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Sid Barnes
- Thread starter neville cardus
- Start date
archie mac
International Coach
Great stuff, the man who had a stamp made of his sig. so he would not have to sign autograph books
neville cardus
International Debutant
Bradman, one feels, would have done well to employ that ingenious scheme. I understand that Barnes devised it in Perth prior to the '48 tour, contracting two youths with ginger beer, so that, when the ship set sail, he had 5,000 neatly-"signed" slips of paper all ready for manager Keith Johnson.
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neville cardus
International Debutant
He also once succeeded in persuading a county captain to use a spiked roller.
jammay123
State 12th Man
neville cardus
International Debutant
Barnes wasn't the only one conning the autograph imps. Later on the same tour, Ernie Toshack, under suspicion of a similar crime, was hauled in to face Keith Johnson's unimpressed music: "Ernie, I take it that you are signing those autograph slips?"
"Oh, yes."
"Well, then, Ernie, how is it so that you are spelling your name differently? I notice that you have no 'C' in it these days."
"Oh, yes."
"Well, then, Ernie, how is it so that you are spelling your name differently? I notice that you have no 'C' in it these days."
neville cardus
International Debutant
It would appear that Barnes's jocular antics ultimately served him badly. Peter English, in a review of Haigh and Frith's Inside Story, writes:
"The treatment by another unyielding board of Sid Barnes, the wonderful batsman, was less violent but equally severe. His selection for the 1951-52 series against West Indies was rejected by the board on "grounds other than cricket ability", a regulation not used since the Gang of Six were shackled in 1912.
"Barnes was also a first-class agitator who upset the board by lampooning them in his newspaper columns and home movies, and there were complaints about him taking pictures of the royal family, "abducting" Ernie Toshack to play tennis and selling luxury goods to the English on the '48 tour. There is a wonderful picture of Barnes in 1952, the summer after his selection rejection, fulfilling his 12th-man duties for New South Wales dressed as a butler at a posh picnic, adding to the administrative angst. The events surrounding the affair, which included a court case for defamation, are hilarious for the modern observer, but were sad for Barnes, whose Test career was over."
"The treatment by another unyielding board of Sid Barnes, the wonderful batsman, was less violent but equally severe. His selection for the 1951-52 series against West Indies was rejected by the board on "grounds other than cricket ability", a regulation not used since the Gang of Six were shackled in 1912.
"Barnes was also a first-class agitator who upset the board by lampooning them in his newspaper columns and home movies, and there were complaints about him taking pictures of the royal family, "abducting" Ernie Toshack to play tennis and selling luxury goods to the English on the '48 tour. There is a wonderful picture of Barnes in 1952, the summer after his selection rejection, fulfilling his 12th-man duties for New South Wales dressed as a butler at a posh picnic, adding to the administrative angst. The events surrounding the affair, which included a court case for defamation, are hilarious for the modern observer, but were sad for Barnes, whose Test career was over."
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
That's the thing - people loved the way Barnes went about things and his larrikin streak, but those kind of things have never washed with the ABC/ACB/Cricket Australia - particularly not in the conservative '40s and '50s. In the end, he hurt himself more than anyone else - and cricket fans worldwide were denied the opportunity to see such a wonderfully gifted batsman play more than 13 Tests. When you hear or read the accounts of those men who played with and against him for those few years after the second World War, he was clearly a batsman of absolutely the highest class. What might he have achieved?
neville cardus
International Debutant
As far as I'm concerned, the order of merit for talented Australian batsmen of that epoch looked something like this:
Bradman
Jackson
Barnes
Bradman
Jackson
Barnes
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
The video is gone from You tube.
What did it have and can one see it elsewhere ?
archie mac
International Coach
Sorry SJS it has taken me a few days to remember (and I am still not sure
), but I think it is the one when SB thinks he has hit the winning run and grabs the stumps and runs off the filed, but then the umpires call him back and when the winning run is hit he does not get a stump and throws his bat on the ground