Saturday 4 February will be a very special day for Wellington and former Canterbury umpire Jeremy Busby. He will stand in his 500th club match when Taita hosts Wellington Collegians on the first day of a two-day Pearce Cup match at Fraser Park. It is a remarkable achievement, one that has probably been bettered very rarely.
Jeremy Busby with a keen eye on Eastern Suburbs El Cheapo spinner Sean O'Connor in last Sunday's Wilkinson Pearce Cup One-Day Wellington club final at the Hawkins Basin Reserve.
Busby was just 18 when he started umpiring in Christchurch in November 1979 a few days before the Erebus plane disaster. He made rapid progress mentored by New Zealand’s top umpire around that time, Fred Goodall, and through the highs and lows of a chequered career Busby’s passion for umpiring is still clearly evident. He has been appointed to several first-class games, numerous top provincial one-day games, and age-group and women’s one-day internationals.
Busby would probably have little idea of how many club matches he has officiated in without his trusty scrapbooks, which have allowed him to accurately record his umpiring appearances. For example tomorrow’s Pearce Cup match will be his 391th in the top grades of the Canterbury and Wellington competitions.
Among Busby’s strengths has been the training of umpires. He became involved as early as 1983, and he was the regional training officer in Canterbury for many years before being made a life member of the umpires’ association in 2006. Busby’s training expertise was swiftly utilised the following year when he moved to Wellington in being named its RTO, a position he currently occupies.
His introduction to umpiring at 18 occurred entirely by accident. A promising left-arm spinner with the St Albans club, Busby badly broke the thumb on his bowling hand in a football training accident in 1979, and facing a summer of inactivity he decided to try umpiring. His first appointment was to a Canterbury third grade match between Burnside High and Christchurch Boys’ High at a time when several of the college 1st X1s played in the men’s competition. His fellow umpire was Brian Aldridge, the then secretary of the umpires’ association, who went on to become one of the game’s best international umpires and New Zealand Cricket’s national umpiring manager.
Busby progressed rapidly in that first season. In the New Year he was appointed to his first Christchurch premier club match between Sydenham and Riccarton at Sydenham Park, when his partner was Rodger McHarg, who became a test umpire and succeeded Aldridge as national umpiring match. Busby also stood in three national women’s provincial matches with the Canterbury association hosting the annual tournament that summer.
Of the many matches, two stand out for Busby, one at club level and the other at first-class. In the former in November 1981 veteran Lancaster Park off-spinner Bruce Irving was seeking his 1000th premier club wicket, and it had attracted considerable media attention. With Irving bowling from Busby’s end he felt under pressure, and he was relieved when Irving achieved the milestone by bowling an opponent.
The first-class match happened to be Busby’s first-class debut when Canterbury met Wellington at Lancaster Park, more recently named AMI Stadium, in 1997. Unusually, the toss was made twice after Wellington objected to two replacement players in the Canterbury lineup after the first occurred, and it took the arrival of New Zealand Cricket chief executive Christopher Doig to settle the matter in Wellington’s favour.
The start was delayed an hour, and Busby remembered he left his more experienced colleague, Aucklander Malcolm Glenny, to do all the talking on behalf of the umpires. Canterbury went on to win by an innings.
Busby’s other consuming sporting interest is the Wellington Phoenix football team, and its climb up the Australian A League table is a source of great delight to him.
Article by Peter Bidwell