ABC Grandstand's Unsung Sporting Heroes

by ABC Grandstand

  I lost the toss and their captain opted to bat. Our team sheet listed eleven, but only nine turned up. The oval was huge; it was going to be a long day.

  Mercifully some cloud cover helped keep the temperature in the low thirties. Tony bowled steadily, and also took a couple of catches. The first was a simple chance straight to mid-wicket. The second was a caught-and-bowled driven back hard by their top-scorer. Tony took it in front of his face and, as usual, showed no emotion.

  Midway through the day, things were beginning to look less dire. Our tenth player arrived to boost morale, and none of the opposition’s partnerships had got out of hand. Their total of a hundred and ninety was imposing for us, but it could have been a lot worse. I managed to bat out the day, but by stumps we were four for thirty odd.

  The next Saturday, though, we were back to eight players; two blokes dismissed the previous week hadn’t bothered showing up for the last rites. I got out in the first over, this time trying to hoick their leg spinner for six, instead edging a simple catch to the wicketkeeper. As the captain, it was a demoralising moment.

  We managed to scramble to eighty, our team dismissed at the fall of the ninth wicket. A hundred and ten behind, we could be asked to follow on, and since our opposition had a chance of scraping through to the finals, we were invited to do so.

  My pet peeve about playing H grade was that proper umpires were non-existent. We always had to umpire ourselves. So with just eight players at the ground, two batted, two were padded up, two acted as umpires and two were scorers. At the fall of the first wicket, my fellow opener had to stay in the middle with his pads on to umpire, because he didn’t know how to score.

  I defended as well as I could and at afternoon tea I was still in at three for fifty, sixty runs from making them bat again, with nearly forty overs left in the day. The afternoon tea, typical of just about every club except ours, was a generous spread of sandwiches, jam rolls and lamingtons. I hoed in and so did Tony.

  Straight after tea I defended a delivery I should have whacked, and scooped a return catch to their leg spinner. Next ball resulted in a wild swipe and a scatter of stumps. Last ball of the same over, our wicketkeeper danced down the wicket and presented his counterpart with simple stumping. Six for fifty, and with only eight players, our last pair was in.

  Tony’s partner was Rocket, club doyen and gentleman, of three score years and some, slim, with a straight bat and very thick glasses. Rocket started his innings with a gentle dab wide of the gully fieldsman, and set off for a run, only to look up and see Tony standing at the same end. The fielder whizzed the throw back over the wicketkeeper’s head, while Tony ambled to the striker’s end. Four overthrows; five runs in all.

  In the absence of any real ability, from a young age I was determined to at least look like a cricketer. Whenever I left the ball outside off stump, I tried to do so as stylishly as possible. But when Tony left his first few deliveries alone, it was as if nothing had happened. He remained at the crease holding his bat, seemingly oblivious to the match going on around him.

  Tony and Rocket stayed together two overs, six overs, an unlikely eleven overs … Our score crept up with a few wides, a no-ball and one beautiful square cut from Rocket. From my vantage point at the scorer’s table I looked hopefully to the skies, and saw some darkish clouds gathering. Perhaps the pair could make it until drinks, just another ten minutes, and then, if we stretched the break, maybe the rain would save us. Tony edged one to third man and Rocket called him through for a single, completed successfully. Another single from Rocket. A French cut from Tony, beating fine leg to the boundary. Rocket and Tony made it through to the drinks break, with eighteen overs left in the day, but the skies had brightened again.

  I counted balls, overs, minutes. Rocket blocked. Tony blocked. Rocket nudged. Tony left some alone. Rocket blocked some more. Then Tony swiped a massive blow over mid-on, which bounced into the scorer’s table. Then he did it again. And again. It was barely believable. On the boundary, the remaining four of us could only smile and cheer.

  With five overs left, we had equalled their first innings score. The other team were appealing for everything, but our umpires remained unmoved. Tony hit out again and top-edged to the outfield. The fielder’s reaction was slow, and when he finally moved he barely got a hand to it. More cheers from the boundary.

