Cricket tragics will be familiar with a quote attributed to famous Australian spin bowler and doyen of cricket commentary Richie Benaud — “I never want to experience another, winter”.
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From 1963 until his death in 2015, Benaud was never tested by the chill of winter — something he had in common with a Cooma cricketer who led a similar existence.
Alex “Lackie” Ranson, alongside Kyabram’s Matthew Elliott and Jim Higgs, remains probably the Goulburn Valley’s best known cricket export — despite him never wearing the baggy green of Australia or even representing his state.
The Tatura-born devotee of the sport did, however, spend most of his professional life coaching at private schools in England and Scotland, while also working in a variety of developing countries promoting the sport.
This, along with his extraordinary contribution to Tatura and Cooma cricket clubs, the Kyabram District Cricket Association and, more recently, Goulburn Murray Cricket earned him induction into the newly-created GMC Hall of Fame.
Unlike Benaud, who died nine years ago and was famous for living the lifestyle many thousands of Australian “grey nomads” now adopt religiously (winter in the northern states of Australia and summer in the south), Ranson never donned a cream, bone, white, off-white, ivory, or beige sports jacket.
There’ll probably never be a statue of Lackie outside the clubrooms at Cooma, unlike Benaud’s tribute at the Sydney Cricket Ground, but the clubrooms are named in his honour and you’ll probably find more people — at Cooma at least — that know Lackie and be less familiar with Benaud.
Lackie preferred work trousers, boots and shirt emblazoned with the Cooma CC logo while pushing the lawn mower on the turf he could lay claim to owning as much as any member of the rural based sporting group — the Cooma Recreartion Reserve.
While the much-loved Tatura resident does not adopt that modern trend of living, for four decades he spent his Australian winters coaching cricket in the northern hemisphere and returned down under for the summer cricket season.
Early in his life the professional cricket coach had a feeling of ownership in his town, his mother was a member of the Hogan family, among Tatura’s early settlers and the name of the main street in the town.
“My great great grandfather was referred to as ‘King Tom’ Hogan. He opened the first hotel and general store in Tatura,” Lackie said.
The Ranson family has made a name for itself in the ensuing years, in sport, business and as community leaders. More on that later.
“My father played cricket and football for Tatura, my brother John is a level three coach (and coached in England) and both my sons were involved in sport,’’ Lackie said.
Before the burly figure of the all-rounder started his international travels he did manage to tuck 200 games of Goulburn Valley League football under his belt for Tatura — and become a life member of the club.
His cricket career started when he was14 years old, but what would now be considered a reasonable late start was certainly extended through his extraordinary ability to maintain a high level of fitness into his senior years.
Lackie’s last game of competitive cricket was, in fact, only two years ago as a 78-year-old and he famously represented the association at Melbourne Country Week when he was 57.
The genes were strong, his son Paul still holds a Kyabram association record as a four-time Jack Stone medallist.
And there are three members of the family who are Cooma Cricket Club life members, Lackie, Paul and the most important woman in both their lives — Lackie’s wife Gwen.
Gwen is the only female life member of Cooma Cricket Club and next year it will have been 50 years since the Ransons started their association with the club.
The fourth member of the family, youngest son Dale, attended school at Britain’s Dulwich College during Lackie’s two-decade stint as coach of the school’s cricket team.
It qualified him as an old boy of the school and, while working in London for management company Accenture, he played and captained the Old Boys team and has the distinction of scoring 1000 runs in a cricket season and one year finished the Sunday league with an average of more than 100.
Five years younger than Paul, he is now working from Melbourne as Accenture’s managing director of operation and currently playing with his son Jasper for Woodend Cricket Club.
Longevity is a family trait, as is throwing their hand in the air at annual general meetings.
Lackie was secretary of Tatura Cricket Association when it was disbanded in 1965, while he was playing with North West Mooroopna after starting his senior cricket with Tatura Colts.
He was a strong advocate for Tatura to join the Kyabram cricket association and led its initial success, the first of those when he and his cousin Alan Glover recovered from a hopeless position to defeat the highly-fancied Tongala team.
“They had already secured a first innings win, but on the third day of the final we set them a target in their second innings and then Alan and I bowled them out for 43,” Lackie said.
They took five wickets each.
Not long after that initial breakthrough Lackie spent 36 weeks sidelined from sport when he broke his leg playing football.
That didn’t stop him from being involved, however, taking on the umpire’s role and using crutches to hobble out to the pitch and take his place at the bowler’s end.
It was two other highly-respected and well-known sporting figures who first encouraged him to join Cooma — Peter Warburton and Bill Fry.
