In the lead-up to the ceremony, The News will run special feature pieces on all 30 players, before the release of a commemorative magazine on November 25.
Norm McArthur was a Shepparton cricketing and war hero all-in-one – with a strut to match Leigh Matthews to boot.
His cricketing exploits, though, didn't start until 1948 in the Melbourne suburb of Ashwood where time allowed him to play, but once he moved to Shepparton, that was where it all clicked.
Firstly, McArthur put together an impressive career at Old Students, with his bowling exploits being at times compared to the English bowler Harold Larwood in pace and speed.
According to Bill Jones, he was arguably one of the best bowlers to face before they were heading into the provincial country week in 1955, where Shepparton was the winner.
At Old Students, he amassed multiple bowling and batting awards, including the Norm Clark Trophy and in 1956 when he won a premiership as captain against the Footballers Cricket Club.
The aura of McArthur grew into something else in what was a bizarre start to his match-winning knock of 120 when he survived an attempted run out, which according to a paper at the time, was a “moment of anxiety for the fielders”.
Then after tea, with the match on the line, McArthur walked out to the ground with an arrogant strut – ahead of his time, compared to champion Hawthorn footballer Leigh Mathews.
McArthur's legacy as a cricketer grew once he retired, by recruiting players, including top batsman Dave Shaw, creatively through the power of a motorbike.
Before cricket, the Old Students legend was a part of the RAAF in the war effort across South East Asia during World War II.
This included being a young wireless operator air gunner on the double-winged single-engine torpedo, declared obsolete and no match to the Japanese in the battle of Singapore in 1941.
Once fleeing Singapore, McArthur was joined by Australian soldiers in Java, only to be captured and made prisoner for three years and eight months.
He was a prisoner of war in Changi and worked on the ‘death railway’ from Burma to Thailand during the middle period of the Second World War.
Once back in Australia after the war finished, according to the medical experts at the time, his previous six years of fighting had shortened his life expectancy.
The then-25-year-old came back to a different world. Speaking in 1946, Norm said: "Nothing is so bad, it couldn't be worst, and everything happens for the best, and the only person with a grudge is the one who carries it."
Also during that year he married Elaine Chenoweth. They were based in the Melbourne suburb of Kew and started up a radio and electrical business with his brother.
By 1953, the family decided to move to Shepparton where Norm went into the world of selling sportswear and fashion accessories, which developed into 14 shops across Australia.
36°C