Test cricket is described as a gentleman’s game, but this is a lie. Benevolent outbursts break out here and there, but it’s still a game created by villains, popularized by villains, and sustained by the support of villains. This story is one of the greatest examples, just after the third Test ever was played. It was Melbourne 1879 when Fred Spofforth lived up to his nickname “The Demon”, beating England 6 for 48 in the first innings and 7 for 62 in the second, scoring the first Test hat-trick along the way. In a timeless match, Australia won in three days.
The tourists, who were fictional amateurs, were there to earn money from the receipts at as many games as possible. In true English Everyman style, they were led by a captain named Lord Harris. After Melbourne they went to Sydney to play New South Wales twice. The state team also had Spofforth and won the first game easily, so before the second match the gamblers took them off the map. The old Association Ground, which would later become the SCG, could hold 10,000 people.
Here we turn to one of the referees. George Coulthard had an extraordinarily young life: by the age of 25 he had filled out a bingo card that included state cricketer, Test umpire, Test cricketer, rugby sensation, boxer against world champion Jem Mace and the most important Australian rules identity of the day. He took Carlton to a premiership, led the goals three years in a row before the Coleman Medal existed, dominated for Victoria in state matches, became a footy referee while pioneering what would become the traditional white uniform, and was suspended for an entire season for brawling. In his spare time he was a crime fighter, which led to him being made an honorary detective by the Victoria Police, and he donated a koala to Melbourne Zoo. George was a busy man.
At one point he and Carlton went to Sydney to play the Waratahs, a rugby club, so the teams each played once under their own rules. Each team won its own code, but George was so good at rugby that the Waratahs hired him briefly, and he turned out to be better than all their own players. He was later tasked to come back to Sydney and spread the gospel of Australian Rules, but not long after his stay, history changed – thanks to a shark.
The first thing you notice is that his friends have taken a fishing trip to Shark Island: the clue was in the name, George. The second is that he wore a tail coat. During the day. While fishing. The tails were probably so long that they dangled in the water and were pulled in by the shark.
If you think the media can’t be trusted these days, 19th century newspapers were something else. Any fool with an ax to grind or a shilling to earn could pick up a printing press and produce a sheet. So this is almost certainly nonsense, but according to reports, George was dragged several meters underwater, fought the shark with a spin kick to the head, then swam back up and somersaulted into the boat to safety. That’s the boss. George didn’t feel like sticking around and went back to Melbourne, and Sydney entrenched itself as a rugby town. The shark must have belonged to Cronulla.
In major cricket at that time, each team provided one umpire. A noted sportsman, George was recommended for the job to Lord Harris in 1878 when the English arrived in Melbourne. Being 22 years old at the time, he became and remains the youngest Test umpire. Satisfied with his first performance, England invited him to tour as their man. So when he arrived in Sydney, the locals became suspicious. First of all, George was a professional, not a crusty old amateur. Secondly, he was Victorian, and the rivalry between the colonies was intense. The New South Welshmen hated the Victorians much more than the English.
So when George turned down an appeal for a catch against Lord Harris in the first innings, the spectators were unhappy. The English made 267 and bowled out New South Wales for 177, and the score was only so high because the Australian superstar of the day, Billy Murdoch, carried his bat for 82. Wisden called it one of the great innings of its time. Under the circumstances, 90 was a big deficit, and the rules of the day allowed Lord Harris to force the successor. The fate of the match, and the fate of many bets, rested on Billy Murdoch. And this is when things got wild.
With New South Wales on 19 and Murdoch on 10 he had a chance of a quick run. The return came in and wicketkeeper Alexander Webbe took the bails off. It was, as everyone admits, a close call. Umpire Coulthard pulled the trigger on his square leg.
