This Mother’s Day we want to acknowledge all those motherly figures in our lives who have made contributions to our wonderful game and enabled the passion that we have for it.
There are so many wonderful stories of how these women have contributed to the South Australian cricketing community and as part of our recent Member competition, Bernhard submitted a photo of him and his Mum as one of his favourite memories.
With thanks to Bernhard, we are excited to share the story behind this brilliant photo.
Raising a family the best part of three hours north of Adelaide, Mum was everything that enabled my love of cricket.
I started playing cricket in the next town when I was 10 - it was a 25km drive in each direction.
She took me every week. Every. Single. Week.
She not only did the drive each way but then stayed around for the game in full.
She was deeply concerned that 90% of my reading in life was cricket related, until another mother from the district told her 'Bernie, it doesn't matter if he's reading the phone book - at least he's reading'.
My brother took me to my first day of test cricket that summer, my sister took me the summer after (and has never been back).
By the time I reached high school, Mum let me attend a day of Sheffield Shield cricket on my own on a rare trip to Adelaide.
Pretty much every summer thereafter (before I moved away) saw me allowed to get to one day of the test match, despite the tight finances at home and the distance to travel.
The photo shows the two of us on the day that I took a hat-trick in the 1986-87 grand final which helped my team Jamestown beat Crystal Brook in the Rocky River competition that summer - obviously, I'm still in my whites but Mum is ready for whatever event we went to town for.
Again, Mum got me to the game, like she had every other weekend that summer. (There were never home games played in our town.)
She drove me to every game the following summer too, when we won the grand final again.
My one representative game was enabled by Mum's taxi.
Oh yes, and the cricket jumper I'm wearing? Who knitted it, and sewed on the Australian badge? Of course it was her.
The bat? I won it at a SACA coaching clinic ran by Les Favell and Rick Darling. Who got me there? Again, who else?
Whatever my love for God's Great and Glorious Game, Mum enabled it.
This is just one moment of it, the only moment that really suggests her presence through all of my cricket steps. But she was always there.
She's still with us - she turns 87 on Thursday.
Her devotion to her children and grandchildren is simply unparalleled, alongside her complete devotion as a carer for her mother and then later her husband, my father.
Neither of my parents really cared for the game. But no doubt, my mother enabled my love for it.
Thank you to Julie who also submitted the below photo, sharing the memory of presenting the game ball to umpires at a WBBL Stadium Series match with her daughter.