June 12, 2008

THE new Hill stand at the SCG will be named after Victor Trumper, a peerless batsman with strong links to three football codes also played at the ground.

The $70 million stand, with 8700 undercover seats, will open in December, in good time for the New Year's Test against South Africa starting on January 3.

"He is the finest Test cricketer Australia has produced," SCG Trust chairman Rod Cavalier said.

"His peers did not have a bad word to say of him in life or death. None who saw Victor Trumper conceded they ever saw his equal."

Cavalier said that Trumper, the first player to make a pre-lunch hundred, deserved the honour above all others as a cricketer alone.

"Consider, then, that Vic played representative games of rugby union and Australian football on our ground," he said.

"He was good enough at Australian football that he could well have played for the Swans if that possibility had existed."

Trumper was also instrumental in the establishment of rugby league, was the league's first treasurer, and helped to organise the first game, played at the SCG 100 years ago this month.

"In its centenary year, rugby league will regard a stand named after Trumper as honouring a founder of their sport," Cavalier said.

Trumper, born within walking distance of the ground, died of kidney failure in 1915 at the age of 37.

The Victor Trumper stand will take the SCG's capacity to 47,000.

The stand will have a large bar, a 500-seat corporate dining room and a 250-seat function room.