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Australia

Young Alban George Moyes had a brother and father named John but disliked his first name so much that he asked to be called 'Johnny'. 

A product of St Peter's College, he studied science at the University of Adelaide before joining the Australian Imperial Force on 13 July 1915. Commissioned two months later, he served with the 48th Battalion on the Western Front, was twice wounded and won the Military Cross in 1918. In November 1918, debilitated with pluerisy, Major Moyes sailed for Melbourne.

After his A.I.F. appointment terminated, he took a job with the Repatriation Commission. At St Paul's Anglican Church, Fairfield, on 28 June 1919 he married 30-year-old Frederica Sophia Honor Christensen. Late in 1921 the couple moved to Sydney where he worked as a correspondent for Melbourne's Sporting Globe.

A promising young cricketer, Moyes had represented South Australia from 1912 to 1915 (making a century on début) and been chosen for Australia in 1914 for a tour of South Africa, which was cancelled due to World War 1. He played for Victoria in 1920 before the move to New South Wales. In Sydney, he achieved one of the highest individual scores in grade cricket when he made 218 runs in 83 minutes for the Gordon District Cricket Club in 1922. Presented with an engraved silver ball to honour 'his captaincy and the good fellowship he inspired', he served as a New South Wales selector (1926-27) and sought Donald Bradman to play for the State.

By 1927, when Moyes joined the State branch of the Australian Journalists' Association, he was a senior reporter for the Globe. He became news editor for the Daily Telegraph about 1928, but soon transferred to the Daily Guardian. Having joined Associated Newspapers Ltd in 1931, he was sporting editor of the Sun for fifteen years.

In 1941-44 he commanded the 7th Australian Garrison as a lieutenant colonel and remained involved in casual sporting journalism. From 1946 to 1951 he edited Associated Newspapers' magazine, Sporting Life. His thirteen books on cricket included accounts of Test tours, the biographies of Bradman (1948) and Benaud (1962), and Australian Cricket (1959).

In 1949 Moyes had begun broadcasting sporting sessions for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. In 1950-51 he covered his first Test series, against England. In 1955 he received a full-time contract. As a cricket broadcaster, he became a household name in Australia and New Zealand in the 1950s and early 1960s. His pithy and authoritative commentaries, delivered in a 'dryly-humourous voice', won thousands of listeners to the A.B.C. He was renowned for his summaries of the day's game which, he wrote, should be 'factual and yet not dull'. Sir Charles Moses described him as 'a scrupulously honest communicator'. Moyes's 'infectiously hysterical' description of the last over of the tied Test between Australia and the West Indies in December 1960 has been replayed many times by popular request.

Moyes was appointed M.B.E. in 1959. He and his wife were active members of the congregation of St Stephen's Anglican Church, Willoughby. Bradman, who had worked with him as a junior on the Sun, described him as 'most considerate and helpful . . . a fine-living man'.

Survived by his wife and two sons, Johnny Moyes died of coronary vascular disease on 18 January 1963 at his Chatswood home and was cremated.

Credit: Australian Dictionary of Biography