Brad Campbell had an extraordinary run with the bat.
Tongala cricketer Brad Campbell had a remarkable run with the bat in the 2000-01 cricket season.
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The determined and gifted opener’s run-making heroics included an unbelievable Melbourne Country Week carnival when he led the former Kyabram District Cricket Association to a historic win at the top tier — Provincial Group — at the annual carnival.
Competing at Melbourne Country Week since its first carnival in 1922, it was the first and only time the KDCA had won at the top level of country week.
Campbell made an incredible 447 runs in that carnival with two centuries — 114 against powerhouse Mornington Peninsula on day two and 102 on the final on Friday in which Kyabram defeated Bendigo.
His average for the week was a staggering 89.4 and at the time Victorian Country League president Warren Richies said he believed it was the most runs ever scored by a batter at the top level of competition at the carnival.
Campbell also had scores of 80 against Geelong on the opening day of the series, 60 against Albury Border on the third day and 91 against Ballarat on the fourth day.
Country week that year was in the middle of a run-making spree by Campbell, in which he put together 10 successive scores of 50 or more in various competitions to write himself into the KDCA record books.
Brad Campbell’s remarkable run.
When he scored 204 not out for Tongala in a club game against Nathalia in that hot run it swelled his runs aggregate in the space of 14 days to 717 runs at the better-than-Bradman average of 119.5.
Including McPherson Shield inter association games, he amassed a mind-boggling 1476 runs for that season.
He was one of the former Kyabram District Cricket Association’s greatest batters and was recognised twice by the Australian Country Cricket selectors, winning All Australian Country selection in 2001 and 2004.
Brad Campbell’s efforts made headlines.
Campbell also had the distinction of playing VFL/AFL football, appearing in one game with Melbourne Football Club against Essendon in round 19 in 1994 at the MCG.
His legendary Goulburn Valley sportsman father Des played 50 games with Melbourne in two stints — 1970 and 1975-77 — and his younger brother Blake 11 games in 2000-04 with Carlton to complete a rare VFL/AFL father-sons trifecta.
Brad was a member of Melbourne’s reserves team which won the flag in 1993.
After leaving Melbourne, Brad played with Kyabram — a team his father had coached a few years earlier — where he played in a Goulburn Valley premiership side in 1996 under coach Peter White.
At the end of that year, he was picked by Hawthorn with selection six in the Rookie Draft and played for its reserves runner-up side in 1997.
Campbell then returned to Kyabram and then moved to his home club Tongala, where he coached for a year and remained there until 2004 before being a playing assistant coach at Mooroopna in Goulburn Valley League.
He was appointed senior coach of the Cats in 2008, a position he held until 2012 when he took the coaching reins of Shepparton Football Club for four years and spent one season with the Murray Bushrangers .
Goulburn Valley sporting great Des Campbell with his two sons Blake and Brad at his 75th birthday bash in Kyabram.
NEXT UP IN GUS UNDERWOOD’S FREAKISH SPORTING FEATS: Mark Pitt (Harness Racing)
Stanhope trots driver Mark Pitt may well have established a driving record that may never be beaten when he reined home nine — yes nine — winners at a meeting at Launceston, Tasmania in the autumn of 2022.
– Read Gus Underwood’s take on Pitt’s ‘Freakish Sporting Feat’ in next Friday’s News.
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