Date: Saturday, December 27, 2025
Location: Princes Park, Carlton
Time: 1pm
Captain: Rev
The Big Picture
Wowsers, this is the big one. The Aussie v UK Quokkas match up that has been in the making for about 16 years since the antipodean branch of the club started up.
For those unfamiliar with the history of the club, it all started in about 2003 while I was pretending to work in financial services in London and noticed an ad for an indoor cricket competition.
I used my time pretending to work to shoot an email to friend and local raconteur, Skip, and it was agreed that this may be a lark. A few years after that, and with a participation award under our belt for turning up to every indoor game despite getting our arses handed to us, with started playing outdoor games.
The avalanche of enthusiasm and adventure only continued from there, with tour games in Europe, the establishment of the team in Melbourne, and more tour games throughout Australia, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
The Melbourne-based team has gone on to play matches against the Victorian Blind Team, the Victorian Deaf Team, the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre, a brewery, a vineyard, and had disbanded teams strung together just to play us.
We inspired the start of the Launceston pub league, have participated in games to promote inclusiveness, been invited to walk in the Pride festival, been interviewed on radio and in the written press (remember that?).
On Bruny Island we enjoyed fresh oysters and wallaby steaks at lunch, on Rottnest Island we met actual Quokkas, in Adelaide we raised money for kids charities, one of our players was anointed President of the place while we were on King Island and we found a Geocache under the clubrooms in Nerrena.
It seems that there is fair amount of interest in having a lark, all over the place.
All of this has involved a lot of effort and a lot of people, we’ve had 151 players line up for The Aussie Quokkas. Some have been last-minute call-ups who have been in the “one and done” basket, while others have stuck around. Some are no longer with us. Vale.
Now, 20-odd years later, the UK-based Quokkas are in Melbourne to watch their national mens team try to salvage some pride, drink some decent coffee and have a hit with the Melbourne team.
Selfishly, I’m as excited about this one as I was at the start. Long may it continue.
Pitch and Conditions
Bit of a funny game this, a tour game, but in Melbourne. Some of our players will be able to walk to the game faster than they could drive to most home games.
After trying to get us a turf wicket, we have ended up on a synthetic wicket, though at Princes Park – which is pretty cool.
For those not familiar with the place, Burke and Wills made their first stop on their quest to map the interior of Australia just around the corner from the park, hopefully that isn’t an omen for the game itself.
The Carlton Blues Football Club used to play their home games at the oval at the north end of the park and won about 2/3rds of the games they played there. Considering how well things have gone for the team since, they may want to reconsider moving home.
Melbourne’s weather has ramped up to 11 of late, mixing between 40 degree days and thunderstorms. But yeah, it’s probably arsonists starting bushfires, not climate change.
Saturday looks like it will be a dry day with a top of 25, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Team News
The squad (at the time of writing & in no particular order) is:
- Rev (c)
- F1
- TBC
- Dusty
- Hendo
- Daisy
- Phantom
- Gladys
- Local
- Prez
- Radar
- Flanders (tbc)
Not sure if Gladys or Radar will take the gloves, guess we use the Quokkas approach and work it out on the day.
Facts and Stats
- This will be Gladys’ first turn out for the Quokkas in many years, in fact the last time he turned out for the Quokkas was for the UK-incarnation, making him one of the only players to play for both teams. The silver fox does have an impressive batting average of 56.67 and a high score of 53;
- Similarly, Phantom hasn’t been sighted since before Covid. Rumour has it he has been building a train set so impressive that god herself is jealous of it. The great man does have 232 YPCA runs at 15 (high score of 31) and 9 wickets at 30.44;
- This will be Prez’s 20th YPCA match, the master of inswing delivers her overs at a miserly 6.76 runs for each;