Oh, What a night it was - Lord's Taverners Victoria "Legends Night"

[Lord's Taverners Australia - VIC]

Another Lord's Taverners Legends night has come and gone - the 10th since the inception of this wonderful event - attended by 100 members and guests at Royal South Yarra Tennis Club. Our president, Paul Sheahan, inducting the late, great Bill Ponsford, arguably the second greatest Australian batsman of all time, spoke eloquently about "Ponnie's" extraordinary feats and presented a framed certificate to his son, Geoff, on behalf of his father. Paul told an enthralled audience that Geoff accompanied Bill to the Centenary Test in England where he quickly realised the esteem in which the cricket world held his father. Former Victorian and Test spinner Ray Bright was inducted along with the second oldest living Australian Test player, wicketkeeper Len Maddocks, and former State and Test allrounder Tony Dodemaide. In the light of the TV series Howzat, Bright recalled that he had been signed by Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket rebels three weeks before the Australians left for the 1977 Ashes tour. Len Maddocks was manager of that ill-fated, fractured team and had a few pithy words to say about it all after his induction. He told MC "Smokey" Dawson that the TV depiction was "a disgusting exhibition of television" and that he had never watched "so much crap in my life". In all, the night was voted a great success and the funds raised will assist greatly in helping all those organisations that need our support.