An opportunity to partner with the School in making this grand vision a reality

A message from the Headmaster

This initiative – Weigall: The next century of sport at Grammar – is grounded in our strategic vision of Grammar’s past, present and future.

Grammar has thrived throughout its history as a school that combines academic, sporting, musical and other co-curricular pursuits into an ambitious mix in which the effervescent and often wonderfully esoteric ambitions of our young men can come to the fore.

In the life of the Grammar boy of today, the academic, sporting and musical pillars of the School are of fundamental importance. The School’s outstanding academic record is the result of a devotion to the education of the whole boy across his academic, sporting, musical and broader co-curricular interests.

It is therefore unsurprising that we intend to invest significantly for the future in these areas that are so fundamental to the ongoing education of Grammar boys.

Most immediately, the School has planning in place for an extensive and ambitious development of the sporting facilities at Weigall.

This development will ensure that Grammar can educate and inspire boys for the next century across a full range of sports and forms of physical exercise. Its design includes first class aquatic facilities, state-of-the-art, nationally compliant court facilities for the AAGPS sports that our boys love to pursue, facilities for exercise and personal health, and significant upgrades to our cricket and tennis facilities at Weigall.

This booklet outlines the opportunity for the wider Grammar community to play a part in this outstanding initiative.

I invite you to read on and consider how you can partner with the School to make the grand vision embodied in this strategic development into a living reality.

Dr RB Malpass
Headmaster

A message from the Chairman

Some of you will know that my discipline background is in paediatrics and child health. More than 25 years ago, one aspect of my academic responsibilities at the University of Newcastle was the health component of the teacher training degree for Personal Development, Health and Physical Education. So, it will be no surprise that I have had a sustained interest in sport, exercise and physical activity in children and adolescents. Research into sport has grown extensively in the last decades.

Specifically, the health and educational benefits of sport and exercise have been well documented. We have good evidence that sport improves academic achievement and cognition. It helps concentration, improves attention, aids memory and improves psychomotor function. Sport also improves mental health. In a school population, this decreases the risk of depression and increases self-esteem and happiness. Sport has both short term and lifelong health benefits. In the short term, it helps maintain a healthy weight, builds strong muscles and endurance, improves blood pressure and aerobic fitness, helps maintain normal blood sugar levels, and strengthens bones. This converts to lifetime benefits, decreasing the risk of type 2 diabetes and decreasing the risk of osteoporosis as an adult.

In addition to these powerful benefits of sport, people often focus on other possible benefits, such as leadership, discipline, teamwork, cooperation, resilience, character building, courage, endurance and determination.

School based sport has been and will continue to play a pivotal role in the liberal education that we provide at Grammar.

Weigall has served as our sports hub for more than a century. It is time for us to expand the facilities at Weigall to meet the demand for the wider range of sports that we offer, such as basketball, volleyball, fencing and taekwondo; to provide swimming facilities that have been unavailable for boys at Edgecliff Preparatory and have been suboptimal for boys at College Street; and to complement our existing sports with improvements such as indoor cricket nets and a gymnasium at Weigall.

The Weigall sports precinct is an investment in the future of sport at Grammar and an investment in the health and wellbeing of our pupils. I hope that you will help us to turn this vision into a reality.

Emeritus Professor RL Henry

Sport: a vital part of our vision for Grammar

Grammar is a school which not only respects but enthusiastically embraces diversity amongst our community of young renaissance men. The boys are encouraged to chart their own pathway through the School’s rich offerings across academic, musical, artistic, sporting and co-curricular dimensions.

Our desire is for our boys to emerge from Grammar with kindness, respect for others and a confident humility.

Grammar’s academic heritage is one of achievement and sobering excellence. This has been founded upon a commitment to inspire each boy to achieve to the best of his ability and to venture beyond the bounds of any syllabus or examination.

The vitality of our academic approach is underpinned and enhanced by the subtle aestheticism of our extraordinary musical and artistic programmes, as well as the competitiveness and camaraderie afforded to our boys through their ongoing experiences in AAGPS sport.

Sport is an essential participant in this aspirational triumvirate in which academic work is supported and inspired by a dedicated musical and arts culture that is combined with genuine and dynamic engagement in sporting competition.

Back in 1937, Headmaster Dettmann was a strong advocate of the character-building role of sport and his advice is as relevant today as it was then:

“[The purpose of sport is] not merely to win matches or to bring athletic distinction to a few exceptionally gifted players … [G]ames can help boys to learn to concentrate with joy on the job in hand, to realise the other fellow has rights and merits of his own, to take hard knocks with a grateful grin as well as give them without malice or ill will or loss of temper.”

