By ROY WARD
DANDENONG cricket is mourning the loss of former player and administrator Fred Pereira.
Pereira, who died last week, was one of the first players to join the newly formed Dandenong Cricket Club in 1963 and went on to play for the club in the Dandenong District Cricket Association and then the Victorian Sub District Cricket Association.
Later, he became club president and played a key role in the merger with Waverley in 1989, paving the way for Dandenong to have a side in the then District cricket competition that would later become Premier Cricket.
Pereira was a life member and former president of Dandenong Cricket Club.
Long-time friend and former Dandenong teammate Ian McDonald remembered Pereira as a selfless but determined person who loved cricket and the company of friends.
McDonald met Pereira after he had moved to Australia from Sri Lanka and started playing cricket in Melbourne.
McDonald said Pereira along with Ian Whykes and himself were the three senior players chosen for the first Dandenong side, which grew out of the DDCA competition.
The side, a mix of those three senior players and the best young talent in the DDCA, went undefeated and won the turf 1 competition in 1963 before earning a move into the VSDCA.
Pereira was a batsman with strokes for all parts of the ground. “Fred could bat in any position,” McDonald said. “He was a very elegant batsman. You had to get him out in the first 20 minutes because once he started he could destroy you.”
Pereira was happy to change roles in the side when the team required it. “He was a delightful fellow. He would fit in with you,” McDonald recalled. “But he would stand his ground when he had to. He loved the game of cricket – it was his life.”
As president of the Dandenong Cricket Club, Pereira played a major role in helping the club disband and then join with District side Waverley. “Fred worked beautifully behind the scenes and became the vice-president of the newly formed Waverley Dandenong Cricket Club,” McDonald said.
In his later years Pereira and his late wife Heather moved to the Sunshine Coast. But he stayed in touch with his cricket mates, keeping tabs on progress of the Dandenong Panthers and the DDCA competition.
