Alan Crompton - Sydney University Cricket Club Hall of Fame Article
Sydney University Cricket Club | March 12, 2024
Many people cannot think of the Club without thinking of Alan Crompton.
He has been one of the giants of the Club, often holding positions of deeply symbolic significance and often representing the Club in much wider fields. He has been able to mirror the Club to itself; to give expression to its soul; to bring all his considerable influence to benefit all who have been associated with the Club.
By the time he was elected President of the Club in 1978, he had already served in various positions for 17 years, as a player, Social Secretary, Honorary Secretary, a Vice President and a widely respected delegate to the NSWCA. For the next 22 years (and beyond, when he served another 20 years as Patron before typically standing down to allow another to succeed him), Alan was to help shape and guide the Club to its current position of pre-eminence in Sydney Grade (Premier) cricket.
He rose to great personal heights: Chairman of the NSW Cricket Board, Chairman of the Australian Cricket Board, Manager of three Australian touring teams (to New Zealand, India, and Pakistan), Patron of the Sydney University Cricket Club. He was awarded cricket’s higher honours: the Australian Sports Medal, The Order of Australia, Life Membership of Cricket NSW, Life Membership of the Sydney University Cricket Club, Blues in both cricket and baseball.
Twice, he turned down offers to manage sides to Pakistan in 1988 and England in 1993 when he preferred to stay in Australia to look after NSW and Australian interests here. He drove the NSW Board to act on various proposals for the benefit of cricket while he never used his position to favour his own club.
Through all this, Alan stood for the highest ideals and traditions of the game. He has embodied generosity, graciousness, integrity, idealism, steadfastness, and indefatigable effort. On the field, he was the inspiration and unifying force in 1st Grade for almost 20 seasons. His 6102 runs in all grades was the Club record for some time and his 314 wicket keeping dismissals remains the Club record.
Yet with enduring modesty, he often stood aside when another keeper of 1st Grade standard joined the Club and he played as a batsman who batted where he was needed from opener to number eight in deference to a succession of keepers, Scott Harbison, Mac Chambers, John Madgwick, Kerry Thompson, Mick Hewett and Ian Wilson.
He played in two University 2nd Grade Premierships sixteen years apart, one with the dominant sides of the early 1960s and the second when, aged 39, he once again stood down so that Ian Wilson could keep in 1st Grade.He was deservedly rewarded with the 1979-80 Premiership and the tears of joy that he shed when the last dramatic moments of that Final were concluded were a lasting memory and inspiration for his younger team mates who recognized how much this achievement meant to him.
Anyone who ever met this gentleman of the game knows how much Sydney University cricket will always mean to him.
