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BRADMAN AT THE S.C.G.
When I was only ten years old
My dad took me to town.
By train and tram we traveled
To the Sydney Cricket Ground.
And it was very different then
But I can see it still,
With its classic wooden grandstands
And its famous spacious hill.
And this was such a special day
With forty thousand more,
We'd come to see Don Bradman play
The first time since the war.
I'd heard so much about him
From my dad and from his mates,
I'm sure I thought some giant
Would come walking through the gates.
And the thunderous roar that met him
When he came onto the ground,
Was something I cannot forget
I can still hear the sound.
He must have had some butterflies
Some kind of trepidation,
That he would still bat well enough
To warrant this ovation.
For he was just on thirty-eight
And in his fortieth test,
And by his own admission
He was some years past his best.
But who were we to worry
If Don could get a score?
He set about the bowling
And he made two thirty-four.
And just on twelve months later
Again he held the stage,
He made his hundredth hundred
This marvel of our age.
He played against the Indians
Keith Miller tempted fate,
They ran the sharpest single
When Don was ninety-eight.
And when he reached his hundred
The crowd let out a roar,
The pride they had in Bradman
I'd never seen before.
Our Don went on to England
In nineteen forty-eight
And he brought us back unbeaten
And his batting was still great.
And he led such a mighty team
Perhaps the best we've ever had,
With Lindwall, Miller, Morris
And Neil Harvey as a lad.
We'd sit up every evening
To hear the BBC
With quaint old-fashioned radios
And thermos flasks of tea.
Reception wasn't all that good
Sometimes you'd hear a roar,
You'd think we'd lost a wicket
But you found we'd hit a four.
You'd wake up in the morning
And you turned the wireless on,
You hardly even spoke until
You'd checked up on The Don.
You can have your instant replays
And what the experts think,
And those endless one day series
That may drive us all to drink.
My memories of Bradman
And that epic sporting scene,
Are worth a thousand pictures
On a television screen.
By train and tram we traveled
When we made our way to town,
We saw Don Bradman batting
On the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Peter Fenton
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