LET’S REMEMBER JOHN ‘JUMBO’ JAMES
By John White, President, Central Gippsland Cricket Association
The following tribute to John ‘Jumbo’ James has been kindly forwarded to Virtual Yallourn for posting on the website by John White, President of the Central Gippsland Cricket Association. John spoke at Jumbo’s funeral on 15 October 2012 and his eulogy carried much of what is written below. John has agreed to minor changes to his wonderful tribute to Jumbo to allow posting as a document of historical significance.
Details of John White’s lengthy and dedicated involvement with the Central Gippsland Cricket Association have been recorded at the conclusion of this article.
JOHN WHITE’S TRIBUTE TO JUMBO:
As President of Central Gippsland Cricket Association, I would like to thank the James’ family for allowing me the opportunity to say a few words about Jumbo’s cricket career.
Cricket is a game of records…and Jumbo’s record in CGCA cricket is exceptional with many of his achievements and records still standing today nearly forty years after he finished playing.
• Jumbo began his cricket at Yallourn around 1958 with St John’s CC. He also played with Yallourn Colts, Yallourn CC and finally was captain and coach of Yallourn North CC during season 1974-75.
• He was awarded CGCA Life Membership in 1979-80.
• He was awarded Life Membership of the Yallourn/Yallourn North Cricket Club 1967-68.
• He was selected in the ‘All Gippsland Cricket XI’ on four occasions and was awarded ‘Legend’ status within the Gippsland Cricket League in 2000.
• Jumbo was also named in the Central Gippsland’s ‘Team of the Century’.
• He opened the bowling for the All Gippsland XI (under the leadership of Norm Byrne) in 1968 against the touring Indian Team.
• In all, Jumbo captured 972 ‘A-Grade’ wickets.
• In season 1962-63 in one innings, Jumbo bowled out the entire Morwell team at the cost of 28 runs.
• Jumbo was no slouch with the bat. His highest ‘A-Grade’ score was a hard hitting 97 against Moe, followed by 86 versus Morwell. Later in his career, Jumbo scored his one and only century in a ‘B-Grade’ fixture.
• Jumbo played in a nine ‘A-Grade’ Premierships ( a CGCA record) that included two with Yallourn Colts, five at Yallourn and two flags at Yallourn North CC.
• His best season must surely have been 1962-63. As well as being selected in the ‘All Gippsland XI’, he dismissed no less than 75 batsmen at an incredible average of just over four runs per wicket, to win the CGCA bowling average (an award he also won in 1960-61). During that season, he captured five wickets in an innings seven times including 10-28 against Morwell (as already mentioned). In the next encounter with Morwell, he captured 7-15 in the first innings, and snared another seven in the second “dig” at a cost of 22 runs. In that game, he finished with the match figures of 14-36.
THE BYRNE-JAMES MEDAL
In 2003-04, Central Gippsland CA named the First XI Grade Player of the Year Trophy ‘The Byrne-James Medal’ in honour of Jumbo and his great friend Norm Byrne. Every year since its inception, Jumbo would contact the winner of the medal and have a chat with them. A copy of the medal was presented to Jumbo as a keepsake and he absolutely treasured it and was so proud to show it to anyone.
In 1994 John White contributed stories to The Latrobe valley Express to promote cricket in the district. These are John’s words…
“Because many cricket matches were being washed out, there were no cricket stories in the local press. Consequently, I decided to write some stories on CGCA cricket personalities for the ‘Latrobe Valley Express’. The first one was on Jumbo. It was entitled ‘Let’s Remember Jumbo James.’
This story ended up being a full page feature. When this article found its way down to Bairnsdale, many of the younger cricketers in the Bairnsdale Cricket Association did not know that Jumbo had been a fiery fast bowler in his younger days. They just thought he was a big umpire who had never played the game.
From this article, Jumbo received invitations to coach around the Bairnsdale region. One of the juniors he helped coach was the current Victorian Captain, Cameron White.
The upshot of this article was that some of Jumbo’s mates laminated a copy and stuck it on the wall of the Metung Pub. Margaret tells me that it hung there for fifteen years”.
COUNTRY WEEK
During his magnificent career, Jumbo spearheaded Central Gippsland’s attack at Melbourne Country Week on 17 occasions.
• His best bowling performance at Country Week was a fiery 8-13 against Rochester in 1966-67. Central Gippsland was bowled out for a miserable 89 and an inspired Jumbo ‘cart-wheeled’ Rochester just seven runs short of that total.
• These bowling figures rewarded him with the Victorian Cricket Association Trophy for the best bowling performance at Country Week that season. The trophy was a cricket bat autographed by the Australian and English Test teams of the day.