He became extremely close with the latter, who was a wicketkeeper and would be his cricketing sidekick — Lackie always fielded at first slip — for much of his early career.
“Bill and I often shared a room together at country week,” Lackie, who turned 80 in July last year said.
While his cricketing exploits with Cooma and the Kyabram association are the stuff of legend his 37 years of work in the UK, Zimbabwe, Holland and West Indies — among others — add significantly to his CV.
Former English Test cricketer Frank Tyson was the key figure in Lackie securing his first overseas coaching job.
Tyson, who became a schoolmaster after cricket and also was director of coaching for Cricket Victoria, encouraged the now Tatura businessman — who later became a builder when on his Australian living stints — to apply for the Dulwich role.
As a motivated and forward thinker, the 25-year-old opened Tatura’s first full self service supermarket, later moving to where Foodworks Tatura is today.
He ran the business for a decade, having disliked his job in the bank where he studied accountancy.
That led to a business opportunity and alongside Kyabram supermarket giant Ron Fitzgerald they were among a group of six that started Sam’s Cut Price Stores in the region.
He eventually sold the business to the King family and started building houses in Tatura.
He told Tyson he wouldn’t mind doing some coaching after he finished in the supermarket and, in 1984, he went to Dulwich on the back of Tyson’s recommendation.
“He wrote to Keith Andrews at Lord’s and when I applied, Frank had already been in touch with Lord’s, and I was immediately offered a job.
“I ended up coaching there for 22 years. I took over from former England captain Roger Knight and England opening batter Bill Athey took over from me,” Lackie said.
Among the countless County cricketers he developed while at Dulwich was Eoin Morgan, the Irish-born English cricketer who played almost 250 ODIs and 16 Tests for England.
Lackie spent another 13 years coaching in Scotland and 37 years, in all, going back and forward between the Goulburn Valley and the UK.
While in Australia he coupled his commitment to Cooma with working for Cricket Victoria and toured the state with Test players organising coaching clinics and running courses for clubs and associations.
All the while Lackie continued to have an indomitable on-field presence, racking up six tons in the KDCA and taking bags of 18 and 16 wickets in the two premiership-winning campaigns of Cooma — its only KDCA grand final campaigns.
A deep thinker of the game, Lackie said while it was sometimes good to reflect, it did not tell us where we were going.
He remains extremely concerned for the future of cricket and all sports for that matter, with the lack of volunteers.
“Volunteres are diminishing in all forms of life,” he said, sharing the same sentiments when he was a guest speaker at last year’s Australia Day ceremony at Tatura.
Lackie has been heavily involved with Tatura’s Sacred Heart Parish and alongside his 20-year-plus tenure as secretary of Cooma Recreation Reserve has spent 23 years working as chair of the parish finance committee.
Lackie does manage to follow the exploits of his four grandchildren, two of them gifted tennis players, but had no family with him on the night of his GMC Hall of Fame announcement.
“I went to the event by myself, I got the shock of my life. I couldn’t even think and I certainly wasn’t able to speak,’’ he said.
“To be up there with Bill (Williams) and Gus (Underwood), who had done so much for cricket, was humbling.”
As a life member of the association, Lackie is automatically invited to these events —recognition for the fact he has held the roles of secretary, treasurer, president, premiership captain and player with Tatura and Cooma cricket clubs.
Lackie said while he didn’t have a lot to do with Bill Williams, he knew him as a very dedicated administrator.
“I’ve had a lot to do with Gus over the years, in both football and cricket.
“He is one of those guys that is underrated, but always gives 100 per cent to his work on and off the field. As an opponent you never underestimate a 100 per center,” he said.
Lackie said he always had considered the writing of Gus to be one of the reasons the game had managed to stay so front and centre in the minds of people in our area for so many years.
“May he continue to fly the flag for these clubs for a long while yet,” he said.
Lackie said the tremendous support he received from his wife Gwen and family, since their marriage in 1965, had allowed him to lead an extraordinary life.
He even recalled his wedding day, when he and five of his teammates were playing Kyabram at the recreation reserve and had to leave at 3pm to go to his wedding.
“When it came time to leave both sides agreed to turn the game into a scratch match,” he said.
That’s probably one of the few times the highly competitive Alex “Lackie” Ranson didn’t walk away with a win — although the ultimate result came in the form of his bride of the past 60 years.
And finally, for those wondering, the nickname Lackie came as a result of cricket cousin Alan Glover being unable to say Alex.
“He called me Lec and that turned into Lackie and stuck,” he said.
Kyabram Free Press and Campaspe Valley News editor