Over time there have been many sons and daughters follow their father or mother into a sport. This should come as no surprise as the children grow up around their parents playing that chosen sport. Often there will come a time when the parents are on the decline and nearing retirement that they may play with their child in the same team. Rarely however is it that parents and their children will play in the top team together at the highest level.
At the weekend in Western Australia WASPs Murray McIntyre, who has been playing in the Premier Hockey Grade for 29 years played his 550th First Grade game, a record in the competition. The game before he had scored his 400th goal, also a record. To make the game at the weekend all the more memorable his 15 year old son Charlie was given his first team debut in his father’s milestone match.
Charlie had been scoring goals in the second team and according to coach Terry Walsh had earned the opportunity. While all eyes were on Murray it was Charlie who stole the limelight scoring a brace as WASPs beat Curtin University 9-0. In some ways it was just as well he did not complete his hat-trick, as the expectations after such a debut would have been unfair.
Asking those who have been around the game a long time in Western Australia if a father and son had previously played in the highest grade together it appeared that this was a first.
So how often has this happened at the highest level in sport? Incredibly more often than many would think.
In international Hockey the feat is believed to have only happened only once before. In the 5th PanAm Games in 1983 Jorge Piccioli- aged 41 years played alongside his fifteen-year old son for Venezuela.
Ice Hockey has a strong tradition of sons following their fathers into the sport, but only once has a father played in the same game as his son. The legend Gordie Howe played one season with both his sons Mark and Marty. All three played together during the 1979–80 NHL season with the Hartford Whalers. This is to date the only time in NHL history that a father and his sons were active at the same time.
In Cricket there have again been many sons follow their fathers into the sport over the past century and a half. It may not come as a surprise to many that in the first half of the last century there were quite a number of father’s and sons who played in matches together. The honour of being the first falls to the Lillywhite family. Father William Lillywhite played alongside his sons John and James in two matches, for Middlesex against Surrey in 1851 and for Sussex against England in 1853.
Also keeping it in the family in the 1800’s was Nottinghamshire’s William Clarke who was 57 when he led Nottinghamshire against England in 1855; He would take 7 wickets in the match. Opening the batting for Nottinghamshire in the same match was his son Arthur, who played 55 times for the county.
Also in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the great WG Grace played with his two sons, although neither were able to emulate their father. WG Junior played alongside his father on 46 occasions, possibly the most of any son. Incredibly his career ended before his father’s. WG junior played his last match in 1900 and sadly died in 1905, while WG senior went on to play until 1908. CB Grace only played four first class matches alongside his father. Two of these matches saw him representing London County and in 1900 featured father and both sons, WG, WG Jnr and CB Grace all playing together.
Richard Daft and his son Harry played three times together for Nottinghamshire in 1891. Walter and Harold Mead played twice together for Essex in 1913. In 1918 New Zealanders Thomas Reese and his son Daniel appeared together for Canterbury against Otago. While in the West Indies the great Sir Learie Constantine appeared with his son Lebrun in one match in 1922 for Trinidad against Barbados in the Inter-colonial Tournament Final.
Willie and Bernard Quaife played alongside each other on 20 occasions for Warwickshire before Quaife junior switched counties and moved to Worcestershire. While Derbyshire’s Billy and Robert Bestwick played two matches together in 1922.
Other father and son combinations include, India’s Maharaja and Yuvraj of Patiala, South Africa’s Dave and Dudley Nourse and Abdul Khaliq and Shaikh Nasiruddin who represented Western India together in two matches in 1941. Walter Robins and his son Charles both played together for the MCC against Cambridge University, they also shared nine wickets between them!
In1996 in Zimbabwe Denis Streak who had played for his country before they had achieved Test status returned to First-class cricket after a gap of eleven years. He then went on to bowl alongside his son Heath as Matabeleland beat Mashonaland Country Districts to win the Lonrho Logan Cup.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul retired from Test Cricket for the West Indies in 2015. However he continued to play, and was fortunate to play alongside his son Tagenarine. They played alongside each other in domestic cricket for several seasons. They first played together for the Gandhi Youth Organization and together were part of a record 256 run partnership in a 40 over game!
