From Cheltenham to The Ashes

Home Care client Max O’Connell has met Cricket royalty, is part of Australian Cricket folklore, and is just as passionate about the game since he first picked up a willow as a junior.

Max was an Australian Test cricket match umpire, umpiring 20 Test matches between 1971 and 1980. That included the Centenary Test Match between Australia and England in 1977, and Max said once he heard both captains, Tony Greig and Greg Chappell, approved his selection he became very excited.

“I went to work on Monday, Tuesday and then flew out Tuesday night and I was gone for 10 days,” Max said.

"It was the ultimate of umpiring, and afterwards Sir Donald Bradman said it was the best test ever played in 100 years."

The first Centenary Test was played in March 1977 to commemorate the match that is considered to be the first Test match, played in 1877.

Both the 1877 and 1977 matches were played at the MCG in Melbourne, and remarkably Australia won both matches by exactly the same margin, 45 runs.

In the 1971/72 season Max umpired an Australia vs World Team where Sir Garfield Sobers scored 254, an innings regarded by some witnesses as the greatest ever played.

He also had to report Dennis Lilee when he played with an aluminium bat in a 1979 test match, but just as special to Max was a moment with Sir Donald Bradman and Bradman’s wife, Lady Jessie, in 1993.

“For the previous 60-70 years ladies weren’t invited to the Bradman Medal (the pinnacle individual award for Premier Cricket in SA) and I said to him, what do you think about women being invited?”

“He said oh no they might be bored stiff, then he turned to Lady Jessie and said if I invited you to go, and she said good I’d love to.”

“He said what? Love to? That's it, approved. That photo (pictured) was the first time ladies were invited and Lady Jessie was the first guest.”

Max cheekily said beer consumption dropped by half and it might have been because the ladies checked their partners didn’t drink too much.

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