David Leggat: Some childhood sporting heroes can last forever

A new biography shows cricketer Bert Sutcliffe fitted the description. Photo / Supplied

Heroes. Most of us had them at some formative stage of our lives.

I clearly recall being taken down to Hagley Oval in Christchurch aged about seven.

Burnside-West University were playing Riccarton in a senior club cricket game.

"Would you like to watch Mr Motz bowling to Mr Dowling?" I was asked.

Too right. Dowling happened to be New Zealand's premier batsman, and captain Motz the country's finest bowler.

How often would you find that these days? A sunny December morning, a freshly mown outfield, lying by the boundary; what was not to enjoy.

That memory came back on Thursday night at the launch of The Last Everyday Hero: The Bert Sutcliffe Story. The title says it all.

It's remarkable that a biography had not been written on one of New Zealand's most distinctive sports figures before now.

Plenty of time for one to be penned you might have thought. After all, his test career finished 45 years ago and he is still revered as perhaps the finest batsman the country has produced.

At this launch, there was no perhaps about it either.

The book was a project of Dunedin author and cricket lover Rod Nye, who died six years ago, and completed by former Herald sports writer Richard Boock.

There is a difference between people you admire and those who assume heroic proportions in the mind.

You can admire people without necessarily liking them.

At the launch broadcaster Murray Deaker spoke passionately of Sutcliffe, his hero.

Heroes can be confused with role models. The concept of a role model is a curious one.

But heroes can and do last forever, as Deaker pointed out.

The Oxford Dictionary describes a hero as: "person admired for courage, outstanding achievements". The extension "hero worship" as "idealisation of [an] admired person". That was "Sutty".

There's an old saying that you should never meet one's heroes; you might be disappointed.

I know someone who thought blunt-spoken England fast bowler Fred Trueman to be the bee's knees.

He approached him one day to seek an autograph.

"Booger off son," he was told.

You'll go a long way to find anyone with a bad word for Sutcliffe who, with his wavy blond hair, supreme batsmanship and general enjoyment of company and life, perfectly fitted the bill for New Zealanders of a certain era.

For years he was New Zealand cricket for thousands of young, and not so young, fans.

There are all manner of reasons for having a hero.

Perhaps he scored the winning try for the All Blacks in a test in the final minute; hit a final-over six to win an ODI; won an Olympic medal.

Maybe he ruffled a youngster's hair and picked him up after a tumble or some other social interaction left a profound impression.

This is no one-size-fits-all business.

Last year, Herald colleague Wynne Gray compiled My Sports Hero, in which prominent New Zealanders nominated a favourite from their early years.

All sorts of names sprouted from the unlikeliest of sources.

Cycling champion Sarah Ulmer picked squash queen Susan Devoy, which has a certain symmetry.

John Kirwan chose Australian surfer Wayne Lynch; actor Sam Neill plumped for Sir Peter Snell, who in turn nominated tennis and badminton master Jeff Robson.

Each to their own.

In this book, just one of more than 100 chose Sutcliffe - John Wright.

The former New Zealand cricket captain wrote of Sutcliffe: "When I met Bert he turned out to be such a modest, good person and it was reassuring to have a boyhood hero who kept that status through my adult life. He was a wonderful, unaffected gentleman."

Heroes. You can't put it much better than that.