  Rocket’s stumps were finally dislodged with two clear overs remaining. Our lead was only fifteen. But it was past six o’clock and, after deducting two overs for the change of innings, it meant the game was over. Avoiding defeat was our unlikely victory.

  Tony had remained forty not out. He accepted our back slaps with equanimity, then went home with his mother. I never saw him or his mother again.

  Phill Bates: a cycling classic

  by Peter Wilkins

  WORLD CYCLING CHAMPION Gary Sutton remembers the accident clearly. It happened on the Gold Coast, in 1971. Gary had travelled to a race with Phill Bates, in Phill’s hotted-up EH Holden, which was carrying precious cargo: about two thousand one-dollar stickers for Olympic Games fundraising.

  Gary refused to make the return trip with Phill, as he had ‘felt sick’ with his mentor at the wheel. So it was under the preferred driving of Mr and Mrs Brooks that Gary came round a corner to find Phill’s vehicle on its roof. Phill’s passengers, cyclists Greg Williams and Danny Brooks, scrambled out unscarred, while the driver was more concerned about potential Olympic funds, as the stickers disappeared on the breeze across the length and breadth of the Gold Coast.

  ‘Thank god nobody was hurt,’ recalls Gary, who was amazed that Phill ‘was more concerned about the stickers’ than about his own condition or that of his written-off car.

  Phill Bates — sports promoter, coach, charity fundraiser and inspirational administrator — was a talented track sprinter in his day and represented his state.

  Phill was inspired by his dad Ron, who was a committed member, and then president, of the St George Cycling Club, as well as a bike shop owner in Sydney’s southern suburbs. Phill would often work there after school, encouraging mirthful tricks from his mates who’d ring up radio stations requesting Roy Orbison’s ‘Working for the Man’ for their absent pal. Nevertheless, Phill appreciated the work ethic his father imparted.

  It was hard not to get caught up in the cycling game growing up in the Bates household, which became a stomping ground for young, talented riders across the years. They became the cycling ‘family’ that would surround Phill Bates for life, most of whom remain indebted to Phill for his contributions to the sport across five decades.

  One particularly notable visitor to the Bates home was dual Olympic cycling champion Russell Mockridge, who once presented Phill and his equally sports-mad brother Frank with an autographed book. Frank also remembered Mockridge for his breakfast diet of two eggs — raw — every day.

  ‘Cycling was the one sport I always had the passion for,’ says Phill.

  That passion occasionally stretched to recklessness. ‘When he started riding, he had no fear and he caused some bad accidents,’ says elder brother Frank.

  Phill agrees. ‘I created more falls than I was in myself.’

  At sixteen, Phill was training against a tandem bike at Hurstville Oval when at close quarters he fell, put his left arm through the tandem’s back wheel and was ‘dragged sixty metres’, knocking out picket fences along the way. ‘My arm was pretty well smashed up,’ remembers Phill. ‘I had five operations and was in plaster for twenty-five weeks.’

  Frank recalls Phill being in Emergency with another man who had a ‘pumpkin knife sticking out of his back’. Selflessly, Phill was more concerned about his roommate, so much so that when the attending surgeon asked Mr Pumpkin Knife, ‘When does it hurt?’ he replied, ‘Only when I’m laughing at that bloke next to me!’

  That ‘mangled’ arm still affects Phill today. When playing golf, Phill uses only the right arm, with the left a limp passenger during his swing. But he doesn’t let that dampe
n his enjoyment.

  Then there was Unanderra, near Wollongong, which housed a particularly dangerous track. Four years after the tandem bike incident, Phill was at Unanderra leading out in a scratch race before he came to grief. ‘My pedal hit the inside of the track and thirteen riders fell over the top of me. I had pedal marks through my back and shoulder, and broke both collarbones and a shoulder blade.’

  ‘He even had skin missing from under his armpits, down his groin and the side of his head — he was an absolute mess,’ muses Frank.

  But even that didn’t stop Phill from getting back on his bike. That fearlessness was quintessential Phill Bates.

