Laurie Nash

Who was Laurie Nash?

Laurence John "Laurie" Nash was a Test cricketer and Australian rules footballer. An inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, Nash was a member of South Melbourne's 1933 premiership team, captained South Melbourne in 1937 and was the team's leading goal kicker in 1937 and 1945. In cricket, Nash was a fast bowler and hard hitting lower order batsman who played two Test matches for Australia, taking 10 wickets at 12.80 runs per wicket, and scoring 30 runs at a batting average of 15.

The son of a leading Australian rules footballer of the early twentieth century who had also played cricket against the touring Marylebone Cricket Club in 1921, Nash was a star sportsman as a boy. Following the family's relocation from Victoria to Tasmania, he began to make a name for himself as both a footballer and a cricketer, and became both one of the earliest professional club cricketers in Australia and one of the first fully professional Australian rules footballers. Nash made his Test cricket debut in 1932, against South Africa and his Victorian Football League debut in 1933.