Apart from having the larger room, and being a lot better than me at pretty much all the sport we tried, the biggest influence my older brother Gavin had on me was to get a job and move away just before I turned ten years old. That set in train events that would prove to be incredibly important in my life, without me being aware of it for many years.

My early years at Salisbury Heights Primary School coincided with Gavin’s time at Salisbury East High School. While I was grappling with school-work (an early confession: I wasn’t always the most dedicated student), Gav was moving towards finishing his secondary education.

Primary school was a blur. I probably frustrated all of my teachers at some stage. I’d usually be talking to the kid next to me and had a poor attention span. I spent a lot of years in the front row where the teacher could keep a close eye on me. I didn’t mind school but didn’t like the classroom work that much. I wanted to play all the time. As soon as the bell went, I would get out as fast as I could to play. I would barely eat lunch and hare off to join one of the massive games of cricket or footy or soccer that would run on the ovals and in the playground.

As you’d imagine, that sort of attitude didn’t lend itself to glowing reports home. I wasn’t disruptive, but I definitely wasn’t engaged. If anything, I was pretty shy around people other than family. When we had parent–teacher night, I would ask Mum to go rather than Dad, because he would be the one who would be into me about doing better at school. I’d hide the report card and make sure Mum saw it first—just because she would be slightly easier on me!

I had a few good mates and was pretty friendly with most people, but I didn’t enjoy being in the spotlight and being singled out, so I was happy enough blending into the pack and not catching the eye. When I did catch someone’s eye, it was no surprise that it was for sport as opposed to academia.

One of the teachers, Stewart Russell, who was also the school cricket coach, found time during his patrolling of the playgrounds to watch one of the countless games of disorganised sport that would spring up like the weeds in the school oval each lunchtime. It happened that his roving eye landed on me playing against some of the bigger boys when I was in year 5, and he thought I had some promise. So I was asked to join in with the school team with the grade 6 and 7 kids. That meant interschool cricket, and so my foray onto the playing fields against other local teams also caught someone else’s eye. The coach from neighbouring school Salisbury Primary, Peter Bajcic, was something of a fixture in junior cricket with Salisbury Cricket Club, our local club, and I was a logical recruit with Gavin having already been on the scene. Peter was a very important early influence on my cricket. He thoroughly taught me the basics of the game, and made sure he emphasised things like the importance of fielding, an aspect that sometimes gets overlooked in juniors with the emphasis on batting and bowling.

I was also very into soccer, with the family influence on Dad’s side of things steering me in that direction. Two of my uncles, Alan and Pete, played pretty high-level local league soccer in Adelaide, and my cousins were into playing. I was skinny but fairly quick and able to get around the field without too much bother. I played all over—midfielder, defender and striker—and it was soccer that was my game in the winter rather than Australian Rules, even though I enjoyed having a kick around with the kids at school.

During the course of preparing for this book, I jotted down some of the stand-out memories from my childhood and it struck me afterwards how lucky I have been. Having both parents working, with one of them at Qantas, meant I had a relatively comfortable time of it compared to some of the kids I knocked around with. We had some great family holidays, with a trip or two to Fiji, and a memorable one to the USA when I was about nine along with John and Fay. We spent three weeks there, including a trip to Disneyland where you can’t not have fun. I remember going on the boat to Alcatraz off San Francisco, and a trip to Tijuana in Mexico where it was hot, noisy and chaotic. It was a great adventure for a young fella. I also came away from Las Vegas with a favourable impression … although not for the gambling, in case you were wondering. While Dad and Uncle John were taking on the slot machines, I was at our hotel’s in-house bowling alley. I bowled that much it felt like my arm and shoulder were stretched like a piece of Blu-Tack.

It wasn’t long after that I had my comfortable structure shaken up with the momentous news that Gavin was leaving home. He’d been in his final year of school weighing up his options for a career or study when Mum came home with the news that there was a job going with Qantas that sounded right for him. The downside was that it was in Sydney. After agonising for a while, Gavin decided to take the job, and so within a week or so of finishing school, he was on his way to Sydney and I was suddenly an only child. Gavin stayed with Mum’s brother John during that time in Sydney. John worked for St John Ambulance and stayed in the residences at the Randwick Ambulance Station near the Prince of Wales Hospital.