  Always versatile, Phill became an executive member at his beloved St George Cycling Club at just fifteen. It was at St George that Phill discovered his penchant for discovering and nurturing talent. One of Australia’s finest-ever cyclists, Gary Sutton, went on to become long-time New South Wales Institute of Sport coach and then the women’s endurance coach at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), all of which may not have happened had he not been one of many young riders discovered by Phill all those years ago. Gary’s brother Shane also benefited from the Phill Bates touch. Shane has taken British cycling to unprecedented heights with his multiple Olympic gold medals. ‘Phill had an enormous impact on Shane,’ acknowledges Gary. ‘What makes Phill so special is that he does so much for others and never expects anything in return. He’s just an incredible person.’ This affectionate assessment pretty well sums up Phill’s incredible dedication to helping others.

  At twenty-three years of age, Phill decided to retire from competing. He says, ‘One of the reasons I stepped aside from racing is that all of a sudden I was racing against protégés that I’d been coaching and there was a bigger need for me to assist the administration side.’

  Phill threw all his energy into managing St George. ‘When he felt that things weren’t being done in an area, Phill would say, “Hang on, I’m going to take this on here because I can do a better job and take this to another level”,’ says Gary.

  Forty-six years later, Phill is still there. And of those years, he’s been the president for nearly twenty. ‘At one stage I held nearly every position.’

  And Phill didn’t just mentor riders on the track. Andrew Baxter, a talented rider under the Bates guidance was lured to employment at the Maritime Services Board (MSB) where Phill worked at the time.

  But working at the MSB while looking after St George wasn’t enough for Phill. He wanted to take his passion even further, and expand on earlier sorties in sports and event promotions. The formative years of Phill Bates Sports Promotions were operated ‘during my lunch hour’ out of the MSB, with Andrew as his right-hand man. As events loomed, Andrew remembers switchboard operators being tied up specifically for Phill, multi-tasking as ever. Forty years after meeting Phill, Andrew is still working alongside his mentor and good mate, as loyal to the cause as Phill is to him.

  Phill had cut his teeth in the promotional sphere back at the 1971 Australian Road Titles. He had lost a major drawcard with an injured Dick Paris, but decided to put his eggs in the Gary Sutton basket, tipping him to be the next Russell Mockridge. It worked a treat. Gary backed up the faith with an emphatic victory.

  Yet it wasn’t all smooth cycling. In promoting the 1976 Goulburn to Sydney race, Phill organised a press conference at the Orient Hotel in The Rocks in Sydney. Despite having assurances from many a media organisation, no one fronted. Undeterred, Phill coerced some of his mates at the MSB to masquerade as journalists: a sort of rent-a-crowd to fill out the room. He penned yarns for newspapers promoting the race and blasted other media organisations for not turning up after giving assurances they would. This was crucial to Phill’s media education, which he maximised for the much-heralded Commonwealth Bank Cycle Classic; one had to be aggressive in order to win valuable coverage of events. This also led to Phill packaging his own highlights for TV networks — spoonfeeding them, which has since become de rigueur in the media game.

  Gary Sutton had retired by the time the first edition of the Classic came to being in 1982, after the Brisbane Commonwealth Games. He says, ‘Phil had the dream, whether it was from Brisbane to Sydney or Brisbane to Melbourne. Everyone said he was crazy.’

  Phill says, ‘What the Cycle Classic did was give a profile to the sport that we never had before. My whole thing was bringing [together] some great riders. There was an incredible number of world champions that graced the Classic. But, more importantly, there was something like four hundred and ninety Olympians, so every race was a huge event.’

  With his passion and drive (Andrew Baxter calls it ‘coercion’), Phill could drag anybody along for the ride. For the Classic, lots of volunteers were needed. Friends, family and devotees were summoned. At its peak, the Classic utilised 380 volunteers. That’s a lot of coercion.

  Cycling-besotted brothers Kevin and Ian Edwards were integral supporters of the Classic. Kevin is in of awe Bates’ achievements: ‘He’s an unbelievable man, with so much faith in himself.’ Kevin says he’s ‘never seen him fail, though he did “get out of jail free” many a time’.

  Former New South Wales Sports Minister Kevin Greene has known Phill for twenty years, and he’s another infected by Bates’ passion. ‘He has the ability to draw people into support for all the right reasons. He succeeds due to the generosity of spirit that he has. He’s upfront, genuine, and his integrity is impeccable.’

