The SCG Home Dressing Room door leading out onto the players’ balcony. It’s test time and, directly outside, seating reserved expressly for longstanding (50 years plus) SCG members.
Foreword by Kerry O'Keeffe
No-one around the Australian first-class cricket arenas is trusted more than a good, hardworking room attendant. I don’t know why but players feel comfortable around them ... inside a dressing shed the ‘roomie’ is a strong barrier between the athlete and the outside world. He is privy to certain things that the media would salivate over ... room attendants are confidantes ... Ricky Ponting and company are safe in the knowledge of what goes on in the room, stays in the room. It has long been the case.
Throughout my first-class career, the home roomie at the Sydney Cricket Ground was Cec Davies—a charming old fellow who the players adored. Cec witnessed tantrums, arguments and anti-social behaviour after matches which would have made Oasis blush. Not a word of judgement ever passed his lips ... and every morning on arrival at the ground there he was, pouring you the best cup of tea ever made. Every New South Wales and Australian player of the nineteen sixties and seventies revered old ‘Cec’ whose eyesight was only good enough to paint pads and whiten shoes. Cec couldn’t see who was batting or bowling but it didn’t matter to anybody. Only three Sydney dressing shed regulars were fully trusted—Cec, the cellarman Sid Gibson and respected veteran cricket writer Ray Robinson.
Siege mentality is a strong factor in dressing rooms. The Cec Davies of the 21st century is Bobby Barter the incumbent SCG home dressing room attendant. Through a shared love of St George sporting teams, I have known Bobby forty years ... if there is a man with more passion for the Red V, the blue bag or the baggy green—I’ve not met him! Standing fractionally above stump height himself, Bobby played as a specialist wicket-keeper for the Penshurst club into his mid-fifties. He played his heart out on the coir mats and afterwards drank schooners with the panache of a Dougy Walters.
Bobby was an old-time cricketer. He has written poems skillfully for decades and served a solid apprenticeship for over twenty years as team manager with the Randwick–Petersham club. In the summer of 2004, Bobby Barter found his Shangri-la—he was appointed to serve cricket inside the New South Wales and Australian dressing room at his beloved SCG. He regards it as a privilege.
Bobby has written Behind the Green Door out of love and respect for the game and the player. It contains insights never before released to the public domain ... the chapters are honest and insightful. Bobby’s strong bonds with Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Simon Katich and Brett Lee are obvious. Not too many years ago I was walking out of the Sydney Cricket Ground after a test match alongside a recently retired player. I asked how Bobby had been going as the ‘roomie’. The player’s lip curled and delivered succinctly ... ‘the best!’ before striding on.
Well here is ‘The Best’s’ book. Please enjoy it.
Kerry O’Keeffe
