Northern Suburbs V East Canberra at Majura Oval in 1981

Tony Goodfellow | June 26, 2023

In the 1970’s and 80’s, Northern Suburbs home ground in Canberra, was the picturesque Majura Oval, in the suburb of Ainslie.

However, as beautiful as this enclosed field looked, the wicket area had hidden demons for many a batsman and the outfields layer of thick grass, kept even the hottest of smoked cover drives down to either one run, or a risky two at best. 

This was the backdrop for a battle that has stuck vividly in my memory bank for forty years. 

In this 1981 match, East Canberra batted first and Norths representative opening bowlers, Brett Hannam and Dene Moore, did a demolition job on their batting lineup, rolling them for 37, similar to the way the same pair had dismantled Ginninderra the previous year at Majura for 33.

Obviously, we were pretty confident of achieving the required 38 runs and although there were a few hiccups early, at 5 for 32 victory seemed assured.

Our bowling heroes and noted big hitters, Dene Moore and Brett Hannam, were batting together and aggressively attempting to knock the runs off as quickly as possible.

However, with six runs to win, the short straight hit at Majura was a bit too inviting for Deno and in attempting to finish the match with one blow, he holed out to wide mid-on off fast bowler Peter Bickle.

If my memory serves me correctly, the batsmen crossed leaving Hannam on strike and unbelievably next ball, Brett attempted to slog the winning runs as well and Eugene Nix caught him on the boundary.

Panic was now setting in with the rest of the batters, myself included and the ‘goat track’ Majura pitch, as Deno had once called it, suddenly turned into a mine field.

Not surprisingly, as Easts sniffed a miracle, Eugene Nix started giving us a gobful and the final three wickets fell for the addition of only two runs, giving Easts victory by three.

It was another Norths collapse of epic proportions and a classic case of me, missing out on a hundred, by running out of partners.

In what must be an ACT record, only one player out of the twenty two that batted, Brett Hannam, made double figures.

Easts stand-in captain, Geoff Davies, who had played Shield cricket and toured with Australia, described the days play as “the most unbelievable of my career.”

The Majura ground has since been renamed the ‘Keith Tournier Oval’ in memory of one of Norths great club men and volunteers.