Sport
CS Team of the Century ǀ The safe pair of hands behind a premiership dynasty: Glenn Hart
To celebrate its centenary, Cricket Shepparton will be immortalising its greats by selecting a Team of the Century at an event in November.
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The shortlist — consisting of 30 members — recognises those past and present that have had a large impact on the game of cricket both in the region and beyond.
In the lead-up to the ceremony, The News will run special feature pieces on all 30 players, before the release of a commemorative magazine on November 25.
Arguably the most physically demanding position on a cricket field — a reliable wicketkeeper is crucial to any good cricketing side.
For Central Park-St Brendan’s that man was once Glenn Hart.
A model of consistency and the tone-setter behind the stumps, Hart was a key cog behind the success of the Tigers’ Haisman Shield dominance of the early 2000s.
Fast forward from Hart’s final premiership hurrah with Central Park-St Brendan’s in 2012, Hart is still donning the whites every Saturday, turning his attention to ushering in the next crop of young cricketing talent in the region.
His service to cricket in the Goulburn Valley spans some 30 years, and for that alone, his place among this list of 30 is set in stone.
Hart grew up playing cricket at Shepparton East Primary School, where he would first meet future Tigers teammate and lifelong mate Sam Ahmet.
The two would play together at East until under-14s, before Hart made the move to Karramomus where his two older brothers were playing.
After finishing his junior career at the Bloods, representative cricket called and Hart played his way into Richmond’s Dowling Shield set-up, winning a premiership in his first season.
Hart was called up to represent Victoria’s under-17s for a state carnival in Queensland the next year, playing alongside future Australia batsman Brad Hodge.
It was only then that Hart took on the position he held for much of the later stages of his career.
“I’d done a bit of wicketkeeping as a junior and always liked it, but I was chosen as a batsman in the Victoria under-17s side and hadn’t done much keeping up until then,” he said.
“It just happened that the wicketkeeper that they’d chosen got badly sunburnt one day, so I had to take the gloves.
“After that Richmond asked me to come back to play seconds and thirds to try and progress as a keeper.”
After a season in Richmond’s senior set-up Hart’s work commitments on weekends proved too great for regular trips to Melbourne and he made the switch to regular club cricket back home, plying his trade for Karramomus in the Haisman Shield from 1992 to 1994.
Hart’s brother, Shaun, was drafted to Brisbane Bears in the 1989 VFL Draft and his parents joined him in the move up north.
Hart got married in 1995 and six months later would also make the switch to Queensland to join his family in the Sunshine State.
He would return in 2001 after a few years away from the game and joined up with a mate at Cooma Cricket Club in Kyabram District Cricket Association, taking a break from the keeping gloves to roll the arm over instead.
It was at Cooma that Hart first made contact with his future skipper, Rohan Larkin.
“He was at Stanhope at the time and had a won a few premierships there, he had a chat to me about coming to Stanhope, but as it was I just wanted to play pretty casual cricket with this mate of mine,” Hart said.
“I had a year at Cooma and another year off, it must’ve been at the end of ’02 Larko and Sammy (Ahmet) came and had a chat to me.
“I couldn’t resist the chance to join back up with Sammy, we’d still kept in touch, it was a no-brainer to go and have a crack with him again.”
A grand final loss to Mooroopna in Hart’s first season at Central Park-St Brendan’s was one of the very few defeats he would suffer in his time at the Tigers.
The famed seven-peat followed and Hart was central to the Tigers’ success.
For the next several years, Hart says, a special bond grew between the boys at Deakin Reserve who pulled on the baggy yellow-and-black.
“The passion, the joy and camaraderie we shared in that team was phenomenal, obviously we had a long history which helped, as does success,” Hart said.
“It was an amazing time in my life, to share it with Sammy, Larko and Doyley, everyone was like family because we shared in a lot, not just cricket, but a lot of family stuff.
“You saw their kids be born and grow up during those years, it was a special time and I was so fortunate to have been a part of it.”
After a torn calf kept him out of much of the Tigers’ grand final loss to Karramomus in 2012, Hart stepped way from the game for a number of years before making his way to Kyabram.
He coached the Redbacks through their entry to the Cricket Shepparton arena and to a Twenty20 premiership in 2017-18.
Now 48, Hart expects he’ll have another year on the park at Kyabram, where he’ll play alongside his son, Ethan.
“I’m looking forward to it, hopefully we can have a good season together, he’s mad for his cricket and just loves it,” Hart said.
“He works hard at it and it’s just good to see him enjoy it.
“That’s what my Mum and Dad were like, they just wanted us to enjoy it and be part of the team and I’ve got exactly the same feelings for him.”