1932/33 – Betting and Beer?

“Give me my money, you hook-nosed hog!
Give me my money, book-making dog!
But he disappeared in a kind of fog.”

Banjo Patterson. Australian poet

“He’ll drink to his queen and country
He’ll drink and he’ll drink again still
He’ll drink’til he falls, or the publican calls
Yes he’ll drink to his fill, of the Six O’clock swill.”

Australian. Anon

IF SPORT is the opiate of the people in Australia, gambling and betting come a close second as an additional addiction, or maybe the one is the reason for the other. The poker machine had yet to make its appearance in any numbers in the early 1930s, but betting on horses, greyhounds and anything else that was “bettable” was rife. As we shall see, the poker machine is currently the chief culprit in the gambling habit in Australia, but over $A2bn is spent each year on horses and greyhounds, with the Northern Territory recording an annual per capita figure of over $A350. It was therefore only natural that betting should have played quite a significant part in the cricketing events of 1932/33.

In his book Cricket My Destiny, Walter Hammond says that at the beginning of the 1932/33 tour, they had heard that an enormous aggregate sum had been placed in bets against England. He also says that this affected the sharpness of the barracking when it became obvious England were going to win. The weight of betting direction seems perfectly logical, given Australia’s performances in 1930, 1931 and 1932. Asked about this, Harold Larwood said that although he had no factual evidence it was generally known that a lot of money had been laid on Australia and this would have been perfectly natural for a country that was quite mad about sport and where betting was culturally endemic. However, he agreed with Hammond that the barracking became louder and louder, and the language worse and worse, as England’s position became stronger and stronger.

Up until 1930, the Ashes series between England and Australia had gradually moved Australia’s way. From the first Test in 1876/77 to the turn of the century, England had won 26 Tests to Australia’s 20, and from then to 1912, the score was England 14 and Australia 15. From 1921 to the 1928/29 tour, with England recovering from the ravages of the First World War, results were even more in Australia’s favour, England six to Australia’s 13; a total of 46 England victories to Australia’s 48. If those statistics were not enough, then along came Bradman in 1930 with a series total of 974 runs, including scores of 131, 254, 334 and 232 at an average of 139.14. Bradman was the crucial factor in Australia winning that series 2-1.

Australia were in the ascendancy and in Bradman they obviously had a clear match-winner. It was Australia’s 50 Test wins to England’s 47. In 1930/31, Australia beat the West Indies 4-1, Bradman again chipping in with scores of 223 and 152. However, in the following year, Australia hammered the South Africans 5-0, with Bradman accumulating 806 runs at the phenomenal average of 201.50, including scores of 226, 112, 167 and 299 not out. Led by an over-confident press which predicted an easy victory, Australia felt they could look forward to a series against England in 1932/33 when they would once again dominate by means of the run-scoring colossus, Don Bradman. What was not appreciated in the press-led euphoria of this run-feast was that both the West Indian and South African bowling attacks were weak and neither of those sides contained a match-winning bowler. Had this factor been considered to put things into perspective then the reaction might have been a little more measured but in this Australia became a victim of their own press propaganda and thus the betting became even more loaded and money was lost because their own newspapers said they were on to a certainty.

Due largely to the social factors outlined by Professor Geoffrey Blainey and with the dominance of well-paid males in the population of the emerging nation, gambling and betting has a much longer and stronger tradition in Australia than in most other countries. The Totalisator, for instance, was an Australian invention. In a 1999 report for the Victorian Casino and Gaming Authority gambling was identified as an essential feature of Australia’s popular culture and also a thriving and profitable industry, which makes massive contributions to the revenues of the State Governments. The social cost and misery caused by this deflection and squandering of household incomes are considerable, but no Government will deny itself the tax benefits the gambling industry produces for its coffers.

To demonstrate the sheer volume of betting activity, we only have to turn to the figures for a typical year, for example 2002/03. In just this one year, the volume of gaming machine betting activity in the two States of Victoria and New South Wales exceeded $A6bn, with a lot of this being spent by people dependent on welfare. The most recent figures for New South Wales show gambling revenue for the State Government to be $A7bn. The population of these two States totals 11 million, so in just one year, the amount of money spent on gaming machines equated to over $A500 for every man, woman and child. One rugby league club in Sydney, for instance, has over 1,200 such machines, and just about every pub and club has gambling machines on the premises and in the State of New South Wales alone there are over 100,000 machines and in Australia as a whole, 200,000 – or one gaming machine for every 100 men, women or children.