In the NFL in the USA there is believed to have been only one incident of a father playing in the same team as his son at the highest level. Theodore Nesser Jnr was a player-coach in the “Ohio League” and the early National Football League. Ted, as he was known was one of the famous Nesser Brothers, a group consisting of seven brothers who made-up the most famous football family in the United States from 1907 until the mid-1920s. In 1921 Ted’s son Charlie played briefly for the Columbus Panhandles. This is the only father-son combination to play together in NFL history.
In 1987 in Baseball Ken Griffey Jnr. was one of the most sought-after prospects. Ken Griffey Snr. negotiated his son’s deal with the Seattle Mariners and Baseball America called the pick “the best selection in the history of the MLB draft.” Dad, Ken Griffey Snr., at 41, entered the 1990 season, his 18th, knowing that retirement was just around the corner. The Cincinnati Reds, were a team looking to shore up its roster. A move that would eventually see it complete a World Series-winning run. They wanted to free up Ken Snr’s salary, so they gave him the option of either being cut or retiring. He opted for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play for the Seattle Mariners with his son.
In 1990 and the following season in 1991, Griffey and his father became the first son and father to play on the same team at the same time. In his father’s first game as a Mariner, on August 31, 1990, they hit back-to-back singles in the first inning. On September 14, the pair hit back-to-back home runs in the top of the first off against California Angels pitcher Kirk McCaskill, thus becoming the first father-sons to hit back-to-back home runs.
In the NBA, there appear to be no father and son combinations, but many are tipping LeBron James and his son LeBron Jnr to possibly be the first.
When it comes to football the occurrence of a father playing with his son at the highest level is also rare. World Cup winner with Brazil Rivaldo in 2013 decided to finish his career with the Sao Paulo side Mogi Mirim. This was the club that helped launch his glittering career. It was a way of paying back the club, but also allowed him to play alongside his son Rivaldinho in February 2014. However it was in 2015 that the two wrote themselves into the history books, both scored in the same match in a 3-1 victory against Macae. He was 43 years old and his son was 20.
George Eastham is a name that many English football fans will know as he was a key player in changing the contract system. However, how many fans knew that at the age of 18 in 1954, he played alongside his father George Eastham Snr for Ards in Northern Ireland’s Gold Cup? This would be the first trophy of many he would win as a player, thanks to his 39-year-old, dad who scored the winning goal in the final.
If that sounds impressive, then what about the Russian midfielder Alexei Eremenko Snr. He played four seasons towards the end of his career with Finnish side HJK Helsinki. HIs son Alexei Eremenko Jnr was also at the club, and they played for two seasons together. Seasons in which they claimed back-to-back Finnish Veikkausliiga titles, as well as the 2003 Finnish Cup!
Eremenko Snr then linked up with his second son Roman Eremenko at FF Jaro. Roman would go on to star for Dynamo Kiev, and CSKA Moscow as well as play internationally for Finland.
In Australia, as far as we can ascertain no fathers and sons have ever played in the same team in the National Soccer League or the A-League. The only case that appears to be on record of a father and son playing in the top competition at state level is Angelo Petratos playing with his son Dimitri playing in the New South Wales Premier League together at Penrith and Sydney Olympic.
in 2013 in Sweden former national team star Henrik Larsson made his final bow at Swedish fourth-tier team Hogaborgs BK. Here he played with his 15-year-old son, Jordan, who scored. Showing that he can emulate his famous father.
In England Alex Herd, a league and cup winner with Manchester City, played alongside son David for Stockport County on the final day of the Third Division North season in 1950/51. David would go on to win the League and the FA Cup with Manchester United.
In the 1989/90 English Fourth Division season two-time UEFA European Cup winner Ian Bowyer, who was then the player-manager of Hereford United, played alongside his son Gary.
However probably the most famous father and son combination who played in the same match but not together would be Iceland’s Arnor and Eidur Gudjohnsen. Son Eidur replaced father Arnor as a second-half substitute in an international friendly match against Estonia in 1996, Many stating that the substation symbolised that one career was coming to a close, just as another was just starting.
This appears to be the closest a father and son have ever come to playing together at International level.
It clearly is a rare feat that a father is able to keep playing at the highest level in order to create such an opportunity. It is equally rare that their child will be good enough to play at that level, especially as a teenager to make the opportunity possible. For the next generation to step up and leave their mark in their first game is even more incredible. No doubt many who were at the Perth Hockey Stadium at the weekend were not aware of just how special the events that unfolded were. Hopefully those who were will never forget the moment.
