Capable manager of cricket’s affairs

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 28

Capable manager of cricket’s affairs

By

K. T. BRITTENDEN

There have been some revolutionary changes in cricket in the last few years, but nothing today is likely to startle Bob Knowles, secretary of the New Zealand Cricket Council for the last 21 years — a tenure of office which' makes him the senior official among the international cricket con-

trolling ’’odies. His nearest rival in years of service, Alan Barnes of the Australian Board of Control, began two years after Mr Knowles assumed office, and Mr Barnes will soon retire.

In 1959, when Bob Knowles began his secretarial duties, the council’s turnover for . the year was something like 850,000. Now it is $500,000. The big changes, he says, have been in player attitude and in sponsorship, and what was an amateur part-time job has been a full-time undertaking. ' But he loves it, as he has loved cricket for.- half a century. Bob Knowles started his cricket at ■his birthplace, Timaru, largely because two doors down the street lived Jack Marriott,, a noted, cricket administrator, now of Central Districts. Bob used to scbre, .as a primary schoolboy, for Marriott’s team. ■:■■'

".Then at Timaru Boys’ High School •he was coached by Ramsay Wilson, a fine cricketer, and a noted member of the school staff. This fired young Knowles’s, enthusiasm further, and the flames have not lessened in the years between. Boh Knowles has put together a splendid record of service '(p cricket.

There is his long association with the N.Z.C.C. which has twice taken him to England as a delegate to the International Cricket Conference and to India, recently, to attend India’s fiftieth anniversary of test cricket with a match against- England.

In the 19505, he was on the Canterbury Cricket

Association for three years and came back as vice-president, becoming president in a term which included the celebration of Canterbury cricket’s centenary. In the 19505, he had 10-years on the Haglev Park Grounds Committee, and spen f 15 years on the committee of the St Albans Cricket Club, with a term as club captain. He played a few games of senior cricket, but was found more often in the second grade, with a best performance of 194 at Hagley Oval — caught on the boundary, trying to hit another six. Knowles was an aggressive batsman, and bowled leg-breaks. He came to Christchurch in 1937, and his first bowling victim was a notable one — Walter Hadlee. He was selected for a Brabin team to play Otago,. but the match was abandoned. Bob Knowles has had four years with the Victory Park Board, and is its present chairman. But sport, although supported with fervour, has not been all of his life. He had 25 vears as secretary of the New Zealand Commercial Travellers’ and .Warehousemen’s Association, and included in 16 years on the New Zealand board of the Manchester Unity Lodge were two '-years' as

New Zealand G'and Master. He served a year in the Pacific and two years in Italy with the Fifth Field Regiment during the Second World War. Among all this has been competitive squash, eight years, On the Cashmere High School board, with the chairman’s position for a term, and golf. He was junior champion of the Timaru Golf Club at 17, and now plays at the Templeton Country Club. Bob Knowles has given cricket signal service, and if he has often been under considerable pressure, his ;oken, modest manner has rot been lost. The search for sponsorship and spectators engages the attention in cricket, and other sports, these days. Yet the game would be lost but for the efforts of those behind the .scenes. There can have been few mo're loyal or conscientious servants ; than Bob Knowles. ’ •