There was too much swearing in The 12th Man’s material for Richie Benaud. There was too much swearing in The 12th Man’s material for Richie Benaud. Image: Newspix

Was it hard to back up?

I had no idea if I even wanted to. I thought it might be like Australiana, a one-off. But around this time I got sucked into the other iconic program of the era, Wide World Of Sports. Gibbo and Chappelli. For five hours! Cricket, golf, footy, tennis. Then they’d have women’s body building, lobster racing in West Virginia. And jeez, on a rainy Saturday, you’d sit there with your feet up and watch five hours of stuff. You could go and play golf, come back and it was still going. So I started doing Gibbo’s voice, his melodic, excited way of presenting: “By gee, by jingo, by crikey, what about that Ian, that referee went down like a sack of spuds.” And Chappelli: “Yerrrsss, he, ah, did, ah, Gibbo, go down ... ” It was way before pay-TV. When that came in, magazine shows like WWOS faded out because we didn’t need to see five hours of what had happened during the week. But in those days, by crikey. Five hours of it! That album had the “typical stinking fuckin’ hot day in Bombay” which is a line much-quoted to me.

And the State of Origin league segment, “Pearce off, Jack ... ”

[Laughs] Yeah, Gibbo, “Okey-dokes by jingos, during the week the Canetoads took on the Cockroaches. Let’s look at the highlights.” Then there’s Big Jack, and Darryl Eastlake telling him, “Pearce off, Jack, Gibbs on.” And Big Jack: “Don’t tell me to piss off, fucknuckle.” Then Jack belts Darryl, but Darryl keeps commentating ... [doing Darryl] “Oh! Big Jack’s king-hit me! Sensational stuff from the Supercoach!”

Merv Hughes played himself on one of your albums, didn’t he?

We recorded him in his hotel room. I don’t record in a state of the art studio; it’s three mattresses in the corner of a room with a doona over the top. I rang housekeeping to order up three mattresses. And Merv’s started worrying about his reputation, thinking it’s a bit weird. “What does Mr Hughes want three mattresses up there for?” I said I hadn’t thought of that, got on the phone and ordered three bottles of baby oil. Merv was all, “No! Don’t do that!”

Your feedback from Richie Benaud was that there was too much swearing …

In the early days I sent copies of the records to all the boys. Richie, I’ve got no idea whether it was based on, “Ah well, it’s only a one-off, I best be seen as a good sport”, or something else, but I got a letter on an embossed “Benaud and Associates” letterhead, saying, “Thanks for the record and congratulations on your success. Few points worth noting: too much swearing for the sake of it, Ian Chappell’s voice not right, and the record’s a bit too long.” A backhanded way of saying there were bits of it that were funny [laughs].

Did you ever meet Kerry Packer?

I used to see him around here [in Sydney’s Double Bay] all the time, so many times that I thought I should go and say g’day to him. I really wish I had, because the stories I’ve heard since are about how much he liked my stuff. So I wish I’d told him I was one of the people who benefited most from the Packer cricket revolution. I regret I didn’t. Mind you, he was a fairly foreboding character. “Bugger off, Sunshine!”

What do you want to do now?

 I have two projects. The Box Set, where I’ve been lamely trying to convince people it’s not a grab for cash, but rather that I’m doing it as a public service for all those people whose cassettes have melted on the dashboard or their CDs have been lost. I’m making them all available, so it’s not a grab for money, it’s from the goodness of my heart. The other thing I want to do is a documentary-style DVD, The Making Of The 12th Man, to try and answer the questions: how do I have seven consecutive number-one albums with this sort of crap? And would it happen anywhere else other than Australia?

– Matt Cleary