High School Cricket Coach Retires

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28888, 7 May 1959, Page 12

High School Cricket Coach Retires

a finer tradition for cricket than the Christchurch Boys’ High School; for 70 years it has produced a succession of Canterbury and New Zealand players. Since 1932, except for the war years, the coach of the school’s first eleven has been Mr W. Moffat. When reminded of the school’s outstanding cricket record, Mr Moffat refers to the splendid grounds available for the boys, the excellence of the pitches produced at the school, the money spent freely on providing firstclass equipment, and he mentions, particularly, the enthusiasm of the coaches who have looked after the junior teams. But much of the credit belongs to a first eleven coach with the interests of cricket very close to his heart. But Mr Moffat is insistent in his regard for the school coaches- The strength of the school’s cricket, he says, is in the masters who coach junior teams. “The cream keeps rising to the top,” he says. Representatives Nine New Zealand representatives, and 28 who have played inter-provincial cricket, have come from the school’s first elevens from 1932 onwards. Mr Moffat was born in Edinburgh, a city some would regard as unlikely to produce cricketers. But he was a member of the first eleven and first fifteen when he was at the Christchurch Boys’ High School, and he played senior cricket and Rugby in Christchurch, with some appearances for Canterbury cricket teams in minor matches. He was a successful leg-break bowler, which may account for the number of very competent spinners the school has turned out in recent times—the late Reg Cook, Bill Bell, Bruce Bolton, Frank Rapley, David Gallop, Albert Duckmanton, Don Stark, Mac Anderson among them. School Games In school cricket, inter-school matches are of paramount importance, and it is significant that since Mr Moffat’s first year as coach, in 1932, the school’s record has been outstanding. Of the 28 matches against Waitaki Boys’ High School in that period, only one has been lost, and 10 have been won; against Christ’s College, there have been nine wins to four losses, also in 28 games. But of the scores of inter-school games Mr Moffat recalls with a photographic memory for players and their deeds, perhaps the most exciting, he feels,, were the last two games against Christ’s College. The 1958 match had a very thrilling finish, and this year School, in the fourth innings, had nine wickets down, with four runs needed for victory, when time was called. Enthusiasm The youngsters today are still as keen on their cricket as their fathers were. Mr Moffat says. The school had a great cricket tradition when he went there as a boy, he says, and that has been maintained; interest in the game is intense, with 20 or more teams being fiielded in each of the last six years. The school has produced a succession of good wicketkeepers, but in the last 30 years no-one from the first eleven has kept wicket for New Zealand, which is unusual for a school which has been represented in all but one of New Zealand’s 50-odd test matches. But Mr Moffat thinks that if this year’s Brabin tournament captain, Don Hill,

keeps on with his wicket-keeping, he could become a wicket-keeper batsman for the New Zealand team.

In future, the school’s first eleven will be coached by Mr C. Colbert, a former New Zealand Services player and Mr P. B. Vincent will take over the second eleven, until now coached by Mr F. W. Wicks. Mr Wicks has also spent nearly 30 years coaching cricket at the school, and Mr Moffat pays tribute to his co-opera-tion and assistance. Mr Moffat, after the war, introduced the system by which every cricketer in the school has a net in which to practice, a tremendous advance in coaching. He also insisted that no member of the first eleven, even those going in at 10 and 11, should regard himself as a rabbit. So his insistence on every member of the team trying hard to improve his batting has saved the situation many a time, and has brought from obscurity players who have developed into good openers. Another tenet in his cricketing creed was quick, sure running between the wickets. But in all his coaching, Mr Moffat relied on fundamental principles; they have served the school’s cricket well. And so has he.