One of My Sporting heros Killed

Happened a couple of days ago, punched by a bouncer after he was leaving a pub, hit his head on the ground, went into a coma and passed away after they switched the life support off.

Damn i used to love watching this guy bat when i was a kid..... most of the australian players especially Hayden and Gilly bat like this now, he was doing it in the 80s.......... once got a 100 off 35 balls

was Coaching a state team very successfully now and heavily involved in sports commentating, TV and radio, loved telling it like he saw it....

what a pity and what a great loss

RIP Hooksey

 

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David Hookes killed in pub attack
By Peter Lalor, Daniel Hoare, Barclay Crawford and James Madden
January 20, 2004
DAVID Hookes, the former Test star and current Victorian coach and sports commentator, has died following a savage assault outside a Melbourne bayside hotel.

Hookes, a colourful and popular figure in the cricket world since his blazing international debut in the 1977 Centenary Test, was punched to the road near St Kilda's Beaconsfield Hotel about 11.45pm on Sunday, minutes after he and a group of companions had left the pub.

Hookes died about 7pm last night in Melbourne's Alfred Hospital. His brother Terry Cranage said: "(The family) wish to thank those people involved in his care, including the bystanders at the scene and the staff at the Alfred hospital

"David had been celebrating Victoria's cricketing win over South Australia with friends at the Beaconsfield Hotel when the incident occurred.

"We trust the police will conduct a full investigation into the cause of the incident and the justice process will provide us with some insight into what occurred."

Earlier yesterday, as 48-year-old Hookes lay comatose and dying from severe head injuries in the Alfred Hospital, police charged 21-year-old Zdravco Micevic with common assault.

During a 10-minute hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday morning, the tall, strongly built Mr Micevic, who gave his occupation as crowd controller, sat stony-faced and staring straight ahead.

Mr Micevic was bailed on conditions that he report to a police station near his home in western suburban St Albans three times weekly, perform no crowd control work and visit no licensed premises. He was ordered to reappear on April 13.

Mr Micevic was arrested at the hotel about 12.20am, while ambulance officers were still trying to revive Hookes.

A media colleague, Clarke Forbes, who spoke to Hookes's companions at the hospital, said he had stopped breathing after the attack and was "technically dead" when the first paramedics arrived.

Former Australian captain Greg Chappell, who heard the news early yesterday from a distressed witness, South Australian cricketer Darren Lehmann, said Hookes was "a terrific friend, a terrific ally in a lot of ways . . . we didn't always agree with each other's views but we always liked to share ideas . . . he was always thinking beyond the square."

Former test teammate Kerry O'Keeffe mourned the cutting short of Hookes's new career as a state coach: "I played with David and I'd just sensed a mellowing and an appreciation of young players, more than when he'd played, and I just sensed that his best years may have been in front of him."

As family, friends and media colleagues struggled to come to terms with the shocking turn of events, witnesses told how a night of celebration turned, almost without warning, into a violent tragedy.

Hookes had been at the Beaconsfield Hotel with a group of state cricketers, their partners and friends. They were celebrating the Bushrangers' ING Cup win earlier in the day against the South Australian Redbacks.

Among the group were injured Victorian captain Darren Berry and Hookes's close friend Lehmann, the Redbacks captain.

Lehmann later told Greg Chappell that Hookes had been talking with a girlfriend of a Victorian player when the group was told the pub was closing.

Hookes and the young woman were told by a bouncer to "skol" their drinks and leave.

"They'd been there for a couple of hours. It was 11pm last orders – they ordered another drink," Chappell said.

Hookes asked for more time but the bouncer insisted they leave.


Forbes, program manager at Radio 3AW, where Hookes is a sports show host and commentator, spent the night at the hospital with Hookes and said he was not completely sure what had happened.

"The only thing I am certain of is that it was a quiet drink at the pub before this happened. There were no shenanigans going on that would have occasioned something," Forbes said. "I don't know what happened outside."

A witness, 30-year-old Joseph Robilotta, said he saw a scuffle in the street and saw Hookes assaulted as he moved to get into his car: "(He) fell to the ground and his head smashed on the road."

Mr Robilotta said Hookes's companions were in shock after the assault, standing outside his house as paramedics worked for 45 minutes to revive him.

"Lehmann was sitting outside my house and I gave him water. The girlfriends standing in front of the house couldn't even look at (the paramedics)."

Other witnesses said the Redbacks team physiotherapist began working on Hookes, who had suffered cardiac arrest almost immediately after the assault. Later Lehmann, Berry and other players went to the Alfred Hospital where they were joined by Hookes's wife Robyn and her two children.

Forbes arrived at the hospital at 1.30am. "By about 2.30-2.45am they came out and said 'he's not going to make it'," Forbes said. "They worked on him on the streets for half an hour and he was technically dead then."

