Darren Wotherspoon - my best captain

Darren Wotherspoon | December 19, 2023

First of all, I'd like to say that I captained at all the levels I played except NSW 2nd XI from the age of 10 and by the time I started playing Sydney Grade Cricket in 2000 when I was 20 I’d probably captain several hundred games and was pretty experienced.

As a captain at a young age, it presented a lot of challenges as a player when I had no control over decisions made around a club or team environment. I had very high expectations and specific qualities that not only helped me perform but created an environment that I know produced success.

My Idol was Roy Keane, a man who led from the front who would bleed, fight or die for his team and he knew how to get the best out of his players by being the example he expected from others.

I took cricket that seriously it was war for me, life or death and is was what I expected from my team mates and especially the captains I played under. As someone who came through all of NSW and Australia's underage programs, the leadership from coaches was so high that grade cricket lacked that professionalism.

Grade cricket was very tough but for me, it felt like purgatory in terms of standards in comparison to any State or National setup despite having quality players. It pretty much had the Grade Captain responsible for everything and that was too much for a single person to be responsible for.

I played under many captains as I played for many teams from club junior cricket to various representative teams in school, country and then senior cricket on the Central Coast and in Sydney.

In Underage cricket, Graeme Rummans was excellent as our NSW Colts captain. I was 17 or so and

surrounded by superstars such as Mark Higgs, Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken and Paul Sutherland and I was made to feel welcome.

Graeme known as Rowdy led from the front in his performances and it was always a great environment.

My choice as the best captain came down to 2 guys connected by marriage Shawn Bradstreet and Phil Marks.

I knew Phil (Skid) from the age of 14 as he worked with my family, and he tried to recruit me to the North Sydney Bears. He had the biggest hands I have ever seen and a presence like no other person I'd met in cricket.

I'd followed the grade cricket results from a young kid and it always seemed Skid would get 100 not out batting at 6.

When I went to Sydney, I spent an off-season at Easts which was a disaster and decided to ring Skid. I said I wanted to start in second grade to earn my place and Skid agreed.

I got 266 not out on my debut and broke my hand in 5 places which put me out for about 10 weeks. I worked with Skid and Scott Hookey at Magic Moments and Skid came up to me on the Thursday of my debut game and said you’re playing this week against UNSW. I hadn't picked up a bat in 10 weeks and was in no position to play. But, how do you say no to Skid?

I hit my first ball for 6 in grade cricket, ran out Daniel Colley for a diamond duck and got 61 on first-grade debut with a hand that took 2 years to be pain-free.

But my memories of this day were about Skid. I watched Skid get 60, he hit the ball so hard it was mesmerising. We then fielded and this was when the magic happened.

At some point, Skid, put himself in at silly point and those who experienced it know how intimidating he was. 6 foot 3, Albino gorilla with the manliest voice in Grade cricket.

Chris Adams the England cricketer was destroying us and ended up with 100 odd not out but he was very “look at me “. He kept dropping his pants for some reason and had his bike pants exposed when he changed gloves etc and Skid had enough. He stopped the game, everyone listened as Skid gave him both barrels about anyone on this field who would play for England if they had an English passport and questioned his behaviour.

Adams then finished us off with a magnificent innings but it was that encounter that everyone on the field including the umpires knew who was the Alpha on this field and no one should step out of line.

Skid only played a few more games before he retired and it was a huge regret that I didn't come to Sydney earlier to get more time playing as Skid as captain. He was always there for me and it was the chats with him that convinced me to go to Manly in 2005 to play under his brother-in-law, Shawn Bradstreet.

Skid was the only person whom I saw Scott Hookey couldn’t intimidate. Hook had absolute respect for Skid and Hook was very intense. Hook's sister said to me one day at work that Scott feels he owes his life to Skid. I worked with both of them, and the respect Hook had for Skid tells a big story about the man that Skid is.

In 2005 I left the Bears to go to Manly and play under the best captain I experienced, Shawn Bradstreet.

I had discussions with Neil D'Costa about Wests, Dom Thornley for ND's and Gavin Robertson for Blacktown. Robbo was the best person I had ever dealt with in terms of club recruitment in all my years in the game. It was the hardest decision I had ever made to say no to Robbo and join Shawn (Winga) at Manly.

I met Winga and the President in Singo's bar in his building in Sydney. Wing and I had many battles and I’d performed reasonably well I think there was a level of respect despite some very heated battles and I was completely and utterly surprised he wanted me at Manly.

I went to Manly for nothing but opportunity. I was 25 and was injured from January the season before and was unable to run for 6 months.

My first game was a trial and I battled hard for 50 on a slow deck and then busted my finger on the first ball I fielded since I busted my ankle on the last ball that I fielded the season before.

My confidence was extremely low, the lowest it had ever been. Winga knew how to work the media and his subtle comments in the Manly Daily about my mental toughness and how I would bring that to the team made me grow a few inches taller. Slowly, he was helping me rebuild myself.

Winga bowled me 10 straight overs in the first game of the season against Sutherland and I went for maybe 30 runs. I had zero confidence in my batting but he made me feel a part of a new team by giving me the responsibility of bowling inside the first 15 overs with only 2 players outside the ring.

I needed a captain to say "You’re my man" and Winga did it brilliantly.

He asked me to field at point and to be the fielding leader which I initially struggled with mentally as I’d always been a second slipper and senior player and also my ankle was a mess, strapped and one injury away from never playing again.

My form with the bat slowly improved and it took about 7 innings to score my first 50 ironically against my old club North Sydney. At the same time, I was filling my role as second spinner in 2-day cricket and first change bowler in one-day games.

My form came good as my confidence grew. I went the whole season in one-day cricket bowling 10 overs straight and never going for more than 35.

Winga had so much faith in me that it made me feel invincible playing this role. I went on to break the club record for most runs in a season in Manly’s history. I won the player of the year, Manly won the Club Championship, First Grade were minors premiers and sadly lost the grand final to Fairfield. We won the Limited Overs competition, and I captained the team to win the final of the State Competition

We had a team full of young and inexperienced players along with veterans like Mark Atkinson, Matthew Todd and Nathan Austin.

A few moments stood out for me.

Winga played the one-day final with a busted hamstring and did the hammy whilst batting. He chose me to be the runner.

I was an asthmatic smoker who was no way near as quick as the younger options, but he made it clear he wanted me for the role. He hobbled his way to a match-winning innings, and I had to run all of it!

He also did not bowl a ball at training all season and bowled on memory taking 30 odd wickets at a low teen average.

Winga was a very calm captain, and a motivator and was big on simple things like enjoying the challenge.

Another big thing was body language, eye contact etc. We had some players that could go into Disneyland, and he would never chastise them.

He worked the Manly Daily brilliantly and was a man of few but very appropriate words.

In the annual report, he said that when I came to Manly I had made the team tougher than ever before. It was motivating and picked me up after the grand final to Fairfield in which we were decimated in the biggest loss of my career.

Winga got the best out of me like no other captain. Unfortunately, Winga retired after that season, and I lasted just over one more season and retired at the age of 28.

I just couldn’t play and enjoy the game under poor captaincy and my performances were a direct result of the environments captains created. In hindsight, I wish I got more time playing under Phil Marks and Shawn Bradstreet but sadly some players don’t get one season under that quality of leadership.