Such is the extent of gaming machine activity that Australia now boasts 20% of all the world’s electronic gambling machines and the highest number of such machines on a per capita basis. New South Wales has a Minister for Gaming and Racing and, for a State population of only six and a half million, there are 75 horseracing tracks. Greater London alone would need about 100 such tracks to compete. There are now 13 casinos operating in Australia (the UK would require about 40 to compare), generating a gambling income of $A2.5bn. Total gambling turnover in the country is now in excess of $A13bn – that’s nearly $600 for every man, woman and child.

A recent survey in The Economist placed Australia head and shoulders ahead of any country of similar European culture with annual gambling losses per adult resident amounting to costing A$1,300 – four times that of Britain. Australia was the second country in the world, after the United States, to establish a local branch of Gamblers Anonymous in 1960 and there are now over 200 Gamblers Anonymous meetings each week throughout the country.

The extent of gambling activity in 1932 can be judged by the fact that within just three miles of the Sydney Cricket Ground there were then four horse racetracks – Randwick, Kensington, Victoria Park and Rosebery. Officially sports betting was illegal until the 1980s but of course this did not stop any Australian from betting on cricket and because sports gambling was illegal, actual cricket betting statistics are hard to come by. Nonetheless, given the central position of gambling within the Australian culture, it is almost inconceivable that money, and a lot of it, was not placed on Australia for the 1932/33 series.

Although it has been maintained that cricket is unique in fostering team spirit, it is nonetheless just about the only team game where one individual can have such an overwhelming influence. A bowler can take all ten wickets with no assistance at all from the fielders, and a batsman, provided he has someone to stay with him at the other end, can make practically all the team’s runs. Bradman was a seemingly unstoppable phenomenon and, on his home wickets, there would have been every reason for the Australian punter to feel that he was on to a good thing in backing Australia for the 1932/33 Test series.

Given these factors, it seems strange that the gambling aspect and the money lost, which almost certainly would have had a very strong influence on the public and media reaction at that time, have to date been either ignored or overlooked in previous accounts of the series. A lot of people, both cricket followers and gamblers, would have seen their hard-earned and scarce wages going up in smoke as the series progressed and, therefore, it was perhaps only natural that a reason had to be found for this complete reversal of what had been so widely predicted and it is perhaps not surprising that the term “bodyline” should itself have been invented by a press who had been primarily responsible for such optimistic and misleading forecasts.

Bookmakers, too, who had offered very long odds against an England win, would have found themselves facing a similar problem and paying out large amounts of money or quietly disappearing. The gambling factor may also explain why there was no protest about leg-theory until after the third Test. Australia lost the first Test, but had been without Bradman. However, McCabe had scored 187 not out in their first innings, thus showing that the English tactics could be mastered. Bradman returned for the second Test, which Australia won. Although leg-theory had been used by Jardine in both the first two Tests, there was hardly a murmur – Arthur Mailey going so far as to say: “I had never condemned the leg-theory attack from a sporting angle and had always contended that it was legitimate and thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of cricket. But I expected the leg-theory to break down sooner or later, because I had faith in the Australian batsmen. For this reason I was pleased that they had gone so far without making any public ‘squeak’ or complaint.”

If there was indeed some other factor involved such as the amount of money in the process of being lost, then that would go a considerable way in explaining the timing of the protest as Australia were on the verge of losing the third Test. However, the Australian cricket authorities could hardly mention this as a reason for their complaint and this issue may also explain why it was that a group of political and business leaders approached the Australian Cricket Board to take some action after the third Test had been lost at Adelaide. The gambling lobby today carries enormous political clout and, although a large proportion of the population feel the social costs are serious and distressing and want to see the gambling outlets and facilities reduced, none of the State Governments have taken any action. The problem may have been smaller in scale in 1932/33 and certainly the population was less then, but the question should be asked whether the gambling losses were a factor that influenced the inflammatory and distorted newspaper coverage at that time.

