Born on 19th April 1959 in Sydney NSW, former Test and ODI player for Australia, Julie Stockton, Julie, a wicket keeper and aggressive right-hand batter.
Julie her First Class debut for NSW in 1975/76 against Victoria at the Flinders University Oval in Adelaide. In the Victorian team, captained by Anne Gordon was Test wicket keeper Marg Jennings, along with Test new-ball pair Sharon Tredrea and Raelee Thompson.
On the 1976 tour to England Julie was selected as reserve keeper and played in two of the ODIs as a batter only. She played in one other ODI, on the successful World Cup campaign of 1978, again as a batter only and this time under the captaincy of Marg Jennings.
New Zealand toured Australia in 1978/79, but before they landed on shore, a bombshell hit. The Australian captain had been dropped from the Test team completely. Observers were both stunned and angry. A much loved captain had just won the World Cup and now cast aside by the selectors completely, and worse still, the replacement was from NSW.
The anger in the Victorian camp was palpable and then made difficult, for the new captain and vice-captain, Tredrea and Thompson, were team mates of the outgoing one. It should be stated that both initially refused the appointments out of their support for Marg.
With that backdrop in mind, the young Stockton made her Test debut at Sydney University Oval in January 1979. She took a catch off the bowling of Tredrea to open her account and another from Wendy Weir.
New Zealand were all out for 254 and Stockton was listed to bat at number three. She didn’t have long to wait, with Peta Verco dismissed when the score was just 19. The debutant, with all of the drama at the selection table far from her mind went out and scored a century on debut. Her 117 in 284 minutes came with eleven boundaries.
Julie played in the second and third Test matches of that series and then off the cricket scene altogether, settling in Wagga Wagga far away from the city and far away from controversy.