Graeme Goodsir, who played for the club in the 1950s, has died in the United States at the age of 87. Graeme attended Trinity Grammar School, and was one of three members of that school’s 1951 1st XI to go on to join SUCC (alongside Graham Reed and Neil Bonnell). In 1952, he was captain of both cricket and debating at Trinity, and he was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to study Economics at Sydney University. The club’s records for this period are hopelessly incomplete, but Graeme made several useful contributions as a medium pacer in Third and Fourth Grades in 1953-54 and 1954-55.
In 1956, he joined the Sydney office of Dalgety & Co, commencing a career in the meat industry that would last for more than sixty years. In 1958 he was assigned to the firm’s London office. Five years later, he joined the Australian Meat Board as a Market Development Officer for export trade. He was closely involved in the expansion of Australian exports to Asia and the Middle East – and, in 1970, he opened trade between Australia and the USSR. In 1972, he was transferred to the United States, taking responsibility for what was then the Australian industry’s largest market. He remained in North America for the rest of his life, enjoying a varied career that included a stint as General Manager of Canada’s largest food company and work as an analyst and industry journalist. He was in high demand as an international trade negotiator, facilitating Canada’s first major pork trade with Russia. He is the only Australian to be elected to the US Meat Industry Hall of Fame.
The club extends its sympathies to Mr Goodsir’s family.