Educating the whole man

Over the decades, Grammar has produced some outstanding young men who have distinguished records of sporting achievement. Beyond their sporting performance, these notable Old Sydneians have often been highly accomplished in their professional lives.

Their outstanding achievements bear testament to the important role that sporting endeavour plays in the holistic development of young men who have the character, discipline and determination to contribute positively to the society and culture in which they live.

Frederick Robert Spofforth (OS 1869) Test Cricketer and Fast Bowler

Known as ‘the demon bowler’, Fred Spofforth (b.1853–d.1926) was attracted to cricket as a boy. In 1874 he played for NSW and went on to tour England with the Australian teams of 1878, 1880, 1882, 1884 and 1886. On one occasion he took 10 wickets for 20 runs at Lord’s and in 1879 he took the first ‘hat-trick’ in a Test match and later twice obtained 3 wickets in 4 balls. In the Test of 1882, he took 14 wickets for 90 runs; a record that was not surpassed by an Australian in a Test match for 90 years. This feat helped Australia win by 7 runs in a victory from which the Ashes were derived.

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Edwin William ‘Slip’ Carr (OS 1917) Olympic Sprinter and Rugby Union Rep

EW ‘Slip’ Carr (b.1899–d.1971) claimed four international rugby caps and was a sprinter at the 1924 Paris Olympics. Carr served in WWI but contracted malaria and was repatriated after travelling to the Middle East. He was a captain in Eastern Command in WWII and resented not being permitted to join the ‘men at the front’. He ran in the 100 and 200 metre events at the 1924 Olympics and was chosen to be the country’s first flag bearer. He remained in Europe to compete against the best sprinters for 99 wins from 102 starts. He returned to Australia after winning the Duke of Edinburgh’s Cup.

Frederick Claude Vivian Lane (OS 1898) Champion Olympic Swimmer

When four years old, Freddie Lane (b.1879–d.1969) was saved by his brother from drowning in Sydney Harbour and took up swimming. He completed his schooling at Grammar where in 1896 he won the 100 and 200 yards handicap events as well as the All Schools’ 100 yards championship. In 1897–98, Lane set an Australasian record of 64.8 seconds for 100 yards. He was Australia’s first Olympic swimmer and the only one at the Paris Olympics in 1900 where he won the 200 metres freestyle title in 2 minutes, 25.2 seconds, winning by 5.8 seconds. During his career, he won 350 trophies, including over 100 medals.

Albert ‘Tibby’ Cotter (OS 1901) Test Cricketer and Light Horseman

Albert ‘Tibby’ Cotter (b.1884–d.1917) attended Grammar from 1899 and was a keen sportsman. He was a fast bowler and was only 18 when in 1902 he debuted for NSW. He then produced such a strong performance against the touring English side that he was chosen for the Australian side for every season until 1911. Albert enlisted in the AIF in 1915 during WWI and was a member of the 12th Australian Light Horse Regiment, who participated in the last great cavalry charge at Beersheba, Palestine in October 1917. Tragically, he was shot dead and was the only Australian Test Cricketer to be killed in the Great War.

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Eric Langton Apperly (OS 1907) Champion Amateur Golfer and Architect

Eric Apperly (b.1889– d.1951) won the NSW Amateur final five times between 1912 and 1930. He became the first golfer from NSW to win the Australian Amateur Championship final. He also won the 1921 Australian Foursomes Championship and was selected for the NSW state team for more than two decades. Eric graduated with a degree in Architecture at the University of Sydney which led to him designing both buildings and golf courses. He designed and supervised the construction of the magnificent WWI War Memorial in Big School and was co-architect for the School House dormitory block in Randwick.

Ainslie Beric ‘Joe’ Gould (OS 1928) Olympic Rower and Coach

AB ‘Joe’ Gould (b.1909–d.1994) commenced his sporting career at Grammar from 1922, leading the School in rugby, rifle shooting, athletics, cricket and rowing and as captain of the combined GPS First XV. He joined the NSW Police Force and their Rowing Club in 1935 and was selected in the winning NSW King’s Cup crew. Joe represented Australia at the Berlin Olympic Games in the eight-oar crew, and in the King’s Cup in 1938, as well as the Australian crew at the British Empire Games. He coached the winning Grammar First VIII at the 1955 Head of the River.

