"About 100 Years Ago by Harvey Bryce"
Otto Nothling
Here are a couple of trivia questions next time you play “Trivial Pursuit”
Q. The late Sir Donald Bradman was dropped from the Australian cricket team after his first match. Who was his replacement?
A. Otto Nothling. Otto Nothling made 52 runs in his one and only test match (44 and 8). Don Bradman made 6996 test runs at an average of 99.94 and is probably the greatest player the game has ever seen. Good thing he got his spot back.
Q. Who was the only person to represent Australia at test level in both Test cricketer and Test Rugby Union?
A. Otto Nothling.
Why are these questions of interest to us in the Maleny area?
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OTTO ERNEST NOTHLING, (1900-1965), medical practitioner and sportsman, was born on 1 August 1900 at Teutoburg (Witta), near Maleny, Queensland, sixth child of Carl Martin Nothling, a mason from Prussia, and his Queensland-born wife Marie Wilhelmine, née Tesch.
Otto won a scholarship from Woombye State School to Brisbane Grammar School. A ‘public spirited’ boy of ‘very fair ability’, he excelled at cricket, Rugby Union football (captain first XV, 1918) and athletics.
He entered St Andrew’s College, University of Sydney (M.B., Ch.M., 1926), where he distinguished himself as an athlete, breaking records in javelin-throwing and shot-putting, and representing the university at cricket and Rugby.
Otto’s many relatives were well known around the Witta and Maleny areas and still live in the area.
Otto was a big man, but very gentle man. He was very humble and always had other peoples problems at heart. He was outstanding Rugby full-back for New South Wales, Nothling played three times against the visiting South Africans (1921), ten times against New Zealand (touring in 1921 and 1923) and six times against Maori teams.
As the Queensland Rugby Union was defunct in 1920-28 so the New South Wales team effectively represented Australia and these matches are now recognized as Tests.
On his retirement from Rugby in 1924, Nothling concentrated on cricket. He played five times for New South Wales in 1922-25. After returning to Queensland in 1926, he represented the State (1927-29) in twelve Sheffield Shield matches, including three as captain. In November 1928 he was chosen for both an Australian XI and a Queensland XI against A. P. F. Chapman’s touring Marylebone Cricket Club team. Next month he was selected to replace the young (Sir) Donald Bradman, who was dropped to twelfth man, for the Test against England in Sydney. Nothling’s figures of 8 and 44 with the bat, and 0 for 72 off 46 overs of zestful medium pace, were not enough: he was not picked again. In all first-class matches, he scored 882 runs at an average of 24.5 and took 36 wickets at 41 runs apiece.
From 1930 Nothling practised medicine at Maryborough, Queensland. In that city on 1 June 1932 at St Paul’s Anglican Church he married Mildred Melville Horsburgh. Appointed major, Australian Army Medical Corps, Australian Imperial Force, on 12 July 1940, he sailed for the Middle East in December as second-in-command of the 2nd/3rd Casualty Clearing Station. He served in Greece and on Crete, but poor health forced his return to Australia; his A.I.F. appointment terminated on 2 October 1943 and he resumed his practice at Maryborough. In Maryborough Otto was well known as “That Doctor dressed in a dark suit and fedora hat who drives around in a WW11 jeep .
After obtaining a diploma in dermatological medicine (1949) at the University of Sydney, he set up as a specialist in Wickham Terrace, Brisbane. The first skin specialist appointed to the Brisbane Children’s Hospital, he was a council-member of the Dermatological Association of Australia.
Nothling’s many interests included farming.
He served as an alderman (1933-40) of Maryborough City Council, president (1938-39) of the Maryborough and Wide Bay Club, secretary of the local branch of the British Medical Association, vice-president of the Maryborough Golf Club (1936-40) and the Q.R.U. (1960-65), and president (1964-65) of the Queensland Cricket Association. Of splendid physique and 6 ft 3 ins (191 cm) tall, he could run 100 yards in even time in his youth.
Back to Maleny now where Otto played cricket for the Witta X1. In those days there was great competition and rivalry between the teams and when Otto retyurned from Sydney to play against the Maleny team he was seen as a target for Maleny’s best bowlers. Otto was aware of this and the first two balls he faced were hit out of the Witta Sports Ground into the Witta Cemetery. From inquiries these were the only remembered cricket balls hit into that area during a Maleny - Witta cricket match.
Once off the cricket field he was well respected and liked in Maleny and he enjoyed a rum and milk with his old friends.
In 2005 Otto Nothling was inducted into the Sunshine Coast Sportsman’s “Hall of Fame”.
Friends describe his most outstanding quality was his loyalty to his friends. Survived by his wife, son and daughter, he died of hypertensive heart disease on 26 September 1965 at Chelmer, Brisbane, and was cremated.
Well-known relatives of Otto still reside in the Maleny and Witta areas today.
