When Andrew Cronyn (left) and Dr Steven Middleton met in Queen’s they were naturally drawn together. Both came from the country, and loved sport. They soon entered into a transactional friendship.

Steven ‘Midda’  

I’ve known Andrew since 1990, 35 years, which is a bit of a worry because you only get 30 for murder these days. I’m into my second life sentence with him, and he barracks for Collingwood so that makes it even harder. 

Andrew was the year above me in College, I heard a lot about him before I met him. Everyone was saying there’s a rough and ready crew in second year, and the boss is a bloke from Shepparton you need to stay away from called Crono.  They built him up quite a bit, so it was a bit of a letdown, in a good way, when I actually met him. Crono earned his reputation because he was very friendly, well connected, and quite entrepreneurial, at one stage he was running a catering business out of his College room. He was also the first person I knew with a mobile phone, proudly clipped on his belt. 

He was very industrious, had a couple of part time jobs and for a few of us who didn’t have a lot of money he became a money lender. He’d lend you $10 to go to the pub then he’d write it up on his list, blue-tacked to his filing cabinet, and charge you a bit of interest. He had a successful moneymaking racket going on there for a while. At one point he had half the male population of the College owing him money. It was only about 10 years ago he decided there were some guys he was never going to get the $10 back from. I owed Andrew a bit of money because we used to go to the Albion Hotel on a Monday, where they had a $1 pot night, so if you borrowed $10 from Andrew you had enough for a few beers and a souvlaki at Twins on the way home. He’d let you pay it off in instalments or if you had $2 left you could deduct that off your tab. It was a relief to see a line through your name. We always joke that he was a bit tight. If there was a dollar involved, he loved it. In reality he was just really good with money from an early age. 

Andrew and I were part of a Queen’s College dynasty when we won three basketball championships in a row in 1990, ‘91, ‘92. We beat Newman in ‘90 in triple overtime, then in ‘91 we beat Whitley and Andrew had a healthy rivalry with some guys from Whitley so we decided after the game to go over to their college to celebrate the victory. A couple of us ended up in the local Carlton watch house later in the evening, I won’t name names but Andrew probably was involved in a bit of an incident, some would say he was a bit shaken up, but not Andrew. 

Then we lived together after College in Cardigan Street and I got sucked into a couple of businesses that Andrew used to run, one called Idea Gear which involved printing on t-shirts, and the other, Universal Catering which catered for University events. We had a spare room in the house that doubled as Andrew’s store room. He’d say to the blokes working for him, ‘I won’t pay you in hours but you can drink while you’re working and join the party afterwards’. In those days there was no such thing as RSA. They were good times, and if there was good fun to be had, Andrew was certainly right in the centre of it. 

I spoke at his 40^th, his wedding and his 50^th but I don’t think I’ll be speaking at his 60^th after the last time. I’ve told the same jokes over and over again and need to give someone else a go. It’s a privilege to say a few words, encapsulate who he is. He’s someone who has a really large group of friends. We all feel privileged to be a small tile in the mosaic that he has created in his life. 

His passion for Collingwood is absolutely insane. He loves his stats, and is pretty good at them. That can be annoying because he can tell you how many games Collingwood has won over the years. He can get a bit worked up at the footy if Collingwood isn’t going so well. He’s generally a pretty quiet sort of a bloke, he can get angry at the umpires but angry Andrew is pretty tame. He’s one of the calmest guys you’ve ever come across, especially under pressure, a real man to be relied upon in a crisis. 

The other thing that’s frustrating about him is that because he’s been so heavily involved in the sports technology industry as a consultant, advisor and investor, he has gone to the Olympics, the World Cup, the NBA playoffs and about 15 Super Bowls in a row. Everyone has been pretty jealous of the life he has been living. Six weeks in France for the Olympics last year was a tough pill to swallow. 

He’s always been very focussed on what he’s wanted to achieve. Because of his love of sport, he always wanted to turn sport into his career, so that was no surprise. He’s always been very independent. When he finished uni, he took a job in Sydney, then he went to the University of Massachusetts in Boston and did a Masters’ degree in sport then started working in New York and on to London. He’s always been very driven and hasn’t been scared about doing things on his own. 

He’s certainly been there through some challenging times for me. He’s very easy to talk to. I’ve turned to him over the years. Andrew and his wife Kim, have been the closest thing to a second family to my two daughters Skylar and Indiana, as they are all living in Sydney. He has always been there for all of us. Also, his friendship with my ex-wife Kirilly (Middleton, Wyvern 1991) is a real testament to both of them. He is a man to be relied upon. 

I think one of the challenges for Andrew that I’d like to think I helped in was when he was in a long-distance relationship with Kim. She was in the UK and he was in Australia and I know they felt that distance pretty sharply. I remember having some long conversations with him saying, ‘Mate these things are sometimes meant to be, give it a go, see where it goes.’ Thankfully, they got married 10 years ago but they probably had five years of backwards and forwards between Australia, the US and London. Now they have a wonderful relationship, living their best life on Bondi Beach. 

It’s great to see him now giving back to Queen’s through The Gus and Family Rural and Regional Scholarship. It’s ideally awarded to students who went to a country government secondary school like we did, and acknowledges how important rural students are in the history and fabric of the College. It just shows what a special place and time it was for Andrew. 

