The Gold Coast Sportsfishing Club are very proud to announce that retired Aussie cricketing legend, avid fisho and all round larrikin Merv Hughes will be our very special master of ceremonies at this years classic.
Merv is a well known speaker, joker and story teller and is sure to bring something special to this years event. He is an author of the fishing book In the Deep and a regular tournament competitor. Merv will round up our days activities, talk with the public, collect your stories of the day whilst alos plugging our sponsors products.
The planning is well under way for Classic and you should be planning to make what promises to be a Classic Catch and Release tournament.
Merv Hughes
During and long and successful professional playing career, Merv Hughes became one of Australia’s most popular sporting legends, loved by cricket fans around the world, and also one of its most recognisable.
Merv was a big-hearted fast bowler with a matching big trademark handlebar moustache who represented Australia between 1985 and 1994, helping it to re-climb the ranks of Test cricket.
From an early age Merv displayed a passion for sport that eventually led him to professional cricket and in 1978-79 saw him playing district cricket with Footscray-Edgewater. The club subsequently named their main home ground after him; the Mervyn G. Hughes Oval. Merv was selected for Victoria in 1981-82, and made his first appearance for Australia against India in 1985-1986.
During his international career Merv played in 53 Test matches, taking 212 wickets. He played 33 One Day Internationals, taking 38 wickets. He took a hat trick in a Test against the West Indies at the WACA in 1988-89, and went on to take 8-87. In 1993, Merv saved his greatest series performance for the 1993 Ashes tour, when bowling partner Craig McDermott was ruled out with a twisted bowel. Over the six Tests, Merv took 31 wickets from almost 300 overs, helping Australia to a 4-1 victory over England. As well as playing for his country, Merv also represented the Victorian Bushrangers, Essex in English county cricket and Australian Capital Territory.
Following a serious knee injury sustained during the 1993 Ashes tour, Merv made only a fleeting Test comeback the following summer, finishing with 212 career wickets. However, his enthusiasm for the game continued long after his international days. He appeared for the Canberra Comets during their experiment against the states in domestic one-day cricket, and became a veteran of his local club Footscray, the same club that had set him on his journey to professional cricket 20 years earlier.
Merv made the step into high-level administration when he replaced Allan Border as an Australian selector from 2005-2010.
As well as cricket, Merv also has an enormous passion for fishing and it is fishing that was the inspiration behind his first book, Caught in the Deep , published in 2006. According to Merv, you don’t have to be a pro to enjoy fishing, all you need is a sense of adventure, a love of the outdoors and a willingness to learn from those who know!
With a successful international career spanning over 30 years and a mischievous sense of humour, Merv is a hugely popular keynote, after-dinner and motivational speaker. Always a crowd favourite, his favourite topics are, of course, cricket and fishing!
Thanks to Fishing Monthly some questions with Merv below
Name, partner and where’s home?
1. Merv Hughes married to the gorgeous Sue and we live in Essendon, but Werribee is home.
2. Your first fishing memory or first fish?
Probably as a little tacker at Apollo Bay. Dad used to go up in the hills to a mate’s farm to help out and have a few beers. He’d give me a stick with about 4 foot of string with a bent nail tied to the end and send me down the creek which was about a half an inch deep and about 5 inches wide. He’d tell me if I was patient I would catch something and I used to believe him. I was 17 at the time! Nah, I was actually 3 or 4.
3. Your favourite fishing style?
When I get sick of throwing lures, bottom bouncing sounds like a plan. I love it all.
4. How many days a year you fish?
Nowhere near enough, maybe 20 or 25 days a year.
5. Your favourite fishing memory/moment?
Nude fishing in the dark at Bynoe Harbour in Northern Territory. A long but very funny story!
6. Your favourite fishing destination/s?
Port Phillip Bay, aboard the SS Bounty, with good friend Captain “sinks like a” Bligh, dropping a line in the Maribyrnong River chasing bream with my two boys. Trying to snag a marlin off Port Stephens with Ross Hunter. In Cal’s dam in central Victoria on the redfin. Or fishing off the rocks after anything that pops its head up. Or even chasing rainbow trout in Uncle Frank’s dam at Apollo Bay with brother in-law Shaun – I love it all.
7. Who are your top five cricketers you played with or against in international cricket?
I’ll only mention those I played with and No. 1 with daylight in front of them all is Allan Border. The others in no particular order are David Boon, Ian Healy, Shane Warne and Steve Waugh. But there were plenty of others who were fantastic, talented or just good fellas, some were even all three.
8. What do you see for future of Australian fishing?
If people do the right thing and only take what they can eat, it will all be good.
