CROLL, Sidney Robert

BORN FEBRUARY 12TH, 1912 in New South Wales, the only child of Robert Croll (1877–1948) and Lilly Cary, a family descended from Newcastle collier sailor, Captain Robert Croll (1837–1881). [110, 111] Croll was a hockey player and speed skater in his youth, but his major influence was in the world of figure skating. He went on to become a World and Olympic judge with the International Skating Union in 1956, 1973, 1975, 1977 and twice president of Ice Skating Australia (ISA). Croll was the 1939 National Men's Champion and four times Australian Ice Dance Champion, thrice with Kath Kennedy in 1933, 1935–6, and again with K. Hume in 1937.

In England in 1935, he won the Manchester Ice Dance Trophy with Pauline Borrajo (1911–2005). This was Borrajo's first competition success and she went on to become runner-up British Ice Dance Champion twice, in 1938 and 1939, and Champion twice in 1947 and 1948. Her principal trainer was the legendary Gladys Hogg and Howard Nicholson (coach to Sonja Henie in London), Bob Dench, and for figures, Jacques Gerschwiler. The American, Howard Nicholson, had made his first appearance at Melbourne Glaciarium when he was the World champion, on May 23rd, 1925, with European champion, Henry Witte. Witte was as an instructor at Melbourne that season and Nicholson went on to give exhibitions at Sydney Glaciarium. Nicholson was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1976. [189]

In 1932, Croll donated a trophy for women's individual skating to be known as the Croll Cup (S R Croll Award). It was first won by Mirey Reid. [441] Two years later, at the age of 26, he became president of the forerunner to Ice Skating Australia (ISA), serving until 1935. In 1938, he married Marie Pichoir de Launay at Woollahra, NSW. In 1939, he was Australian National Waltz Champion with Kath Kennedy and Men’s Skating Champion representing New South Wales.

He enlisted at Potts Point and served as Sergeant in the Second World War with the 2/1 Field Regiment of the Royal Australian Artillery, from 1942 until 1946 when it was disbanded. His regiment served in the Middle East, Ceylon, Greece, North Africa and New Guinea. In 1948, he re-married to Annis Joan Macleod at Paddington, Sydney. Between 1961 and 1976, Croll was again ISA president, twenty-six years after his first two-year term. During that period, he owned Australian Ice Sports Limited, the company that leased Prince Alfred Park ice rink in Sydney from the City Council between 1968 and 1970.

Croll became an ISU World Championship Referee for the International Skating Union and Olympic Judge in 1956 at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, for the Pairs in which Mason and Bower competed, and for the Men's events in which Alan Ganter and Charles Keeble competed. He was a substitute judge in the 1973 World Figure Skating Ladies Championships in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 1976, Croll's last year as president of the Australian ice skating association, a new Zealand team of twelve skaters competed at the Australian Championships in Brisbane, and two won the Australian Junior Dance Championship.

Croll retired as president the next year, but he visited New Zealand as President Emeritus of Ice Skating Australia, traveling to Auckland, Christchurch and Invercargill, where he conducted judging seminars, escorted by H A 'Sandy' Allchurch of the NZISA, who was also a skating judge. [96]

Sydney Croll continued in his role of President Emeritus of Ice Skating Australia. He was one of 22 inaugural inductees to Ice Skating Australia's Hall of Fame in August 2004.