I missed Gav at first, no doubt. I loved my big brother but he wasn’t around as much as I would have liked, especially as I got older. He would get home regularly, at least once a month for a few days, and when he was back, it was like old times, for a while anyway. We’d be out in the driveway as soon as feasible. After a while, the bangs from the balls hitting the garage roller door were getting loud enough to disturb Mum and Dad’s dinner, so one weekend Dad worked out how to rig up a tennis rebounding net across the open garage … peace and quiet reigned when one of us went fishing outside off-stump or nailed a fine leg-side glance.

Gav’s absence aside, I benefitted from being the only kid in the household. I had Mum and Dad’s undivided attention, and they were happy to take me all over the place on the weekends and base a lot of their social time around what I was up to.

We visited Gav in Sydney sometimes too and I would stay with him and Uncle John at the ambulance station. I hated it there. I would sleep in an old hospital bed, one of those ones that folded up, in a spare room, but I would hope we spent as little time there as possible.

Uncle John became ill when I was heading into high school and Gav helped to look after him until he died. He had never married and, unbeknownst to me, left the bulk of his estate to Gavin and I. Under the terms of the will, Gav was one of the executors and he and John’s lawyer had to administer the estate until I came of age. But I was not to be informed, which in hindsight must have been bloody hard for the whole family to keep a secret from me for that seven or eight years until I turned eighteen. As I got older, I sort of knew that there was some sort of inheritance—‘John’s money’ was a phrase I heard occasionally—but didn’t really twig what it meant.

So I carried on, blissfully unaware of the windfall that was waiting down the track, and the way it would shape my attitude to money, in particular, in my future.

I was always fortunate when it came to getting things—there were the occasional hand-me-downs but by and large, I would get new stuff. It was almost a given that when Christmas and birthdays rolled around, there would be some new sporting equipment somewhere for me. Mum and Dad were always generous—probably spoiled me a bit to be honest—and I remember that Mum used to take the approach that if you wanted something badly enough, then you should get it at the time and not worry about whether you could afford it or not. And if you couldn’t get it then, then work out how you could in the future. She’d sometimes buy herself some jewellery that she couldn’t afford straight out, and would lay-by it, do without something to save some money and then pay it off. I probably drew some of my own impulsiveness from that and didn’t suffer too much buyer’s remorse. Certainly I was more likely than Gavin or Dad to do something rash or impetuous with money, especially when I had some once I got older.

Mum and Dad were both united in their belief that when it came to Gavin and me, we should not miss out on an opportunity for financial reasons if they could help it.

As I grew and high school loomed, Mum was particularly keen for me to attend another secondary school rather than the local high school where Gav had gone. I suspect she wanted me to go where I would be challenged, academically for starters, but also where the emphasis on sport, and the resources available, would give me a leg-up.

Trinity College, a noted private school in Adelaide, had recently opened its new campus at Evanston South and that was our preferred choice. Well, it was our choice, but their choice of me wasn’t so clear-cut. We duly applied on the standard application form, which had a solid emphasis on academic performance, and just as duly missed out. Perhaps we hadn’t sold me on them as well as we could have.

Mum told my teacher Mr Ian Ross that we’d missed out and how disappointing it was. Mr Ross then informed the principal, Zan Majesklo, who was stunned at my fate.

‘What!! But he’s the best cricketer we’ve ever had!’

It was suggested, with some firmness, that we revisit the application and, with some assistance from coaches and teachers, highlight my level of sporting involvement at school and club level. So cricket, soccer, athletics, football … whatever could be identified. I’d had some state recognition through soccer training squads and had been playing club cricket with Salisbury, including up in an older grade. Whatever we put down must have given them a good enough reason to rethink.

I was off to Trinity College.