An additional issue that may have added to the 1932 fuel was the Depression. When this was at its height, a number of Sydney pubs and clubs turned to fruit machines to make money. These were hidden in private gambling dens, and although evading the prying eyes of the police the Australian Labor Party found a way to impose a “levy” on these illegal takings to provide party funds. These dens did not provide extra avenues for bets on the cricket but they did further drain the already dwindling pockets of the working man. Just what the betting details were is not known, but it would not be difficult to hazard a guess that they would have ranged from the series outcome to how many Tests would be won by each side, and the number of runs and centuries to be scored by Bradman and his colleagues. With the 1930 Ashes series as a guide, plus the fact that against South Africa and the West Indies, Australia had won nine out of ten Tests played, it was the exciting thought that a complete whitewash of England was on the cards. The odds would have been heavily in favour of Australia and Bradman. Equally so, the odds on an English win must have been very long.

Whatever the manner in which the bets might have been placed, by the end of the third Test with Australia 2-1 down and only two to play both punters and bookmakers were in serious trouble. In his book, The Formative Years of Australian Cricket, Australian author Jack Pollard recounts an episode in the late 19th century when a riot spurred on by bookmakers erupted at the Sydney Cricket Ground. England were playing New South Wales and spectators jumped the fence and swarmed on to the pitch, demanding that an umpire’s decision be reversed.

In the ensuing melee, the England captain Lord Harris was struck by spectators, and another England player had his shirt ripped off. The whole fracas was caused by gamblers and bookmakers who could see their money going down the drain due to what they considered to have been a poor decision. A similar melee erupted during the first Test in Sydney in 1903 when Clem Hill was given run out by umpire Crockett with the official having to leave the ground protected by two detectives. Plum Warner described the demonstration as disgraceful and unwarranted and only a personal appeal from the Australian captain, Noble, dissuaded Warner from removing his team from the field.

However, there was probably yet another factor that influenced or even actually provoked much of the Australian reaction to the third Test and that factor would have been alcohol. To a large extent alcohol, and almost exclusively beer, is seen by a large proportion of the Australian male population as an essential part of the masculine identity (although over the population as a whole wine consumption is now enormous). Drinking beer with his mates is what a bloke does. Reference was made earlier to the fact that in the early 1930s anyone who drank wine would have been regarded with some suspicion and according to a recent article in The Australian asking for a glass of wine with a meal could have provoked the rejoinder: “What are you, some kind of poof?” Or a comment such as: “The dining room is for eating, and the bar is for drinking.” With attitudes of this sort in the background, it is perhaps easier to see that Douglas Jardine would have been a relatively simple target for the press and the ridicule of the barrackers.

Although male attitudes towards women have improved considerably from the time when a woman was seen as little more than an inconvenient necessity, male feelings towards his beer and his mates have not changed that much. One only has to witness the increase in the volume of behavioural problems as alcohol takes hold at cricket matches and other similar sporting venues for this to be demonstrated today, but in the early 1930s when there was little else except betting and beer as social outlets for an Australian man, it would have produced a potent mixture of explosive reaction, particularly when the national cricketing icon and the nation’s cricket team were on the losing end.

Reference has been made earlier to Geoffrey Blainey’s book, The Tyranny of Distance. He describes Australia as a society that was very much male-dominated until the 20th century, a society where due to the dearth of women, men had only to support themselves and consequently, much of this personal affluence was spent on alcohol and gambling. The incidence of drunkenness in the late 19th century was high. This problem continued into the 20th century, culminating in a massive riot fuelled by alcohol at an army barracks in Sydney in 1916. This appears to have been the final straw and consequently prompted the Government, with the active lobbying of the churches, to introduce a 6pm closing time for all pubs which became known as the “Six O’Clock Swill”.

This was another Australian phenomenon, and it lasted until 1954. With only an hour available for drinking in the pubs after the working day was finished, it became a common practice for men to down as many beers as possible in the short time allowed by the law. It was estimated that 90% of all alcohol drunk was consumed between 5pm and 6pm. This was a period of drinking frenzy and pub bars were designed to cater for it. Bar faces and walls were tiled, and the floors were linoleum for easy cleaning while some patrons strapped themselves to the bar rail to maintain their position and posture – and this happened five days a week throughout Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald described it recently as: “The ritual filling-of-the-jars, the five o’clock rush-to-inebriate, the synchronised public vomiting.”

In the 1930s, pubs in Australia were fundamentally male preserves and for the main part simply places to get drunk. The men corralled themselves in one area, while any women were dispatched to a separate part of the building for their sherry or port and lemon. In fact, only a brave woman would drink in a pub on her own, even if the rare ladies’ lounge did exist. Even long after the Second World War an article stated: “The custom remained that the correct place for women was in the ladies’ lounge, while the blokes got on with their drinking in the public bar, ankle deep in spilt beer and cigarette butts.”