Arthur Cooper ‘Johnny’ Wallace (OS 1919) Rugby Union Rep, Coach and Barrister

AC ‘Johnny’ Wallace (b.1899–d.1975) was Captain of the First XI, First XV and Captain of Boats, winning two premierships and three Head of the River events. Following school, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and later admitted to the Bar. Wallace played nine rugby tests for Scotland and captained the 1927–28 Waratahs tour to the UK and France (retrospectively given Australian Test status). He went on to coach state and Australian teams. He served in WWII in the AIF and became a captain in the Australian Army legal department. Wallace coached the Wallabies again in the 1950s.

Building on the past for a new future for Weigall

In October 1906, the Old Boys’ Union submitted a resolution to the Trustees of the School requesting them to purchase seven and a half acres of land at Rushcutters Bay suitable for “sports and recreational purposes, in order to mark the Jubilee of the School” in the following year. The Old Boys’ Union (as Turney notes in his history of the School, p.130) “undertook to arrange for the collection of funds to form and equip the ground”.

Thus it was that the origin of the Weigall sports ground, the home of so much Grammar sport, was made possible through the generosity of members of the Grammar community.

Headmaster AB Weigall, nicknamed ‘The Chief’, was the pioneering second headmaster of Sydney Grammar School for over 45 years and during his time the future Weigall sports ground became part of the School.

In 1908, Weigall noted about the new sports ground that “we have, indeed, the strongest grounds for gratitude to those who have done the work so quickly and so well. It is satisfactory, also, to notice that the boys of the School are beginning to exhibit a pride and an interest in their new possession. It remains to be seen how far they will utilise the facilities now placed at their disposal for the purpose of physical exercise and healthy amusement”.

Without doubt, over a century of Grammar boys have made fine use of the sports ground named in that Headmaster’s honour and memory, and they have done so with great pride over those many years.

Similarly, we can have no doubt that Weigall himself would have been more than a little interested in what our School has planned for the twenty-first century use of the facilities dedicated in his name.

Grammar sport will truly find its collective home down at Weigall with the development of the new Sports Centre, the central component of an overall plan that includes:

The flagship multi-purpose Sports Centre with swimming pool, extensive indoor courts and exercise facilities.

New tennis courts and facilities on Weigall 4.

Redevelopment of football pitch and grandstand on Weigall 4.

Dedicated cricket practice centre on Little Weigall.

A new future for Weigall

The visualisation video below provides an insight into the scope and quality of the new facilities.

Imagine a summer Saturday: while basketballers and water polo players are competing in the Sports Centre, the cricketers and tennis players will be in view across the fields engaged in their own contests of strength, character and skill.

Just so, on a sunny but cold winter’s day, while the rugby and football teams dig deep as they battle their opponents on the Weigall turf, the halls of the Sports Centre will be alive with the School’s volleyball teams, fencers and taekwondo boys fighting it out amidst dedicated facilities for each sport.

The School’s ‘Back to Weigall’ days will be familiar to many for their vibrant celebration of the School’s sporting endeavours.

On these days, Sydney Grammar School gathers en masse on Weigall to enjoy our sport as a full Grammar community, including the past, present and future Grammar families and Grammar boys whose lives are and have been so intertwined with the School.

Once these planned developments are completed, every Saturday will feel like a ‘Back to Weigall’ day.

We are sure that ‘The Chief’, when contemplating the purchase of those seven and a half acres of land back in 1906, would have been quietly impressed by this renewed vision of Weigall’s role in the future life of the School.

How you can support us

Given the ambition of this planned development, we are seeking the support of the extended Grammar community to assist in funding what is intended to be the next century of sports facilities for Grammar boys.

The projected costs of the development are $85 million of which we intend to raise $25 million through the present fundraising campaign.

In the spirit of the Old Boys’ Union of 1906, we welcome any level of support with gratitude as we reach towards this substantial target.

Many of those generous people who donated back in 1906 may not have been remembered or commemorated around the playing fields they helped to purchase, but in this present campaign for the renewal of Weigall’s facilities it is our intention to recognise substantial donations in a visible way.

We intend to honour those who make a significant donation through a range of commemorative fixtures and markers around the Weigall precinct.

Similarly, if members of our community are sufficiently invested in certain locations within the overall Weigall sports ground redevelopment precinct, naming rights may be available in recognition of generous and transformative contributions.

Lastly, we are opening up the possibility of naming rights for major components of the development in recognition of major donations to the overall fundraising campaign.

If you would like to explore donation opportunities further, please click the email link below, or call Ms Sharon Ditmarsch on +61 2 9332 5935

communitygiving@sydgram.nsw.edu.au

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