Except it looked more like a detonator. All hell broke loose. In modern parlance a larrikin is a nice, cheerful guy, but in newspaper parlance of the time it meant a rough gambler. The larrikins had a lot of money for this game. The English players did the same, as it turned out: on commercial tours it was common to bet on your own team. So with a professional sportsman from Coulthard present, the larrikins smoked a solution. As Murdoch walked away, the crowd climbed to the fence to insult the English and urge him to stay. His captain, Dave Gregory, was cheering them on from the stands. Murdoch left, but Gregory didn’t send in another batter. Instead he came down to meet Lord Harris at the gate.
For the match to go ahead, Gregory said, Coulthard must be replaced. Harris said no. So the crowd invaded. A few thousand people stormed the field, including – listen to this – a teenage Banjo Paterson, just before his 15th birthday. He never wrote a poem about that.
As the crowd shot at George, Harris tried to protect his referee but was hit with a stick. His players picked up the stumps from the ground to defend themselves, while all-rounder Monkey Hornby tackled the man who had punched Harris to make a citizen’s arrest. Others in the crowd tried to tackle Hornby. You have to love this man: his name was Monkey, he was an amateur boxer, his shirt was taken off during the fight, and he still dragged his man to the pavilion and tied him up in the committee room. He single-handedly laid the foundation for cricket’s first chapter of slash fiction.
At this point another character got involved. Gregory continued to insist that Coulthard be replaced. Harris continued to refuse. Negotiations and diplomacy were necessary. It was time for the input of the other referee, that of New South Wales, who we have not mentioned at all. Who should that be?
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Edmund, damn Barton. Yes, that one. Then he was a 30-year-old lawyer from Sydney, but 22 years later he was Australia’s first Prime Minister. In fact, he is one of the reasons the job even came into existence in 1901, because he initiated the federation of the colonies as one country. He helped draft the national constitution and became a Supreme Court judge. Was that urge to unite, to use reason and shared humanity to transcend party-political colonial boundaries, that was fueled that day on the cricket field?
Barton told the captains that the decision had been fair and that he supported his colleague. He appealed to reason and good behavior. Finally, when Barton helped cool tempers, Gregory agreed to continue. The crowd, however, did not. Initially cheering the rising New South Wales batters, they promptly re-entered the field when they realized Coulthard was still umpiring. After a second break and a second clearing of the ground, a third attempt to play suffered the same fate. Lord Harris spent the entire afternoon at the gate fearing he would be forfeited, but play never resumed that Saturday.
The punters did not help New South Wales or their hopes of a comeback. It rained all day on Sunday, so the field was impossible on Monday. The home team lost 9 for 30 and lost by an innings. No one came and the sting was already out of the match, but not yet out of the story. Given what it meant for relations with the British establishment, this was a scandal. Want to know what else happened that weekend that was pushed off the front page by the cricket? The Kelly Gang raid on Jerilderie.
Harris leaked a scathing letter to the press, and the New South Wales Cricket Association fired back. Another newspaper quoted an English player as saying that Coulthard had bet on the match, after which that player and Coulthard jointly signed an angry response from their hotel. “I did not simply place a bet worth a single penny during the match, and I, on behalf of Mr. Emmett and myself, deny the allegation most unreservedly…”
The English refused to remain in Sydney for what would have been the fourth Test, and instead headed back to Melbourne to play Victoria. The bad blood continued during Australia’s visit to England in 1880, with Murdoch leading that side, until belatedly other English influences, including WG Grace, prevailed over Harris to make peace. Having been denied a test at Lord’s, Harris led one at The Oval. Coulthard played his only Test during England’s next visit to Australia in early 1882: seemingly going for good guy vibes, he batted No. 11 and did not bowl. A month later he was the focus of another mob invasion, this one after the football fight in which he was banned.
Fears over the Sydney riot began to fade – although after the birth of the Ashes in late 1882, Ivo Bligh led a team to Australia and promptly chose George Coulthard as referee. Once again, things didn’t work out so well for George. While leaving Sydney for a match in Newcastle, he fell ill with tuberculosis. He lasted less than a year and was dead at the age of 27. Perhaps he already had the infection rather than contracting it on board, but there is a chance that the England referee might have killed him after he survived that murderous crowd.
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