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Season 2024/25 for our 50s and 55s - So Much to Cover!

Nick Garling
Apr 22
8 min read

The 2024-25 summer was extremely busy for Port Jackson veterans Cricket. We had a total of 51 new PJ Reps and many returning faces. This is what we’re aiming for. A great evolution and access for guys of a certain age to keep playing the game they love, and in beautiful surrounding. And the Men’s Shed, which we should never lose sight of.

Port Jackson 55s continue their winning ways

Port Jackson Vets three main hit outs in the Over 50’s and 55’s space.

The Inaugural Port Jackson Vets T25 Gala Day – Australia Day 2025

The first event we’ve actually been planning since before covid and it’s been so elusive to pull off – but finally we put together our T25 Gala Day on the Australia Day weekend. The idea is to attract new players and market the ethos of the Club to ANY CRICKETERS who are 49-59 and want to play some rep cricket outside of their own regular Club space. And attract new guys we did. A few of the older PJ stragglers were there in force too (yours truly included) ... The T25 Gala Day was hosted this season by the lovely fellows out at Nepean who play in Classics and all over the place. A few of the Nepean guys really deserve a medal for offering such a great welcome to us out at Emu Plains. Sincere and heartfelt thanks go to Ange Barbaro for everything he did on that day and his also his eager team of helpers. The T25 Gala Day concept was an idea between Jeremy Berenger several seasons back which saw the first ever 40s and 50s matches, side-by-side against the Central Coast, and has been touted at different places for many years. The day was a sensational success despite the 40 degree temps out at Emu Plains. We picked four (4) teams which we tried to ability balance, and we played A v B and B v C and then Winner v Winner and Loser v Loser on cricket fields next to each other. The day was a runaway success. A lovely way to spend the Australia Day weekend. Some of the new fellows performed extremely well and from that found themselves in later tournaments playing in our Div 1 teams.

Some guys just enjoyed the camaraderie. So, we played at Dukes Oval and across the road at Darcy Smith Oval. Not even some vandalism of the pitches a few days out affected the day. In fact, the strip at Darcy Smith is an absolute belter. No excuses there for batsman... The two games were running concurrently, and the overall winner of that day was The Adrian Schwager XI skippered by the great Moz Ford who is fast getting a reputation as a winning skipper – in fact he’s undefeated as skip! (fitting really). There was some excellent performances, which will be listed in the next mini-report and some pics, but the most encouraging thing on that day is that we had a total of 19 new Port Jackson Vets cricketers, who have never until the Gala Day laced a boot for Port Jackson. So welcome to those lads who have joined the PJ’s fraternity (pleased expect an encrypted email soon with instructions on the secret PJs handshake!). It’s awesome to see new guys who love cricket, start to understand what the ‘Men’s Shed’ aspects and ethos are at Port Jackson - but also, it’s great to see how it’s bringing the Vets cricket community in greater Sydney together. Some of the mateships forged in Port Jackson and on our tours are lifelong and are really important relationships and connections in the scheme of guys’ lives. We all know what the Nepean hospitality is like too. Afterwards, we had a fantastic spread of nibbles, and a hearty BBQ put on by the Nepean boys. Don’t worry the Powerade and beer was flowing as well. The steak sambos and snag sandwiches were delightful and plentiful! It was incredibly hot that day I think got up to about 40 degrees, but it didn’t dull the spirit of the Gala Day. Due to the intense heat, we slightly shortened a couple of games but in the end the camaraderie and the fun had was immense. Don’t worry there was some very tense and competitive cricket played too. Dukes and Darcy Smith afforded us great facilities. The inaugural PJs Gala Day is a day we can be very proud. We will of course be repeating the Gala Day next year.

Results over all were:

PJ ‘Schwager’ (Cup winners)

PJ Reaney (Cup runners-up)

PJ ‘Barbaro’ (3rd)

PJ ‘Garling’ (last!)

NSW State 55’s Championships in Tamworth – Feb 2025

This season the State 55’s was contested by eight regional teams, all fighting it out for the State 55’s crown. Some of the regions combined for instance we might have a combined Central West and Riverina and a combined Central North and New England. There were some very strong sides there the Hunter combined with Newcastle as well. Port Jackson had two teams – a Red XII with Michael Hall at the helm, and a Blue XII steered by Tom Reaney. The 8 sides were ranked from last year at Wagga. Unfortunately that meant because of Hally’s shenanigans in “A Place of Crows” that we had to play ourselves off the back markers like Gout Gout! The games were all played at the beautiful and well located Riverside Ovals in Tamworth. The weather was beautiful the facilities were absolutely first rate, and Greg Kellett and Steve Wilson from Tamworth along with some key other helpers put on a sensational 3 days of tournament cricket. Those boys need to be thanked for successfully hosting such a fantastic tournament. The great thing about that 55’s tournament was that all the games were played on four ovals right beside each other - so the social aspect of catching up with Port Jackson and other mates across NSW was perfect. With four games of cricket going on concurrently each day, it allowed everyone who was taking part to have lunch together, and we met in a centralised shed right there at the Riverside grounds. We got to swap BS stories and recall old war wounds, which took place before the internet! We made new friends and rekindled old acquaintances from across the State of NSW.

