Allen Thatcher 1899-1932
Randwick Petersham Cricket Club | October 24, 2024
With the change in residential boundaries following Marrickville DCC’s admission to 1st Grade in 1921-22, a number of players were forced to change clubs. One of those was 22 year-old right-hand batsman and leg-break bowler, Allen Thatcher who had played the previous two seasons with Petersham 1st Grade. He had previously made his debut in the top grade with Western Suburbs when he was aged 19. He moved to the Marrickville club and was a member of its first 1st Grade team.
Born in Sydney on 17 April 1899, Allen Norman Thatcher had shown great promise as a cricketer at a young age. However when he was 17, he enlisted in the World War I effort and was posted to France where he was badly injured and gassed a year later. When he recovered, he played for a team of overseas cricketers against a strong Public Schools XI at Lord’s in 1918, taking 13 wickets for only 38 runs to emphasise his undoubted ability.
In his first season with Marrickville, he was the leading all-rounder scoring 263 runs including an unconquered top score of 105* against Randwick at the SCG batting at no.7, while taking 34 wickets with his leg-spinners at just 16.5 apiece. Three times he took five wickets in an innings with 6-34 against Central Cumberland at Parramatta Park his best. He was one of the principal reasons the team finished second in the competition at its first appearance.
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Thatcher made his first-class debut in his final season with Petersham, playing against Queensland at Brisbane in February 1921 scoring 31* in the second innings. However, it was not until November 1923 he made his next appearance for the State, again playing Queensland in Brisbane where he took 2-128 in the match. In the return game at the SCG a few weeks later, he finished with 4-156 while scoring 41 runs batting first wicket down. While his selection in the first of those two matches gave Marrickville its third State representative, Thatcher did not play for NSW again.
Over the next six seasons, Thatcher was one of the leading batsmen in the Marrickville 1st Grade team scoring between 325 and 464 runs each season. During that period, he scored centuries against Manly (101) and Wests (107) while passing 50 on another 15 occasions. His relatively low conversion rate caused some frustration among his various captains, one of whom was his brother George, as they continually chastised him for “throwing away his wicket due to slogging”. Thatcher was a thick-set powerful man who loved nothing better than to hit the ball hard and often.
His bowling continued to develop and in successive seasons in 1922-23 and 1923-24, he took 40 wickets with returns of 7-59 and 7-76 respectively his best figures. However, from then on, he took fewer and fewer wickets with his returns falling into single figures as the seasons rolled on. As his batting continued to progress, he became more of a change bowler than the frontline attacking trundler he was earlier in his career.
For reasons unknown, Allen played just one match in 1928-29 but returned in full flight the following summer scoring most runs with 446 including a scintillating century against Western Suburbs. This led to him being appointed captain the following season. And while the team had only a moderate 1930-31 season, as did Thatcher with the bat, there was a real sense of spirit within the group. The enjoyment of the season caused him to comment in his captain’s report at the end of the summer that he “had no hesitation whatsoever in saying I have never experienced a happier season than that now concluded”.
Season 1931-32 began with a little more personal success for Thatcher, scoring 200 runs with a top score of 76 by the end of the Christmas period. Then disaster struck. On the 12 February 1932 in his home at Dulwich Hill, Allen Norman Thatcher died from Quinsy, a condition described as an abscess between the back of the tonsil and the wall of the throat, which these days would be treated simply with antibiotics. He was just 32. Cricket and the Marrickville club had lost a favourite son.
In his career with Marrickville, the popular and cheery all-rounder, who was a valued member of the Marrickville Executive Committee at the time of his death, scored 3,548 runs and took 161 wickets with his leg-breaks. He scored three centuries and 19 half-centuries while he took five wickets in an innings nine times. He only played 1st Grade cricket for Marrickville.
In an obituary in the 1931-32 Marrickville DCC Annual Report, comment was made that Allen Thatcher had a “thorough knowledge of the finer points of the game while his experience and advice were always at the disposal and were freely given to many of the club’s younger players”.
RPC Hon Historian
