The Declaration
The History of the Magazine
The 1975-76 season was the 50th birthday of the Coromandel Valley Ramblers Cricket Club. It was decided to hold a past versus present players cricket match as part of these celebrations, with the match being the easy part of the season. It was also decided to produce a publication relating to the statistics of the club to celebrate its 50 years of existence, which was far more difficult than originally expected. The only records the club had were score books dating back to 1946-47 and a few minutes from Annual General Meetings. Fortunately, the Adelaide and Suburban Cricket Association had kept statistical records of each club through score sheets that were completed by clubs at the end of each season. These score sheets were kept under ‘lock and key’ by the then association secretary, Ron Halliday. Our club was able to borrow them for a couple of weeks throughout the season and Peter Hough, Ron Schmidt and myself carefully combed through these score sheets to compile statistics for every player from 1946-47 until 1975-76.
As a point of note, 1946-47 was the first season that the Coromandel Valley Ramblers Cricket Club joined the Adelaide and Suburban Cricket Association and due to this, the records were kept accurately as a matter of need. Prior to the 1946-47 season, records of past players and their achievements were sketchy or just not available, as the club played in another association from its formation year of 1925-26 until World War II. Due to the lack of records from these years, Peter, Ron and myself decided to focus on what was available and leaving aside any incomplete statistics out of the initial magazine.
The Name
‘The Declaration’ officially became the name of the end-of-season magazine in its 5th edition in 1979-80. Prior to this, the magazine contained a couple of articles and mostly statistics throughout this period. Due to this, the end-of-season magazine simply went without a name.
The name ‘The Declaration’ actually came about in the newsletter item to club members in November, 1979 and it has been with the club ever since. Whilst my recollection of why this newsletter was called ‘The Declaration’ is vague, but it only seemed natural to continue on with the naming when it came to the end-of-season magazine. While newsletters have come, gone, come and gone, the end of season magazine has remained the one constant for all club members to enjoy.
From 1979-80, ‘The Declaration’ has remained the name of the end-of-season magazine and is still readily mentioned by everyone within the club towards the end of each season and where they may sit on the various tables of statistics. It is still a major reason as to why many past and present players attend the presentation dinner, as it provides them with the only means to collect one of these cherished magazines.