• His most valuable batting performance was the Provincial Country Week match against Mornington Peninsula in season 1959-60. In that game, Jumbo and the late Stan Ostlund (51) were associated in a match winning CGCA record ninth wicket partnership of 98 runs. The pair enabled the CGCA to snatch victory over the MPCA team.
• Again with the willow, Jumbo guided the CGCA to a Division One premiership at Country Week in season 1966-67 when he (15 not out) and number 11 batsman, Ray Grieve, crept past Sunraysia’s 8-198 to score a memorable victory by one run.
SOME AMUSING STORIES.
• Norm Byrne his great friend and mentor over many years was Captain of CGCA on this particular day at Boolarra in a Gippsland Cricket League Sunday fixture. Jumbo was bowling well and had captured 4 early wickets from five overs, when Norm decided to rest him and have a bowl himself . The ‘Big Fellow’ (Jumbo) was not happy and flung the ball to Norm who caught it one handed. His hand was still black and bruised the following week!
• Another incident with Norm Byrne occurred in Season 1969-70 when long serving Yallourn Captain Norm Byrne had moved to live in Moe. Norm had been cleared to play cricket with the Moe High School XI . In the first encounter with his old team, Norm opened the batting (and Norm was very useful bat in his day).However, Jumbo had a plan…. the first three balls Jumbo bowled were outswingers and Norm ‘shouldered arms.’ Jumbo followed up with the inswinger on fourth ball and Norm ‘shouldered arms’ again only to lose his off stump. As the disgruntled Norm Byrne left the ground he said to Jumbo, “who taught you that one?” Jumbo giggled and replied, “you did Norm… you did!”
• Yet another fiery incident occurred on the Morwell Oval in the late 60’s. If you hit or snicked Jumbo for four runs, you knew where the next ball would be!! However, Morwell United CC batsman Adrian Ross, (who was new to the area) pulled a shortish off Jumbo over the mid wicket boundary. The ball landed at the base of the Grand Stand for 6 runs. Col MacGregor, standing at first slip, ordered the other slips to move back a yard. The next ball was a quicker delivery that struck the batsman on the elbow shattering his elbow. Adrian was forced to ‘retire hurt’ and was helped from the ground.
As part of John’s eulogy, he also read the following colourful description of play that was written in ‘The Morwell Advertiser’ in March 1963 by Leo Sedundary. Under the heading “Batsmen Scatter at Yallourn”….. Leo’s story goes like this:-
“The ovals were furrowed by the heels of retreating batsmen as they left the scenes of battle with the knell of tumbling stumps and balls resounding in their ears. Morwell could not lay bat on the Jumbo ‘thunderbolts’, the Yallourn Colts speedster went on a rampage to have the Morwell bats shying away from the popping crease like a frisky colt at a flooded creek.
James skittled the stumps of seven Morwell batsmen, with only 17 runs against him in the ledger, whilst from the other end Ron Cox bagged 3 wickets for 15 runs. Yallourn Colts skipper, Norm Byrne, pulled the strings of his puppets in a manner of a Parisian entrepreneur.
Norm sent Jumbo in for a short opening burst; pulled him out of the firing line for a breather then whipped him into the fray again to mop up the Morwell tail. In the process, John the “Jumbo” James added another hat-trick to his trophies.”
In conclusion John White added the following comments regarding Jumbo’s prowess in other sports...
Jumbo also excelled in other sporting fields such as:-
• Squash - it is said he was a better than the average competitor.
• Badminton - as I understand it, he could have represented the State.
A NOTE ABOUT JOHN WHITE.
John White lived in Yallourn and played cricket for Yallourn CC and later for Morwell CC. John is an ardent cricket follower and during his playing days, scored more than 10,000 (ten thousand) runs for Morwell Cricket Club.
John has been President of the Central Gippsland Cricket Association since 1988 and his term as President has spanned more than one quarter of one century. It is an extraordinary period of stewardship in any sporting organisation and John has received wide and warm praise for his significant contribution to country cricket.
John has been nominated for a prestigious Cricket Victoria Award for his fifty years of service to cricket.
John is the author of ‘Coaldust Cricket’. It is a comprehensive record of the Yallourn & District Cricket Association (1924-49) and the Central Gippsland Cricket Association (1950-2011). The book traces the origins of cricket in Yallourn as far back as 1925. John’s research into the players, clubs and scorebooks is admirable and his book will become a valued and important cricket reference years to come.
John officiates as an umpire in local cricket matches these days.
Congratulations are in order to John for his ‘life in cricket’ and Virtual Yallourn is most appreciative of John’s contribution regarding Jumbo James. We hope John will write more stories for Virtual Yallourn, which you can check by clicking top tab "Search" and type in "cricket".