probably shouldn’t say that.”
“That’s what his fellow students called him, whether that was the way he acted, I don’t know, but what I do know is that he was a prodigious compiler of runs.
“He was a prodigy, and his brother Jason was an excellent cricketer, too. Jason had a better cricket brain, but Phil had the touch.”
“His death was a great disappointment to the community – he was very well loved.”
Six years after Phil’s death, the legacy of his life shines bright in Macksville with a town mural, a recently constructed road bridge and a junior cricket oval – all named in his honour.
Local artist Felice Burton painted the mural of Phil Hughes along Wallace Lane after a request from newsagent Joe Welsh, and funding from the Nambucca Valley Business Advisory Group, to make it happen.
“When they started talking about the murals I said ‘I wanted Phil on there,” Mr Welsh said.
“We’d always be at the pub rustling up donations to get him to where he got to.
“There’d be raffles and things like that, we used to all put in.
That pub, is the Macksville Hotel, who’s licensee Tim Smith took over about two months after Phil’s death.
“I’ve heard some good stories that you probably couldn’t put in the paper, some very funny ones,” he said.
“Even some of the stories of his junior cricket around here and what he used to do.
“He was picked out from the age of about 12 or 13 as someone special, just like Greg Inglis – some of the stories of what he used to do with the ball was freakish.”
Mr Smith, a mad South Sydney Rabbitoh’s fan, had his own mural designed in the back beer garden of his pub, commemorating Phil alongside Inglis – another household name from the Nambucca Valley.
“It was something we did to anchor Phil’s memory to the community.”
But perhaps the greatest memorial to Phil that will live long in the collective memory of the community, is the renaming of the former Thistle Park on Dudley St to Phillip Hughes Oval, just a few block two from his childhood home.
A $340,000 state government grant helped transform the field from a synthetic-covered concrete cricket wicket to a brand new turf pitch with a white picket fence and a new club house.
It’s so new it’s still yet to be officially opened.
“We’ve been planning an official opening, it just hasn’t happened yet,” Macksville Ex-services Bulls junior club president, Michael Stennett, said.
The club wears 408 – Phil’s test number – and a badge of a Bull on their left chest as a reminder of Phil and a sign of respect to the Hughes family business – Four O Eight Angus Stud.
The family-owned and operated company which dad Greg, sister Megan and son Jason are all apart of, is also a reminder of Phil and his love of cattle and the farm.
It was something he showed great interest in later on in his playing career.
“He knew when he returned from his cricket career, he wanted to come back to the land and be part of the stud business,” Mr Noble said.
“That was the direction that he was wanting to go, he wasn’t someone to go buy property in Coogee, he wanted to diversify his interests elsewhere.”
Vale, Phil Hughes - 63 not out.
Sydney CBD synagogue call leads police to coastal town
Named: A woman from a small Mid-North Coast town has been fined for making a harassing call to a major Sydney synagogue. Here’s how it played out.
Pair busted after alleged pursuit followed by crash
A 33-year-old Kempsey man and a 25-year-old Kempsey woman remain in custody on remand after being charged with alleged property and driving offences following pursuit and crash on the Mid-North Coast.