A STORY ABOUT THE CLOSEST CRISPO GOT TO WINNING A SQUASH PENNANT





As a lot of you would know Bill Crisp (Crispo), was a top sportsman in a variety of sports, especially Cricket were he played A Grade for Norths for many years, and was a member of a couple of successful Teams that won premierships for Norths. And at one stage he was a member of the Queensland Sheffield Shield Squad.

He also played top grade Tennis and played in the Queensland Tennis Titles for a few years. Bill was also a very good Squash Player, but at the Boomerang/Gabba Club he became more known for his inability to win a Squash Pennant, Bill first started playing squash pennants in approximately 1959 for Annerley at that time, before he moved over to Boomerang in 1962-3 and the last season Bill played was in the 1983 Winter Season.

Bill was no mug with the Squash Racket, as he was runner up to Ken Fraser in the the Club Open tournament in 1964.

In all Bill would have played for very close to 50 Seasons and was unable to win a Squash Pennant, which was for many years was a topic discussed at the Clubs Drinking Holes over the years. As a lot of you would remember Bill had a very sharp tongue if anyone got on the wrong side of him, so there were not too many members game to bring up the subject with Bill, two members that were game or sillier or in most cases drunk enough to do it were Alan George Griffiths and Jeffery George Seipel.

Bill's reply was always very colourful when this subject came up, mainly blaming the Club Selectors for picking him with groups of players that had no talent, and (as he was Captain of most teams he was in ) players that couldn’t follow his instructions on how to win the match when he gave them the usual pep talk between games.

In the 1970/71 Summer Season Bill decided he would take over the coaching of the E1 Team that was playing for the club that year, the members of the team were Alan Griffiths, Jeff Seipel, Doug Loveday, Geoff Gebhard and Mick Muclahy.

To cut a long story a bit shorter, the team under Bill's guidance made the grand final and of course were successful, which was celebrated long and hard under the tree after the game.

Griffo and Jeff approached Joe Williams and asked if when the club ordered the Pennants Made for the winning members, if it was possible to make up a 6th pennant and put Crispos name on it with the word coach on it, of course that was done.

On the presentation night for the club trophies and pennants, and the winning team and their coach went up on to the stage to accept their pennants, when the team accepted their pennants, there was a fair bit of stirring going on mainly from Griffo and Jeff and most of it was towards Crispo, mainly saying that if Crispo kept playing for another 20 years he would never win a pennant in his own right.

Crispo’s speech was a classic, firstly giving the selectors and his team mates that he had played with for all those years a (Serve); he then turned his attention to the members of the team he had been coaching during the season, especially Jeff & Alan.

First off he said that he had no idea that sport of any sort was ever played in any grade lower than B Grade, and that must have been a mistake by the maker of the pennant to have put E Grade on it, he claimed the Pennant Maker must have been short sighted or pissed and put an E instead of a B on the pennants when he printed them up.

He also made comment that the team the boys beat in the final was the nicest group of young Ladies he had ever met, he then informed the Group of club members at the Presentation that he had a perfect place to put this wonderful pennant that he had been awarded, he would put it on his Toilet Wall, and every time he was in there he could think about all the “Shit Players” that were in the team.

If Bill was right and it was the selector’s fault that he was unable to win a pennant after all those tries, I am not sure if Richard Arnold would agree with Bill's theory, because many years later Richard informed me that he played a bit longer than Bill but did have a break for about 4 seasons after he got married, and he also was unable to win a pennant during his squash career.

And many of the players that played in the club during the early days of Boomerang would have know that Richard was the first Club Champion and also the first winner of the Open club Handicap event. So also in Richard’s case he was no mug with the Squash Racket, and from what he tells me he is still having a regular hit of both Squash and Tennis, and I wouldn’t be giving any secrets away by saying Richard would be in his 70’s now.