Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

one match for the state in 1950; but he had been Australia’s hockey captain at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. Selection in the state junior hockey team at the age of fourteen in 1966 finally forced Ric to drop football from his winter calendar. By this time his hockey was also developing at Christ Church Grammar School. He’d wanted to go with many of his primary school friends to a state school, Hollywood Senior High. But he soon saw the sporting advantages of his father’s decision to send him to one of Perth’s seven elite private schools that formed the Public Schools Association [PSA]. Promoted at an early age by well-known hockey coach, Ray House, he was a member of the first eleven that won the PSA championship in both 1967 and 1968. When Christ Church surrendered the trophy to Aquinas College in 1969, his opposing captain was David Bell, who later became a team-mate in state and Australian teams. In the same year Ric’s selection as captain of the state under-19 cricket team showed that his cricket development had proceeded at much the same pace as his hockey, again both inside school and outside. * * * * * Ric was picked for Christ Church cricket teams from the time he started at the school and in the first eleven for the last few seasons. In his best year he averaged over 100, making two centuries in the Darlot Cup. Although this competition had been providing strong competition among Perth’s private schools since 1901 – four years before the formation of the PSA – by 1967 the requirement to play for the school had become a somewhat unwelcome interruption to a burgeoning career in grade cricket with the strong West Perth club. His father was a club selector, its home base was the WACA ground with its excellent facilities and world-famous fast, true wickets. As well as being an important foundation for his cricket development, the West Perth club gave Ric his first contacts with the Australian Labor Party [ALP]. 9 Bob McMullan, later state secretary of the party from 1975 to 1981 – a crucial period in the evolution of Charlesworth’s political 16 1952-1969 9 Although Australia generally uses English spellings, the political party has been ‘Labor’ since the early twentieth century – possibly as a result of American influences at that time – distinguishing it from the non-parliamentary ‘labour’ movement.