Brian Riley the "enfant terrible" of Sydney Grade Cricket in the 1970's.

Dennis Hourn | December 06, 2024

It's Waverley Oval 1979 and Waverley is pitched against UNSW. Brian Riley is playing for Waverley having decamped from Petersham. He's had a pretty lean season with 220 runs from 11 digs for his new club and finds himself in second grade for the first time in a decade. It's the second last game of the season and the Waverley second grade team too has had a lean season.

Riles arrives late. We are fielding in a few minutes. He is frantically rooting around in his kit bag and then lets out a flurry of expletives. Manages to cover just about every expletive known to the English language. "I've left my f...... cricket trousers at home" he screams. Inquires of his new team mates if we have any spares. No luck.

Riles then saunters down to the UNSW dressing room but they give him short shrift and tell him in no uncertain terms to piss off. Riles has very fractured relations with Uni from previous seasons.

He asks our captain, Mick Bell, for a rule book. None is forth coming so he goes into the umpires room to seek clarification on the dress code for grade cricket. "Any rule against wearing shorts in grade cricket?" he drawls. Umpires, somewhat bemused and confused, hesitantly say they don't think so.

Riles comes back into our dressing room and announces he will be fielding in shorts. He then pulls put a tiny pair of white shorts from his kit bag. Shorts which would make Warwick Capper blush. Captain Mick Bell chides Riles about his skimpy shorts. Asks if he has something a little larger.

Riles says no, squeezes into the shorts and strides, so to speak, out onto the field.

So there's Riles. At cover. Wearing a pair of shorts which are probably part of his Tamarama Beach "advertising" apparel. They leave nothing to the imagination. A lot of leg and other items are on show.

Mick Alterator, our stalwart life member, club leading run scorer (and still is), former president and crusty old traditionalist is in the stand. He goes ballistic demanding Riles be removed from the field. "Never seen anything like it! A disgrace!" he bellows. You can hear him around the ground. His normally florid RSL complexion goes a bright red. Would stop traffic.

Riles, from the field, tells Mick where to go. A most unedifying slanging match between the two follows but Riles remains and prowls between cover and mid-off for the rest of the day.

Mick relocates to the nearby Waverley Bowling Club where he downs copious settlers, scores another ton and marches back to the Oval and resumes his tirade.

But Riles won't have anything off it. Refuses to budge and in the process becomes probably the only bloke to field in shorts in the history of Sydney Grade cricket.

Appropriately that was Rile's last game for the Waves. A performance that has gone down in Waverley Cricket Club folklore. And pure Riles.

One story of many about the gone, but not forgotten, Brian Riley.