In a child’s life they will often come across adults who will freely give of their time to provide activities or experiences that make their childhood something they look back on with fondness.

At school, many teachers will volunteer to take extra work coaching sporting teams, dance groups or choirs.

It goes without saying that schools would not function without the input from parent helpers in such things as transport.

In any community there are many adults who will do the same, sometimes for decades. Gerringong is certainly a place like this.

In my childhood I also had many people like this and I will admit I was remiss in thanking them for what they did as a child.

Some of the wonderful people from Gerringong I have touched on in previous articles, Bob Rogers and Bob Daniel in the scouts and Ken Hodges in the surf lifesaving club are ones that come to mind.

But for me cricket was a big part of my childhood. And there are two gentlemen who had a big part in that - Athol Noble and Norm Carradus.

Come the Gerringong cricket season in 1977-78, I was part of a group of young blokes around 18 years of age or so. We were a tearaway group who liked to have a good time but we did enjoy our cricket. We put together a team and entered the third-grade competition.

Now being immature and more than a little bit disorganised we needed someone with a lot of maturity to mould us from being a raw lot with potential to being a game-winning group.

Sort of like a father figure/coach/captain in the Wayne Bennett type.

So, into the void steps Athol Noble.

Now this was something he did not have to do. He did not have some family member or associate that inspired him to take on the job. He had already done 10 lifetimes of service to many groups in Gerringong.

He did it because it needed to be done and he was a man who always stepped up when needed.

And yes, he did the job. He marshalled this team together, trained them up, led them like a general and we won the premiership - my only one.

The fast bowlers would do their stuff to begin with, of course (Paul Rose was very fast!). But if this did not shift a dangerous batter then Athol would come on himself.

He was not a young man but he would roll up and bowl the juiciest of balls that would just bounce and sit nicely on the pitch.

An accomplished first-grader would easily dispatch them all to the boundary in short order.

These were not first-grade players. They could not resist the temptation to try and whack them over the boundary.

Alas, most of them went down the throats of yours truly and the rest of the fielders in the outfield that Athol had placed out there for just that purpose.

Norm Carradus was a builder who lived in Werri Beach with a wife and two children. I was lucky enough to be the same age as his son, also named Mark.

During the winter months, Mark would play soccer and Norm would devote his time to that, but come summer, it was time for cricket. There was no chance of us boys playing cricket, however, without a coach and that is where Norm stepped in.

Once a week, after school, we would leave Gerringong Public School, which was where the park in the main street is now, cross the street and buy some chips from Miller's Fish and Chip Shop which was where the surf shop is now, roughly, then walk over the hill past what was the Scout and Guide hall (GLaM) and down to Jubilee Oval, (Michael Cronin Oval).

It used to have a concrete cricket pitch in the middle. We would get set up at the practice nets which were behind the oval beside the coral trees.

Norm would turn up from work. I remember he always wore a work shirt, shorts, and workbooks with gaiters.

We would then proceed to each have a bowl and a bat with some fielding practice thrown in under his watchful eye.

Woe betides any person who mucked around. I remember getting into trouble, quite justifiably I might add, for doing the same.

Come Saturday, if we were playing at home, we would turn up early to drag out the mats to cover the concrete pitch to play our game. Then we would rush over to see where we were going to bat, I was usually number 10, I was not very good.

But hey, we were not a great team and often I would still get to bat twice. One week the team only got a total of nine

Away games were a little trickier. There was no one else, no special buses to transport all of us. Norm had a huge Ford station wagon, which, empty of tools, would squeeze, kit included, all the team for the trip to Albion Park, Shellharbour or some other place.

We never thought twice about being squashed up in the back. It’d never be allowed today.

After I retired, I did a lot of research on the history of the Gerringong Cricket Club. I came to appreciate, apart from having a very distinguished senior career as a batter, just how much time Norm dedicated to junior cricket.

On the honour board under the heading of “Gerringong Juniors” the name Carradus is very prominent.