Scotch College

Scotch forfeits match to Melbourne Grammar

The following is an extract from a notebook, circa 1904, handwritten by Donald Morrison (1886):

‘F. W. Turner entered Scotch College on 16th June 1890, and had a large share in carrying off the football premiership of that year. His cricketing abilities, however, were very lightly estimated, but a modest stone-walling innings in a practice match early in 1891 resulted in his being selected to play against Melbourne Grammar School in March. He was not very successful, as, going in last, he had the misfortune to be disposed of for a single run.

‘Before lunch on the morning of the match persistent rumours were afloat to the effect that a Wesley College master had in his possession a copy of Turner’s certificate of birth, which clearly showed that he was over the age limit prescribed by the P.S.A. [Public Schools’ Association] regulations. Turner on being questioned in the matter re-assured his team by stating positively that he was not over age, and as the entry in the Scotch College register showed him to have been born on 30th July 1871, no further anxiety was felt in this matter.

‘At the close of the game, however, the Grammar School captain claimed the match on the ground that Turner was over age, and that such was the case proved unfortunately to be only too true. Under the circumstances, nothing could be done to rebut the claim, and the matter seemed to have ended in the forfeiture by Scotch College of a match which in the play they had won easily by [eight] wickets.

‘Meanwhile, however, a correspondence had commenced in the columns of the Australasian, that journal having taken the view that Scotch College had been clearly misled in the matter of Turner’s inclusion, and that it was absurd to suppose that they would wittingly have run the risk of forfeiting the match by selecting a man who was such an indifferent player that he was put in last on the batting list and was not even called upon to bowl. The fact that the Grammar School authorities admitted having been warned by the Wesley College master prior to commencing play and had then intentionally postponed their protest till the conclusion of the match was also adversely commented upon …

‘The end of the whole business was that the C.E.G.S. [Church of England Grammar School] Committee re-considered the matter, and decided that the only way out of the difficulty was to play the match over again … The result was an easy victory for the Scotch College by an innings and one run. Exception was taken in some quarters to the sportsmanlike action of C.E.G.S., the result being an addition to the P.S.A. Regulations of a new rule preventing any similar concession to a school in the future.’

The school’s mistake lay in not realising that the age limit applied not to the date of the match but to the 1 January preceding it. When the dispute ‘was amicably ended by the simple expedient of playing the match over again … no-one … was half so delighted as Turner, who … would never have forgiven himself if by his inadvertence his side had lost a match which, in the merits of the play, they had so fairly won.’

Longest continuous sporting contests

An Old Boy asks: Is there any continuing sporting contest in Australia which began before the first Scotch v Geelong Grammar cricket match in February 1858? Is the APS Head of the River (which began in 1868) the oldest continuing rowing contest in Australia?  Are there other contests in the English-speaking world (other than Oxford v Cambridge which began in 1829) which are older?