Dr. Poidevin and the 100th Anniversary of the Eastern Suburbs Coaching Class
Eastern Suburbs Cricket Club Sydney | October 17, 2023
By Dennis Hourn
The 2020-21 season marked the 125th anniversary of Eastern Suburbs (Waverley) Cricket Club. It also marked the hundredth year of the famous Eastern Suburbs cricket coaching class.
The coaching class was established by Dr Les Poidevin in the 1921-22 season, the year after Easts won its second 1st grade premiership. The “Flying Doctor”, as he was known, joined the Waverley club at the age of 44 in 1920, scored a century in his first game at the SCG against Paddington. Dr. Poidevin was to go on and lift Waverley Cricket Club out of the doldrums, captaining the first grade to 3 premierships in a row, one of only two clubs to achieve such a feat in the competition’s history. In his second season, due to his agitation, the committee agreed to establish a coaching class, the first of its type in Sydney.
Dr Poidevin was passionate about the development of junior cricket wanting to bridge the gap between school and grade cricket. The coaching class quickly got into stride. He started off with three age groups nick named “The Waves”, The Wavelets” and “The Ripples”. Within two seasons he had established a junior competition between Waverley, North Sydney and St George. This competition was an instant success and in 1926 led to the formation of the Poidevin-Gray under 21 competition in which all Premier Cricket Clubs in Sydney now compete. Dr. Poidevin’s junior development program was the talk of Australian cricket. Many other grade clubs soon copied.
Dr Poidevin was a remarkable man. He played first class cricket for NSW, Lancashire and London County whose captain was the famous W G Grace, Davis Cup for Australia against the United States in 1906, won the Swiss Open and European Open tennis championship, two Queensland men’s singles titles and invented the famous “Poidevin Grip” a revolutionary new way of playing the forehand and backhand. He was a scratch golfer and champion rower. He was the foremost cricket writer of his day with Dame Mary Gilmore describing his cricket reports as “literature”.
The coaching class Dr. Poidevin established has never missed a season since 1921. Even during the war years the coaching class continued with the older boys providing emergency relief for grade players who had been called up for war duties. Many great players have gone through its ranks such as Alan McGilvray, Jack Fingleton, Bruce Francis, David Hourn and David Warner. Under dedicated coaches such as Harold Butler, Dick Rowland and Phil O’Sullivan the numbers steadily. There are now more than 700 registered players in the East’s Cricket junior development program with 55 teams from under to 8 to Under 16 competing each week.
And this all started exactly 100 years ago though the foresight of Dr. Lesley Oswald Sheridan Poidevin
From left to right: Billy Murdoch, C.B Fry, W.G Grace, Les Poidevin
