The Rising Irish Stithians
Curtis Campher’s rise to Ireland’s star of the England series has seen many googling him. He is from St Stithians College in South Africa, one of Cricket Leinster’s Youth Transition Year Programme partners.
St Stithians Director of Cricket Wim Jansen’s links with Leinster go back to 1994 when he played for Pembroke cricket club in Dublin during his time as a professional in the Leinster leagues. Striking up friendships in Ireland, which has now seen a TY placement programme, enjoying its 17th year in 2020, engaging young TY Leinster cricketers with the opportunity to spend three months in South Africa’s leading cricket school fully emerged in their unique school culture.
For many years the relationship has centred on the Irish player's transformation in South Africa, with Andrew Balbirnie for one, referencing the impact of the placement on his commitment to cricket. St Stithians were rightly proud to have three players in the recent Ireland squad for the series with England - Harry Tector, JJ Garth and Curtis Campher.
Indeed, Curtis Campher is showing the road is not one way, and his story is one of taking your opportunities, as selection, as many of the players have found, is far easier than performing to the standard you want against the World Champion One-Day team in England.
His introduction to Leinster cricket started back in 2014 when Leinster Youth expanded its TY placement to include a tour to Johannesburg where Brian O’Rourke first heard and then saw an Irish passport holding cricketer called Curtis Campher.
Brian O’Rourke remarked “Wim was very complimentary about Curtis as a cricketer, and how he represented the best of the St Stithians values. When Wim recommends someone, you remember them”.
Campher remembers the game against the visiting Leinster u15 team well. ‘It was a bit of a novelty having an Irish touring team enter into our school’s festival that year. We did not know much about them, but after the opening round of games all the big cricket schools involved (King Edward’s, St Stithians, St Andrew’s, KES, Hilton etc) were talking about them and in particular their bowling attack. I batted 5 that day and I remember facing up to Josh Little, David Delany, David Murphy, Rory Anders and Cameron Shoebridge and although we won the game by 3 wickets, we were pushed hard by the visiting Leinster boys’.
There are many “stories” emerging on who brought Campher to Ireland’s attention. ICC is reporting that in 2018, Ireland was playing a warm-up game in South Africa against a provincial XI featuring Campher. Already an under-19 South African player at the time and a 1st year college student at Tucks University in Pretoria, Campher played a good hand in the game scoring 48 and Leinsterman Niall O'Brien, who came to know of his Irish connection, had a chat with him after the game about coming to Ireland.
Others link to an opportunity to be a net bowler at St Stithians for Ireland in 2017 where his talents came under the watchful eye of John Bracewell.
Whatever may be the exact truth, six of the 2014 Leinster tourists to play against Campher at St Stithians are now his teammates in Ireland and Leinster colours (Anders, Delany, Doheny, Little, Tector and Tucker) and shows the quality that has come through a Leinster group which could well form with another SA TY graduate Andrew Balbirnie, the backbone of the Ireland teams for many years.
Brian O’Rourke added “Cricket is a game of opportunities. Curtis has looked a talent for many years, gained an opportunity with Ireland, and taken it. I remember well a Hilton Series trip to Newcastle where NUSC arranged for the Leinster players to be net bowlers for Durham County. Geoff Cook was very gracious to all of the players but Peter Chase caught his eye, and Peter gained an extended trial with Durham. He did not go on the tour expecting to achieve that, but when opportunity knocks, you take them with both hands, so congratulations to Curtis on his start to being an Irish international’.
Director of Cricket at St Stithians Wim Jansen was quick to point out that there are currently 15 former ‘Saints’ students now employed as professional cricketers around the world which is a most impressive statistic and one that reflects so well on the school and the support it offers to its students. ‘Curtis Campher started his journey at St Stithians as a 14-year-old in grade 8. He played in all our ‘A’ team teams and was also selected for the Gauteng age group teams u15, u17 and u19. Curtis had an excellent Coca Cola u19 week with Gauteng that earned him selection into the SA u19 side. For St Stithians, Curtis performed consistently with bat and ball. He also displayed strong leadership qualities and ended up captaining our 1st X1. Our entire cricket community here in Johannesburg are very proud of Curtis’s performances for Ireland. We look forward to him developing and blossoming in an Irish cricket shirt’.
As this article was being written, South Africa passed 500,000 COVID-19 cases and everyone at Cricket Leinster Youth asks Wim, St Stithians College, and all of its TY placement supporters to stay safe and we look forward to meeting again in safer times to continue the work which has changed so many lives for the better.
2014 Leinster u15 squad:
Rory Anders, Colon Currie, David Delany, Stephen Doheny, Mark Gibson McKenna, Fionn Hand, Danny Hogan, Josh Little, Stephen Keane, James Meier, David Murphy, Cameron Shoebridge, Harry Tector, Fiachra Tucker & Ben White.
Coaches: Bryn Thomas and Runeshan Moodley