IN the summer of 1907-08 a group of men braved the Sydney heat to meet at a sports store on Market St. The subject under intense discussion was the formation of a professional breakaway competition from the NSW Rugby Union.

Those at the meeting were passionate about the sport but they weren’t all rugby players, promoters or administrators. One was the shop’s owner Victor Trumper, at the time Australia’s most famous cricketer.

A talented rugby player before his Test cricket career took off, he always maintained an interest in the game. But he took a leading role in forming the professional Rugby League mostly because he was sympathetic to compensating working class sportsmen for injuries and time off work.

From a working-class background Trumper knew what a drain on resources sport could be.

Born Victor Thomas Trumper, 140 years ago today, on November 2, 1877 in Darlinghurst, his father Charles Trumper was a bootmaker who built up his own footware company.

Victor was sent to be educated at the exclusive Crown St Superior Public School, his father perhaps preparing him to take over the business, but Trumper’s talents lay elsewhere.

media_camera Victor Trumper in full flight. .

He enjoyed Australian rules and rugby, but cricket was his forte. Honing batting skills on Darlinghurst streets, backyard pitches and local fields, at 17, he played for the NSW Juniors XVIII against a visiting English XI. He scored 67 runs despite suffering a cold.

Although schoolmate Monty Noble scored 152 not out, Trumper impressed enough to be selected with Noble for NSW against South Australia in 1894-95. By 1898 he was a leading runscorer.

Yet as good as he was, in 1899 Trumper only made the Australian side when Noble spoke up for him and had to settle for being 14th man, on reduced pay. After a depressing start — a duck in his first knock against England at Nottingham — at Lords he scored 135 not out. In July against Sussex he became the first Australian cricketer to score 300. He was put on full pay and bumped up to the first XI.

media_camera Victor Trumper making his 100th run in the second innings of the second Test against South Africa at the MCG in 1911.

media_camera Victor Trumper leaves the crease after being caught out in the last Test he played at the SCG, in 1912. Picture: From Grassy Pitches And Glory Years by Philip Derriman

When England toured Australia in 1901-02, despite no centuries, Trumper helped win the Test series 4-1. Perhaps his greatest moment was in the 1902 Test series in England. Despite foul weather, short matches and sodden pitches, Trumper piled on 2570 runs in just 35 matches.

During the fourth Test at Old Trafford in July, he become the first cricketer to score a century before lunch on day one of a Test. At Essex a couple of days later he became the first batsman to make two centuries in one match. He later also belted 218 against Transvaal in South Africa. Cricketing bible Wisden dubbed him “best batsman in the world”.

There were impressive innings in the 1903 and 1903-04 Tests but in 1905 a back injury affected his form and kept him out of the game. By then he had opened his first sporting goods store.

It was at his shop, at 108 Market St, in the summer of 1907-08, a group of rugby players, past players, promoters and passionate fans of the sport held secret meetings about staging professional rugby matches.

media_camera Victor Trumper in his beloved Baggy Green Test cap at Lords in 1889 on his first England tour.

Trumper well understood the expenses incurred by amateurs when they were injured or taken away from their job by long tours. He and his friend James Joseph “J.J.” Giltinan, sport promoter and cricket umpire, had both fought with the Australian Board of Control, the body in charge of organising cricket tours to England, over getting more control for players over tour conditions and pay. When that failed they turned to rugby.

Trumper invited rugby star Herbert “Dally” Messenger and cricketer Hanson “Sammy” Carter, who was Trumper’s business partner to the meetings at his shop. Their first coup was arranging a professional rugby tour by a New Zealand team. After that triumph the rebels continued to meet, to plan a professional rugby league in opposition to the amateur rugby union. The first rugby league premiership was held in 1908 with four teams.

Trumper was briefly treasurer of the NSW Rugby League before he was removed because of his lack of business prowess. His sport shop failed but he later opened a new one on George St.

His cricket career continued but after arguing with selectors in 1912 he refused to join that year’s tour of England. His last Test was in New Zealand in 1914.

In 1915 he was hospitalised with a kidney disease and died on June 28. His death knocked news from Gallipoli out of the headlines and 20,000 mourners thronged the streets to pay their respects at his funeral procession