The Pink Report

Heart and Soul

Being a journalist, it’s hard to keep me away from a free lunch, which is what I’m doing in Whangarei. Lou, the professional caterer at Cobham Oval, does the best cricket lunches in the country. There’s even ice cream for dessert, just like they used to have last century at Seddon Park. I can see exactly why the guys love playing here.

Even better, the sun’s out and the boys will actually be playing when they meet the Volts in the sixth round of the national one-day comp this Thursday. The last time the Yahoo!Xtra Northern Knights got a game in, they were top of the points table. After two consecutive washouts (boo!), they’ve been washed down to fourth, through no fault of their own - though still nicely placed on 12 points, along with the Aces and Wizards.

The Volts are the outright leaders at present on 14, so it’s ideal that they’re the next opponents as the sorting out of home semi-finals draws closer. Meanwhile, the Stags and Firebirds are the ones with all the catching up to do, dragging their heels on six points.

But enough of this madness. One of the best things about being in the northernmost of northern districts, apart from the tip top lunches, is the people. They’re treasures and one who typifies the northern community spirit and what cricket is all about up here is Russell Smith.

Chances are if you’ve had anything to do with cricket in Whangarei or across the hill in Dargaville, you know Russell. A longtime maths, English and Latin teacher at Whangarei Boys’ High, when he’s not part-time teaching these days he’s farming, but his first love is and always has been cricket.

Russell was the first XI coach at WBHS, too, in former years and wife Viv figured out early in their marriage that the best way to catch a word with her 100 per cent cricket nut husband was to pop down to the school while he was rolling the pitch (yes that’s right, a real pitch, despite all the preparation time it consumed. He felt there was nothing like it to develop a youngster’s full range of skills).

He even played club cricket the morning of their wedding day, and in 1969 when Neil Armstrong and his astronaut mates landed on the moon, Russell was relieved the broadcast of the big moment coincided with a break in the radio commentary of New Zealand’s test tour of England. He inherited his passion for cricket from his father, who played for Wanganui as a quick in the depression era, and has passed it on to son Ben and daughter Emma, getting them involved in Whangarei’s stirling City club.

When he was looking after things as the coach and cricket director at Whangarei Boys’ High, the first XI beat all the flashy city teams to take out the national Gillette Cup. That was 1994 and one of the senior boys that year was Joey Yovich.

“People talk about players being legends of the game, but people like Russell are the real legends,” says Joey.

“There was a core of us that came through that Boys’ High era with success and a lot of it was down to him. He’s one of those classic quiet achievers, the behind-the-scenes people on whom so much depends, but who never takes the glory. Very methodical in his organisation - so organised, from running junior tournaments virtually by himself with hundreds of kids running round and having every detail and everything that was needed all absolutely under control, right down to having extra stumps just in case they were needed. And then he’d have all the stats done for a team at any level, or written up on the board for us at school the next day, straight after the weekend.

“He played for us in the Boys’ High team, too, as the senior player, and he would get in guys like Karl Treiber and Murray Child to come and play for us, which was a great initiation for us into what it was all about. Everyone wanted to come and train on our pitch, because he put so much care into it - which is why it was one of the best surfaces around. So much of what was happening in cricket anywhere in Whangarei was connected to Russell and all the effort and time that he willingly gave.”

Before Whangarei Boys’ High, Russell coached the first XI of Otago's Kaikourai Valley High School, which he took from fifth grade to best school team in Otago, and Dargaville High School, where he shaped a very promising young allrounder named Dion Nash. Years later, when Dion was a BLACKCAP, Russell was still the first person Dion turned to for advice if he was going through a tough patch in international cricket.

Russell has been a junior cricket administrator, organiser, committee member, tournament manager, team manager, selector and coach since 1978. He even did the manual scoreboard at Cobham until last year, which is a long day in the heat, up on ladders. Talk about keen. In fact, there’s probably another hundred volunteer job descriptions we could roll in here, and that’s in addition to contributing to cricket as a player as a part of senior club cricket in Dunedin and Northland.  

In 2009 the International Cricket Council marked its first century of existence by creating ICC Centenary Medals, recognising 50 outstanding people nominated from throughout the game in New Zealand who have invaluably supported the game as long-serving volunteers. Russell, unsurprisingly, was one of the awardees and he will receive his medal in a special presentation by Denis Currie, chairman of New Zealand Cricket, on February 18th right here at Cobham Oval.

That date is day two of the Knights’ Plunket Shield home match against the Stags - so if you’re one of the thousands of cricket aficionados to have been touched by Russell’s enthusiasm through the years, get along and pay one back. Or, as I suspect Russell would have it, pay it forward. He says his biggest satisfaction still comes from meeting up with old Kaikorai Valley, Dargaville or WBHS players and finding that so many of them are still playing the game in their late 20s, 30s and 40s.

But they, and cricket itself, would be nowhere without the phalanx of first XI coaches like Russell - the super-dedicated grass-roots teachers of the game. Well played, mate.