The former Lake Boga and St Mary’s Tyntynder player, who moved to Melbourne in the early 2000s where he continued to play cricket, received a surprise phone call from Ross Cleeland last week to hear of the honour.
“I was really chuffed, I don’t think I’ve ever been so chuffed in my life to be honest,” he said.
“I think when you get older, recognition becomes a pretty important thing.”
“To be recognised in an environment like this is very humbling.”
Growing up in Lake Boga, where his dad owned the butcher shop, Travaglia moved from the area at age 15 before moving back in 1979.
“I played footy for United so it didn’t go down very well in the town,” he said.
“So I thought I’d better do something, and I thought I know what to do, I’ll restart the cricket club.”
At that stage the Lake Boga Cricket Club had been in recess for around 13 years and had played in the North West Lakes Cricket Association against teams such as Lake Charm.
“I can remember going down to the ground and I knew roughly where the wicket was,” Travaglia said.
“It took us all day but we found it and we dug it up.
“We got some players together and we started the cricket club again.”
Travaglia spent six years at the club, before deciding to make what was initially supposed to only be a one season move.
“I was just going to have a year in Swan Hill then go back to Boga,” he said.
Destiny would have different plans, though, as Travaglia commenced his very successful career with St Mary’s Tyntynder that would result in multiple premierships.
After moving to Melbourne, Travaglia coached Malvern Cricket Club and his son Jarrod had a successful career with Premier League club Fitzroy Doncaster, as well as Oakleigh.
Gary played cricket up until he was 55, finishing up his career with the St Kevins Old Boys.
“St Kevin’s have been my footy club since I’ve been down there,” he said.
“I still go to the local footy every Saturday and I still go and watch Oakleigh play every week,” he said.
“It’s just in my blood and I love it.”
During the course of his career, Travaglia had many funny memories and tells the tale of a tactic that he tried to use when competing against RSL.
“We were playing RSL and never looked like we were going to get a wicket,” he recalled
“I used to say to say that no singles were allowed in the inner ring and it worked most of the time.”
“And it did this day, the batsman flicked a a ball off his pads and dollied it to Chris at square leg.
“He dropped it and we all shook our heads.”
“Chris just turned around and said ‘don’t blame me, Trav said we are here to save the singles.
“I’ll never forget that.”
One of his most memorable wins also came against RSL.
“We lost the toss and it was 44 degrees and stinking hot,” he said.
“They were 1/150 at tea and we thought we were in strife but we fought through them and they made around 250.”
“But we went out the next week I think we passed them two down and batted continuously to keep them out there.
“I think we made around 400 and only lost five wickets.”
Travaglia was also more than happy to talk about some of his old sparring partners during his career.
“I’ve got no doubt that the most difficult player to play against and the most talented player I ever played against in any form of cricket was Rob Cameron,” he said.
“I see that he is a Hall of Famer which is great, he used to get me out for fun.
“He would come around the wicket and he had that wrist action. He could take the game away from you.”
Travaglia also had fond memories of fellow Hall of Fame member Tassie Denham.
“I first saw Tassie when I was working at 3SH, and I took a tape recorder over to Echuca for a game.”
“This was when the touring sides used to play against country teams.”
“Tassie was an 18 year old tear away quick and he opened the bowling against the West Indies.”
“So when he came to Swan Hill I knew we’ve got a good cricketer.”
However the most praise Travaglia had was for his former St Mary’s Tyntynder teammate Peter Rowlands who he played alongside for a number of years.
“I can’t remember him bowling a bad ball, he had a heart like you wouldn’t believe,” he said.
“If there was a hill, he would run up into it, if there was a wind he would run into it and he just refused to bowl a bad ball.”
Travaglia is seen as someone who changed the way cricket was played in Swan Hill during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
He led St Mary’s Tyntynder to back-to-back premierships in 1985/86 and 1986/87, a remarkable achievement as the club had only won one game in the previous two seasons.
His highest score of 291 was in the 1986/87 Grand Final, where he saw off three new balls and batted for over nine hours.
GARY TRAVAGLIA CAREER STATISTICS
LAKE BOGA
Games: 85
Runs: 3570
Average: 42
50: 21
100:3
Catches: 75
Stumpings:15
ST MARY’S TYNTYNDER
Games: 133
Runs: 4657
Average: 41.95
50:33
100:5
Highest Score: 291
Catches: 117
Stumpings: 24