Hookes's co-host on radio 3AW's Sports Today, former AFL champion Gerard Healy, visited Hookes's bedside yesterday but was too distraught to do their show last night.

"I'm still waiting for the phone call to say this is an ugly nightmare, an ugly joke," Healy said later. "But having seen David today I know it's more than just a nightmare."

 

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Disbelief and anger
By Drew Warne-Smith
January 21, 2004
FROM the Sydney Cricket Ground to a sleepy side street in St Kilda, from the whitewashed pickets of Adelaide Oval to the hills above Los Angeles, the news was met with disbelief.

Mostly in silence, often with tears, and then with ever-increasing anger.

David Hookes, cricketer, commentator, coach and father had been snatched from the Australian sporting landscape.

There would be no miracle recovery, no second innings.

Arm in arm, heads bowed, the Australian one-day team gathered for a minute's silence in the centre of the SCG yesterday to mark his death, the vigil led by Ricky Ponting. "It's a tragic loss and something that has hit the team very hard today," the captain said.

The team – and the nation.

From first light, politicians, cricketers and fans clamoured to remember the man and vent their rage at the manner of his death.

South of the Melbourne CBD in the bayside suburb of St Kilda, a steady stream of mourners lay flowers where Hookes was felled. Strangers hugged and tears were shed.

A game of cricket was postponed, too; this weekend's Pura Cup match between South Australia and Victoria so the cricketers from both sides can grieve.

Test legend Rod Marsh, at the crease with Hookes both on his debut and when he was felled by another bouncer, this one delivered by West Indian fast bowler Andy Roberts, told ABC radio: "In many ways, I wish I'd been there on Sunday night, and been able to step in. He always stood up for his players, and you don't deserve to die for that."

Shane Warne, defended so vigorously and contentiously by Hookes in recent times, proposed an award be forged in his honour – and few could disagree.

In his home town, the flags at the scene of some of his greatest sporting triumphs, the Adelaide Oval, flew at half mast, the famous old scoreboard carried a tribute to the man who had captained his state 90 times, and radio airwaves were filled with talkback callers alternately angry, sad and bewildered.

On radio station FiveAA, Ken "KG" Cunningham, who co-hosted a radio show with Hookes for six years in the 1990s, was struggling to come to terms with the death of his great mate.

"It would have to be one of the saddest days in a long, long time for a lot of people in South Australia. I can't believe it and I can't accept it," Cunningham, a former South Australian state cricketer, said.

A hemisphere away, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, another Australian sporting icon struggled to make sense of it. "For the life of me I don't understand senseless, stupid, friggin' accidents like this," an ashen-faced Greg Norman said from the Mountaingate Country Club.

"I mean, what a waste of somebody's life," the golf champion said.

Hotel bouncer Zdravko Micevic has been charged with landing the blow that dropped Hookes to the pavement. The events that led to his punch remain in dispute. But even if police upgrade an assault charge to manslaughter, it may not be enough to silence calls for a national overhaul of the crowd-control industry.

And it certainly won't quell the outrage on talkback radio, alight yesterday with claims and counter-claims about "this Mike Tyson industry"; about the struggle to control the volatile mix of alcohol and argument. But amid the boiling tempers on the airwaves, there was still room to reminisce on the swashbuckling South Australian: blond and unbowed when he burst into international cricket, balding but still outspoken at the end.

John Howard was 37 years old and federal treasurer when Hookes sounded his arrival with five consecutive boundaries in the 1977 Centenary Test.

Mark Latham was just 16. In a statement issued yesterday, Latham said Hookes – "an original" – became his instant hero, "a bold and attacking competitor in every part of the game". News of his death left him shocked and saddened.

His words were echoed on a card left near the Beaconsfield Hotel where Hookes and his group of friends had been drinking on Sunday night. "Farewell Hookesy, you were a hero of my youth and an inspiration of my adulthood," the card read.

Simple words perhaps, but sure to be repeated often.

 

thanks MacJag, he was just a great guy

the impact his death has had on people especially in my state where he played is amazing, people just loved the way he batted and his matching personality, Adelaide really is just a big country town.....

he reach being in the media and well known for his sport is also amazing..... as you see above with the comments from Greg Norman, they also had a minutes silence at the start of the Tour DownUnder last night (big international cycling race in my town) and the Aussie Open tennis in melbourne is apparently a bit down, Leyton Hewitt was pretty good mates with him....

the reaction in the media has now turned to better control and licensing in the crowd control/bouncer industry... with all the politicians setting in pledging zero tolerance.....

 

yeah lots... the Adelaide Oval where it happened has reasonably short boundaries square of the wicket, which certainly helped his batting, nevertheless think it is still the fastest century in first class cricket......

 

btw anyone catch the tribute to him on TV last night..... as part of it they showed all 35 balls that he faced to get that 100 runs