Frank Murphy
Australian diving
champion and Olympian
‘It was at Granville
that I first saw some of the State’s leading junior and senior divers, and this
whetted my appetite for the sport of diving. Over a number of years, I returned
to Granville pool, for competitions, training and exhibitions with the NSW
Diving Troupe.’
Frank Murphy
Frank Murphy (born
1928) started swimming at Granville while a student at Parramatta High, and won
his first State junior diving championship in 1944. Murphy won six Australian
championships, and a bronze medal for platform diving at the 1950 British Empire
Games in Auckland. He competed in the 1948 Olympic Trials held at Granville
pool, and later the 1952 Helsinki and 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. In 1971
Murphy became a foundation member and chairman of the NSW Diving Association
(later Diving NSW) and subsequently became the president of Diving Australia.
Frank was also an official at several Commonwealth and Olympic Games.
Midge Betts
Australian diving
champion
Mervyn Betts (1931 –
1990) was from a local family active in the Granville Amateur Swimming Club.
Called ‘Midge’ because he was so small, Betts began diving aged around ten, and
won several State and Australian junior titles. As a member of the NSW Diving
Troupe he performed in exhibition and comic diving at swimming carnivals at
Granville and other pools. After 18 years of competition diving, Betts won the
1960 State highboard diving championship, but narrowly missed out on selection
for the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. Midge Betts’ friend, fellow diver and coach
Jack Barnett remembers him as ‘fearless’ and ‘one of the best comic divers in
Australia’. Midge was still diving into the 1970s.
Images:
1. Frank Murphy at the
1952 Olympic Games, Helsinki . Courtesy of Frank Murphy
2. Frank Murphy,
diving at Granville, about 1949. Courtesy of Frank Murphy
3. Midge Betts, Barry
Holmes and Frank Murphy ,in combined 3 1/2 somersaults from a 45 foot tower
(about 14m) into the Derwent River, at the 1958 Hobart Regatta Courtesy of Frank
Murphy
4. Midge Betts and his
mother Lillian Betts with some of his trophies, about 1943 Courtesy of Joan
Betts
5. Midge Betts diving
into North Sydney pool Courtesy of Joan Betts
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