Charlie McLaughlin 1919-95
Randwick Petersham Cricket Club | October 21, 2024
In Randwick’s booklet titled “Randwick Cricket-the First 100 Years” produced in 2000 to celebrate the club’s centenary, Randwick legend Phil Tresidder commented on Charlie McLaughlin who he classed as his favourite cricketer when he was a boy. Tresidder wrote: “Charlie was a super athlete and the fastest bowler I ever expected to see. Dark black hair, he raced in like an Olympic sprinter and with a flurry of arms hurled himself at the batsman. Unfortunately, accuracy and Charlie were comparative strangers. State selectors passed him by but the Coogee Beach ladies couldn’t hide their admiration.”
Charles John McLaughlin was born in 1919 and played junior cricket before joining Randwick. His introduction to the club, however, was far from traditional. The story goes that at Coogee Oval on the Tuesday prior to the start of the 1938-39 season, a young man with no shirt and looking like he’d just come up from the beach, approached Alex Marks and asked if he could have a bowl to the players practising in the nets. Alex threw him the ball and the young man bowled to him. At the selection meeting that night Marks announced to the other selectors that he was naming the young man in 1st Grade the following Saturday and he would be taking the new ball. In response to the protestations, Alec remarked that he “was the fastest bowler in Sydney”. A few days later, Charlie McLaughlin, one of the quickest bowlers ever to play for Randwick, took 3-55 against Western Suburbs at Coogee Oval to begin an impressive Grade Cricket career.
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McLaughlin’s raw pace off a relatively short run-up of seven paces, quickly cast him into the spotlight and despite his youth and inexperience he had a meteoric rise to representative cricket playing for Sydney Metropolitan against NSW Country at SCG 2 on 28-29 November 1938 just a little over eight weeks after he had bowled his first ball in Sydney Grade Cricket.
He took 4-40 off 10 overs in that match and seven weeks later he was at the Melbourne Cricket Ground playing for NSW Second XI against Victoria. In the first innings of that match be bowled the future Australian Test captain Ian Johnson for three, before collecting 3-44 off 11 overs in the second dig. But despite further outstanding performances in Sydney Grade Cricket, McLaughlin, to the surprise of many, never played for NSW again.
McLaughlin’s was one of the more dynamic debut seasons in Grade cricket. In his third Grade match he took 4-49 against St George at Hurstville in a total of 301. It was quite a game as Jack Chegwyn (169) and Alex Marks (94) put on 206 in 87 minutes to run down the total, finishing with 409. The very next match, he skittled Balmain at Coogee for just 56 in response to the home side’s 196 taking 5-33 in the process. With 2-17 in the second innings of 8-50, McLaughlin finished the match with 7-50.
Charlie was again the star in Randwick’s next match which was quite a famous one as it ended in a rare tie. The fast bowler took 5-45 in Glebe’s innings of 247. And when Randwick had slumped to 9-168 it looked all over until Keith Lee and Ray Frost put on 79 for the last wicket to sneak a tie. But it was just after Christmas that Charlie McLaughlin showed that he was a force to be reckoned with when he demolished Paddington, to return match figures of 11-117. He took 5-52 in the first innings and followed up with his then best bowling figures of 6-65. He ended the season with 48 wickets--the most by any player in any grade. And to top off an outstanding season, he also married his sweetheart, Iris Border that summer.
McLaughlin began his second season with Randwick with a real bang. In the opening game of 1939-40, Charlie had Mosman’s Gordon Schaffer out “hit wicket” when he fell on his stumps after being hit on the head by one of McLaughlin’s thunderbolts. And to top off another outstanding season of new ball bowling with 36 wickets at 16.86, in the final game of the season he took 7-58 playing Gordon at Chatswood Oval. Three top order bats were knocked over for ducks as they fell 18 runs short of the 287 target. He also showed that he was no “mug” with the bat, smashing 72 against Western Suburbs batting at the bottom of the order to put on a 9th wicket partnership of 139 with Keith Lee (70*)—a club record which was never broken.
Charlie made little impact in 1940-41 playing barely half the season. He bowled just 92 overs returning nine wickets at 43.77 apiece. It is not known if the war had interrupted his availability as the annual report had been reduced in the “interests of economy” and captain’s reports, which may have shed some light on his situation, were not included. McLaughlin was not sighted at all the following 1941-42 season with the war in full swing.
But Charlie McLaughlin was back in 1942-43, bowling as well as ever. He feasted on Waverley batsmen that summer dismissing 11 of them in his total of 48 wickets. Due to the re-draw provisions of the competition, he played “the Waves” twice, taking 5-44 against them at Waverley Oval and an impressive 6-34 at Coogee where he knocked them over for just 79 chasing Randwick’s poor score of 127. They were the only times he took five wickets in an innings that season despite the 48 that year being his career best. And to confirm his liking for Waverley batsman, the aggressive speedster took 5-43 against them in 1943-44 although their score of 147 was too much for Randwick’s meagre 115.
McLaughlin continued to play through to the end of 1945-46 but without the success he had enjoyed in his early years with the club. In the 1944-45 annual report, it was mentioned that he was still bowling with “considerable pace” although the wickets they were then playing on did not suit “his type of bowling”. He took only 62 wickets in his final three seasons with just two “bags” of five wickets in an innings. And while he was just 27 years of age, season 1945-46 was his last with Randwick, although he “filled in” in a couple of matches the following summer without adding to his wickets record.
In his seven seasons, Charlie McLaughlin, the hostile but somewhat wayward pace man, took 202 wickets in 1st Grade at the excellent average of 19.49. He took five wickets in an innings nine times and 10 in a match on one occasion. He scored 576 runs.
Charlie McLaughlin died on 17 June 1995 at Bexley. He was 75.
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