ON THIS DAY: ALDERMAN FLATTENS FAN... AND DISLOCATES HIS SHOULDER

The Cricketer looks back on famous moments in Ashes history during England’s trip Down Under

The Cricketer looks back on famous moments in Ashes history during England’s trip Down Under.

Today it’s the tale of a boozed-up pitch invader, a tackle from behind and the unfortunate consequences...

When Terry Alderman decided to take the law into his own hands on a sweaty day in Perth in 1982, the decision cost him a year of his career.

Alderman - an intelligent fast-medium pacer from Western Australia whose incessant grin led to Baggy Green fans coming to know him as the Smiling Assassin - claimed 170 wickets in 41 Tests for his country but perhaps his most famous scalp was a 19-year-old from York who never played a professional game.

It was November 13, the second day of an Ashes series wound tightly up by Channel Nine’s fervently patriotic and wildly stereotypical advertising, designed to capitalise on the emotions of the 1981 campaign in England.

Alderman had just been edged through the slips for four by Bob Willis, taking the tourists past 400, when two-dozen overly-oiled England supporters climbed the fences that lined the WACA perimeter.

 

Thirty-five years ago, such scenes were not uncommon… what followed certainly was.

Egged on by a combination of heat and hooch, one of the pitch invaders targeted Alderman with a slap around the ears as the bowler returned to his fielding position.

“I have played a bit of Aussie Rules and I know what a gentle tap is and what a thump to the head is, and that was a thump to the back of the head,” the bowler later reflected.

That man’s name was Gary Donnison, a teenage ex-pat from the UK who had settled in Gosnells, a suburb of Perth. He was described as “objectionable” and “semi-drunk” by reports at the time.

Alderman, enraged, set off in chase. 

“I could see that there were no police in the vicinity so I attempted to apprehend him."

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It took less than 20 strides for Alderman to catch up with his shirtless attacker and haul him to the ground.

Somehow, somewhere in the melee, Alderman popped his shoulder.

As Dennis Lillee and Allan Border arrived to pull Donnison from the floor, their team-mate was writhing in pain - much the worse off for his citizen’s arrest. 

“I was immediately aware I was injured ... it was very painful indeed,” recalled Alderman at the end of his career.

Border defended his paceman’s actions in the immediate aftermath, saying: “You wouldn't accept such treatment while walking down the street."

But they came at tremendous cost: Alderman didn’t bowl another competitive over for a year.

^{Terry Alderman is taken from the WACA on a stretcher}

While the Aussie was removed from the outfield on a stretcher, Donnison was escorted from the ground in Police custody. As they left, fighting erupted in the crowd for no discernable reason. It led to 26 arrests on various charges.

The players left the ground for 14 minutes as Police tried to cool the WACA down, with several supporters who had been nestled in an ‘England’ section shown the way to the exit gates.

“I sincerely hope they don’t come back to the game,” bit Richie Benaud on commentary.

Donnison later got a year’s probation, 200 hours of community service and a $500 fine. He is said to have gone on to become a born-again Christian, married and father to three children.

Alderman, in addition to his dislocated shoulder, got one of cricket’s oddest stories to add to his after-dinner repertoire.

Bizarrely, one of those arrested and charged during the scraps in the stands - Jim Killick, who spent a month in prison after being convicted of assault - played club cricket with Alderman. Jim Maxwell’s observation, three decades later, that “the WACA seems to be a place that attracts the hoons” sums it up nicely.

SAM MORSHEAD 

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