  That integrity allowed Phill to court sponsors, unprecedented in Australian cycling. Frank quantifies the allure of sponsorship: ‘[All the riders] around him respected him and what the goals were. They respected the sponsorship support. No one had ever seen that. Everyone wanted to make sure he succeeded so they rose to the pressure that Phill created.’

  Phill’s persuasiveness was the hook. Yet for one tour, he came up short. In desperation, he phoned businessman John Singleton, saying he had a major sponsor, sponsors for all the stages, and Holden providing cars, but he only had sponsorship for twelve of the fourteen teams. Would Singo have some advice? Singleton responded, ‘You’re ringing me for advice? Next time I’m ringing you!’

  Phill Bates Sports Promotions was often called ‘Last Minute Promotions’, born of Phill’s quest for perfection. ‘He likes to try and get things exactly right,’ says Frank.

  Andrew remembers regular ‘brainstorming’ sessions at the pub on race eve. Phill would produce a coaster and draw a map of the next day’s stage, making adjustments to the finish line to maximise promotion, even if it was only by twenty metres. Andrew would then have to deliver the ‘map’ to not-so-amused council officials. ‘We were at the coalface getting bullets shot at us by the council,’ Andrew laughingly reflects.

  At its peak in 1988, the Bicentennial year, the Classic commanded a huge following. Phill had the Australian media in his grip, delivering multiple hours showcasing the race and the nation to 143 countries.

  However, by 1998, the spectre of drugs in cycling began to have an impact, when Phill was trying to promote the event on Bastille Day against the backdrop of the Festina scandal.

  A decade and a half later, Phill was ashen-faced when appearing on ABC TV, confronting the truth that seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong was a drugs cheat. ‘I was most probably totally naïve.’

  Idealistically, Phill ‘didn’t want the dream to be shattered’. He wasn’t alone. The unfortunate consequence was that due to the cloud over cycling created by false icons like Armstrong, the sport’s true assets, people of the Phill Bates ilk, were tarred by perceptions of corruption. Phill believes that the drug testers failed in their mission by constantly being behind the science of the cheats.

  Phill also believes every rider who competed in Australia’s Classics was clean, even though some, like Jan Ullrich, later fell foul. ‘He was world champion when he came here as a nineteen-year-old. He certainly would have done [the Classic] clean, there’s no risk about that.’

  The Classic ended in the
shadow of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. ‘It put a big hole in things when it came to an end,’ laments Gary. Though Phill, after nineteen years, was ‘sort of relieved’.

  Inspired by the race, multiple world champion Stephen Wooldridge competed in the Classic in 1999, and describes it as a ‘phenomenal event’. A current board member of Cycling Australia, Stephen speaks in reverential terms about Phill and his ‘fantastic ability to remain cool under pressure. His knowledge of cycling is second to none.’ These qualities led Phill to positions of influence within the sport’s ruling body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). He was on the track committee from 1993 to 2001, and is still on the arbitration committee.

  ‘Phill was the driving force with the UCI when it started the World Cups, which were selection events for the World Championships. Now the World Cups are part of the Olympic selection criteria,’ says Gary.

  Phill also pushed for more cycling track events at the Olympics, and fumes over the preferential treatment given to swimming, which is able to add events at will without losing any, while cycling has had to shed some races.

  Stephen Wooldridge is indebted to Phill for his political nous: ‘His relationships with people are phenomenal.’ At the Athens Olympics in 2004, Stephen, at the peak of his game, rode in qualifying to put Australia into the gold medal ride for the 4000 metres team pursuit. Alas, along with another rider, Peter Dawson, he was left out of the combination for the final. Cycling was treated differently by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from a sport like swimming, where qualifying athletes who didn’t compete in the final were still awarded medals for their contribution. So when the Australian team ended up winning gold, Stephen and Peter were not eligible for medals.

  Questioned at the time, Phill was aghast. ‘The decision not to give medals to any team member who progressed the team to the finals is disgraceful. It does not happen in any other sport.’