The Tigers began their twisting and turning life as the Balmain Electorate Club after a meeting in Balmain Town Hall on 16 July 1897. It was called the electorate club because, at that time, players could play only for their local clubs and boundaries between clubs were based on electorates.
After that meeting it applied to join the NSW Cricket, and was accepted despite Leichhardt trying to have Balmain absorbed into its boundaries rather than be a stand-alone club. It’s good to see that interclub rivalries and strategic game-playing is as much as part of cricket tradition as turf pitches.
The club sought to attract players by hosting an all-stars match at Birchgrove with teams captained by Test cricketers Monty Noble and Frank Iredale, before a crowd of more than 4,000. It worked.
Balmain started in the second grade competition, and did well, but couldn’t make it into first grade. In 1900, in an effort to reduce the number of clubs (another tradition), Leichhardt and Balmain merged, with Leichhardt holding prominence. The amalgamation only lasted a few years – time enough for us to win our first premiership (third grade) – and the Balmain District Cricket Club emerged.
As an interesting side note, for some time, the birth of the Tigers was put at 1900, but the correction to 1897 was made by Doc Evatt, later to be a High Court judge, Attorney-General and leader of the ALP. The club had connections.
In this era the Tigers had some of the greats. Birchgrove was home to Arthur Mailey, Archie Jackson and the man whose career has inspired many to keep their implausible hopes up, Bert Ironmonger, who made his Test debut at 46, was still playing first class cricket at 53, and briefly ran a Balmain pub.
Birchgrove stayed the home ground until 1947, when it moved to Drummoyne Oval.
The Tigers gradually increased their strength, winning six club premierships over the 20 years from 1971/72. Dave Renneberg, mystery spinner John Gleeson, Ian Davis and Greg Dyer all represented Australia, and the Tigers. Some of the great administrators – people such as Cliff Winning and Fred Benett, who went on to become chair of the Australian Cricket Board, made their mark. And we started to attract international stars of the future, like Eli Prasanna, Mike Gatting, Graham Thorpe, Bill Athey and Russel Arnold.
The women’s program’s sinuous path to the present is best seen as starting with Ann Mitchell, who played for Sydney University in the early- to mid-60s. When she graduated, she had to leave the students and, with others formed the Graduates Club.
The Graduates was a strong team, with internationals Patsy May and Debbie Martin, among others. In 1983 they were subsumed by Balmain District Cricket Club and became the Tigers.
At the same time, the Sydney Uni side and a few others amalgamated to become the Marrickville United Women’s Cricket Club, boasting internationals Christina Matthews, Belinda Clark (right), Sally Moffat, Lisa Keightley and Julie Hayes.
By the mid-90s, with both Balmain and Marrickville struggling for numbers, the clubs merged and formed the Balmain United Women’s Club, joining the Sydney competition of four grades and an under-18 team.
As soon as Christina Matthews became a Tiger, she started the administrative work on fully integrating the women’s club into the Balmain District Cricket Club. Her hard work paid off and the club as we know it today started to emerge.
Some very successful years followed. Notable Tigers in this period include Leonie Coleman, Michelle Goszko, Emma Liddle, Martha Winch and Tamara Roach. Then followed some fallow years before the club rebuilt around the turn of the century.
The club’s financial fortunes turned down around the turn of the century. In 2001/02 Balmain and UTS formed a partnership as UTS Balmain, which didn’t last long. Then in 2007 Balmain was taken over the SCG Trust, now known as Venues NSW. The name Sydney was available – a previous Sydney Cricket Club having folded – and the Tigers took on the Sydney name to honour the SCG connection.
But through this period, the women’s division dominated. Between 1996/97 and 2006/07, we won eight club championships and seven first grade premierships, with players like Ellyse Perry, Rachael Haynes and Alyssa Healy. A quiet decade followed, where we sometimes needed to combine with other clubs to field teams, before a resurgence – four club championships, three first grade premierships and two T20 cups since 2019/20.
Similarly, the men’s division has had its peaks with six premierships across all grades between 2015/16 and 2020/21. It has continued to host future internationals such as Brendon McCullum, Joe Denly and Jacob Bethell.
The Tigers have had to change to adapt to survive, over and over, and will keep doing so.