To add a cherry on top, Port Jackson 55’s played several days of fearless team oriented cricket under Hally and won the Over 55’s Championships wrestling back the trophy that we’d lost last year to a stacked Central North side, which seems to have a very large catchment area into parts of QLD, SA and western NSW! We dedicated our 55’s State tournament win and our 3 days of hard fought matches at Riverside matches to the now late Port Jackson stalwart Adrian Schwager who was very much a part of the Port Jackson Vets tournaments set up over the last few years. We offer our thanks to John Jewiss (Central Coast) and Steve Wilson, as they enabled the set up a Frogbox video camera, for streaming all our matches directly to Schwags in St Vincents Hospital. He could and did watch every moment of Port Jackson's games over the three days on via the live stream and he told me that he got an enormous kick out of watching Port Jackson progress in that tournament. He also enjoyed all the guys from the PJ Blues and Red and indeed teams across the State getting in front of the camera and sending him well wishes. He tearfully told me that it meant so much to him and he felt like he was there with everyone. So, Port Jackson Red XI led by Michael Hall, as I said had a very successful three days winning all three games in a tense final we beat a star studded Tamworth – New England outfit, exacting revenge for last year in Wagga, after accounting for Central Coast the sneaky tournament favourites in the semi-final. PJ’s Red really did play well and the standout performers will be congratulated in a coming tournaments report. PJ Blue under Tommy had a tough time of it but it was heartening to see new guys ripping in and standing up for their team. We watched a lot of each other’s games and socially, Tamworth is a sensational place to grab a pub meal and the ‘tournament central’ was Wests Leagues at Tamworth, where a Life Membership only cost me $38...

NSW State 50’s Championships in Albury – Feb 2025

The final Port Jackson hit out for this part of the season has been the NSW State 50s Champs which was hosted this season down in Albury-Wodonga. It was 24 teams across 3 divisions fighting it out for Over 50’s bragging rights. Games were held in and around Albury NSW and towns down in country Victoria. Port Jackson was asked to submit five (5) cricket teams in this tournament. PJ’s were very happy to put forward 60 high calibre cricketers and we tried to rank across the three divisions. In Division One we had two teams, and Simon Neich from Macarthur led our glamour side – the PJ Reds. After a loss on day 1 they struggled to cope and didn’t fare as well as they’d have liked down in Albury. But we’ve learned many valuable lessons and we missing a few key PJ’s stalwarts – No excuses we’ll be better next time! We field a further 2 sides in the Division Two and an extra side in the Division 3 led by the inimitable burglar, Tommy Reaney. We had a fabulous tournament socially and made some valuable new mates – but our win/loss ratio wasn’t what we’d hoped for. In the Div 1 PJ Red, we didn't play well enough on day one to get ourselves into one of the key semi-finals on the day three and four but the organisation of the Albury 50’s tournament, just as it was for Tamworth in the 55’s, was absolutely first rate. The grounds were magnificent. Everyone agrees that the State Championships concept is fantastic. Long may it continue. With a total of 24 teams playing in that Over 50’s State tournament as opposed to 8 combined regional sides in the State 55’s in Tamworth, the tournaments are different. 55’s obviously slightly more tilted towards the “Men’s Shed” that we hold so dear to our ethos. But we expect the 55’s will grow rapidly just looking at the demographics of our of our database. There will be many more sides next year. But at Albury, the facilities and the welcome we received at all the regional cricket clubs was warm and first rate. We tussled at some truly stunning and fantastic locations and grounds out in the countryside, such as Corowa on the mighty Murray River west of Albury, down at Tallangatta in Victoria, and other beautiful spots in and around Albury such as Baranduda VIC and the amazing Lavington set up in Albury itself. I cannot speak highly enough of the welcome the smaller clubs afforded Port Jackson. Beer on tap is also plentiful in the countryside... Our five Skippers did a terrific job with their hard working team Managers to look after all the guys from Port Jackson. PJ’s had a great central meeting spot in Albury at the Commercial Club and had several functions where everybody in the teams was together and we really have found that these sorts of tournaments are building a fantastic ethos and camaraderie within our Port Jackson Club. These events have also really put us on the map in terms of the NSW Veterans Cricket. So that's it for Over 50s and 55s - we look forward to the games coming up in the winter perhaps up at Gloucester and we look forward to the games early in the next 25/26 summer.

We’ll drill down into some match reports for the three different events we took part in over Season 2024-25 and share some outstanding team and individual performances shortly. We’ll also post some amazing photos of the year that was.

Thanks to all who took part. All in, a total of 142 players represented our Club this season in Over 50’s and Over 55’s. Thank you all for your attitude and commitment to being part of what we’re building at Port Jackson Vets Cricket. Welcome to the new fellows and it’s great to see the same old faces turning up too. The growth and enjoyment is outstanding.