Laurie Nash
Sportsman
Died when: 75 years 295 days (909 months)Star Sign: Libra
Laurence John Nash (2 May 1910 – 24 July 1986) was a Test cricketer and Australian rules footballer.An inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, Nash was a member of South Melbourne's 1933 premiership team, captained South Melbourne in 1937 and was the team's leading goal kicker in 1937 and 1945.
In cricket, Nash was a fast bowler and hard hitting lower order batsman who played two Test matches for Australia, taking 10 wickets at 12.80 runs per wicket, and scoring 30 runs at a batting average of 15.
The son of a leading Australian rules footballer of the early twentieth century who had also played cricket against the touring Marylebone Cricket Club in 1921, Nash was a star sportsman as a boy.
Following the family's relocation from Victoria to Tasmania, he began to make a name for himself as both a footballer and a cricketer, and became both one of the earliest professional club cricketers in Australia and one of the first fully professional Australian rules footballers.
Nash made his Test cricket debut in 1932, against South Africa and his Victorian Football League (VFL) debut in 1933.While Nash had great success in football, he faced opposition from the cricket establishment for his supposedly poor attitude towards authority.
This led fellow cricketer Keith Miller to write that his non-selection as a regular Test player was "the greatest waste of talent in Australian cricket history".
During World War II Nash rejected offers of a home posting and instead served as a trooper in New Guinea, stating that he wished to be treated no differently from any other soldier.
Following the end of the war, Nash returned to South Melbourne and won the team goal kicking award, although his age and injuries inhibited any return of his previous successes.
Nash retired from VFL football at the end of the 1945 season to play and coach in the country before returning to coach South Melbourne in 1953.
After retiring, Nash wrote columns for newspapers, was a panellist on football television shows and was a publican before his death in Melbourne, aged 76.