All pubs in Australia were in effect what would have been seen as public bars in England. Whether this was due to mere egalitarianism or simple function is difficult to decipher, but perhaps the attitude was: “If it works as it is, then why spend money to make it more attractive?” Twenty years later little had changed and an English teacher, out in Australia on a short contract in 1953, noted: “The pubs were frequented only by men and from the little I saw as I walked past they looked like men’s toilets, white tiles from floor to ceiling. You didn’t want to walk past if it was coming up to 6pm as that was when they closed and the Aussie men in there tried to drink as much as possible before that time. Many could be seen lying dead drunk in the gutter.”

This scenario was reinforced by Australian journalist Cyril Pearl in his book So You Want To Be An Australian which came out at about the same time. His advice to new Australians was: “You are admitted to the bar on the understanding that you will drink beer, more beer, and nothing but beer, in large quantities and as quickly as possible.” With this element as the dominant cultural influence, is it any wonder that the cool and dignified Douglas Jardine was such an obvious target?

Donald Horne noted in his book: “For ordinary people it was a brutal pleasure – jostled in austerely equipped bars, dazed by the bedlam, gulping beer down and perhaps later spewing it up.”

And yet instead of rejoicing at having moved on from this appalling scenario it is revered today with nostalgia as being “fair dinkum” Australian.

Beer was the preferred drink of the Australian male and to a far greater extent than in England. It was seen as quintessentially working-class and masculine, “the sweating, beer-swilling Aussie bloke”, as the Sydney Morning Herald recently put it, and “the hard-working, true-blue, beer-drinking Aussie male”. Time was when an Australian working man would spend as much on beer in a week as he did on his mortgage and be proud of it. A light beer would only be risked if no one was watching. Sections in cricket grounds such as the old “hill” at the Sydney Cricket Ground were areas for the massive consumption of beer, with the crowd behaviour becoming increasingly boorish, loud and offensive as the day’s play wore on and a combination of sun and alcohol took its toll. To some extent this continues today.

In 1932/33, Australian cricket crowds were essentially male and, with the potentially dangerous combination of male ‘mateship’ coupled with beer and betting, the increasingly aggressive and antagonistic behaviour falls into perspective in a series that unexpectedly drifted away from Australia. During this time the consumption of beer together with betting would easily have fuelled cricket crowd antagonisms and when you add to this the biased distortions and inventions of a local press coupled with serious unemployment blamed partly on England, it is not difficult to see that the slightest spark, or incident, would have fired this tinder dry situation.

Even today, this landscape is largely unchanged. Early in 2004, State and Test cricketer David Hookes was killed at the age of 48 outside a Melbourne hotel in a drunken brawl for which he was partially responsible. Although he played in only 23 Tests, with a modest batting average of 34, his death was greeted as a national tragedy, almost as though a demigod had passed on. The Sydney Morning Herald described him as an immature, extroverted, egocentric character, whose language was frequently crude, who drank too much, and whose attitude towards women was stone-age. Yet he seems to have been admired as a typical Australian larrikin.

These factors, plus cricket and beer, combined to create a press hero. Such was the reaction that the house of the security guard involved in the fracas was fire-bombed and the hotel itself was subjected to physical attack and damage. It was a quite astonishing response to the death of someone who was hardly a role model and who, in any event, had largely brought his demise on himself. But to some he was a cricketer, had played for Australia, and so must have been a ‘hero’.

A later newspaper article, examining his death, quoted reports that drunkenness is not only tolerated but is actually celebrated. Moreover, punch-ups outside pubs were all a part of what was proudly described as “Australian drinking culture”, a culture the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre has recently described as “revolting”. It may be said that England is now drifting in the same direction, but Australia got there first, and a long time ago. The link between beer consumption and cricket success can be brought up to date. Following England’s 3-1 defeat of Australia in the 2010/11 Ashes series it was reported that beer sales had dropped by 20%.

With a lost series, some reaction might have occurred anyway, but leg-theory, the relative failure of the national cricketing icon, lost jobs, lost wagers, alcohol and colourful exaggerations and fictions in the press ensured that all these disappointments grew into a national rage. A target to blame for this fury had to be found, and that target seems to have been Douglas Jardine.

And who better to fan this resentment than the press?