Andrew hasn’t changed, he’s always been really lovely, caring, generous, up for anything, a bit of fun, a laugh. He’s very much loved and admired by a large group of people and popular with anyone who meets him.  You wouldn’t find anyone who’d say bad words about him. 

Andrew ‘Crono’ 

Midda came from Ballarat and we have very similar backgrounds, traditional middle class country families and rural high schools. 

He was a good athlete, I wasn’t. He was in the firsts football team and I was in the seconds, but our similar background, and his easy-going nature ultimately connected us. He was a better basketballer than me, I cared about it more and certainly had to work harder at it, and we had some success at College. Being desperate to be part of the team, I managed to get a little bit of time on the court (when the better players got fouled off), and be part of winning basketball teams. After beating Whitley, there was a bit of good-natured animosity, and celebrations might have got slightly out of hand. We got in a bit of trouble after that one, and were bailed out by Steve and a couple of others post game but that was one of the sweeter victories we had, that’s for sure. 

We are very different in a way. In my younger days I’d describe myself as being good with money, other’s might say a bit tight. Hopefully the pockets aren’t quite as hard to empty out these days. It has served me well in my business but I think it was right to call me a bit tight with money during my early years. Midda on the other hand is a great acquirer of goods but not the best at discarding them. He owns a lot of random stuff, most of it I suspect is still at the bottom of a pile in his spare bedroom. 

Our relationship became further cemented when we moved into a house together straight after College with a couple of other Queen’s mates. It was across the road from The Clyde and the front bar became another living area because my catering business took up one of our lounge rooms. Midda was one of my better “employees” in the catering business, which you wouldn’t have guessed. He was very reliable, as he is in general. It was very convenient when we were living together, if I needed an extra barman he would willingly put his hand up. Midda was the one who would be there working until the end of the night. We had a lot of fun doing that. That said, when the social basketball team I played in at Carlton Baths with a few other Wyverns regularly needed a fill-in, he wasn’t so reliable and it was all but impossible to get him off the couch. 

We didn’t cook a lot and one of the reasons was Midda’s appalling dish washing standards. The other was that his signature dish was a bowl of chicken chips with salsa. I don’t think he’s improved over the years in terms of his house management skills and while he has moved on from The Clyde, I believe he is keeping numerous restaurants in Richmond in business. I think a lot of that came about because I didn’t help him learn the basics those first years out of College. My wife, Kim would say he never had a chance if I was the one tasked with teaching him those things. 

He is a very good story teller, there’s always a little bit of extra mustard and mayonnaise on top, that’s part of the allure of the bloke, he’s very entertaining. His stories about me seem to escalate each year, they never get old, they always seem to get better, he’s the chief story teller amongst our friends. Everyone does a combination of shaking heads while laughing simultaneously as the same stories come out time and time again. 

As a Collingwood fan I’m probably not compatible with anyone. I don’t really like going to Collingwood games with anyone other than Collingwood fans, I don’t think it’s beneficial to my friendships. I’m probably even a little bit more obsessive than Midda who loves his Hawks, but is a little bit more rational about them. 

Midda is an amazing contradiction. As an Associate Principal and English and history teacher, he is so well read, a voracious consumer of all types of content and has a big desire and passion to learn. He’s seen every movie, read every book, watched every TV series, read every newspaper, knows about every country’s politics. I’m just too busy reading the footy news, but he’s encouraged me to lift my game. When we first became friends, I wouldn’t have known that, I was more attracted, such as was the mindset in your early 20s, to the fun-loving guy. 

He has completed at least two Masters degrees and a PhD, which very rightly gives him the title of Doctor, which I find amazing and amusing. Amazing, that I just don’t know where he finds the time to do that with a very demanding job and family but also amusing, because often Doctor Middleton and I will be wandering around Bondi Beach in our shorts and singlets and end up at a bar for beers. I don’t know how he does it because I’m sure he’s also one of the laziest people I’ve ever met. He has this laid back, laconic approach to life that makes him sometime appear like he doesn’t have the energy to do something but he’s proven that’s not the case given what he’s achieved in his life with his family, his own education and the way he’s such a key leader amongst our broader friendship group. This guy is so educated and learned that it’s quite inspirational. 

He’s certainly been through more difficult times and challenges than me, with his father’s death 20 years ago and then separating from Kirilly 10 years ago. There’s no doubt that both of those have weighed heavily on him but he has just ploughed ahead, he’s one of the most stoic characters you’ll ever come across. 

A comment he embraced a lot during that period is that change is inevitable and it’s not always going to be easy. One of the things I’m most proud of him as a friend is the father he has become to his two wonderful daughters who I’ve seen growing up in front of me. They are a very close-knit family. The massive effort he has put in to be present despite living in Melbourne, and positively influence their lives from that distance is really inspiring. He has balanced wanting to maximise his own career and capability to give them the best possible lives, with being in Sydney at every chance he can. Also, the friendship he has been able to recreate with Kirilly is a real testament to both of them. It’s for the benefit of their daughters but probably to the benefit of themselves as well that they have become really good friends, the gold standard in the modern world where families can take all shapes and sizes. 

I haven’t needed to lean on anyone too much but certainly he’d be one of the first guys that I would if and when that happens. Once you’re a friend of his you’re a friend forever and he treats you that way. 

I can still see that person from back then, his reliability, loyalty and generosity has always been there. The attributes of the individual haven’t changed, fun-loving and always good for a laugh, doesn’t take himself too seriously are some of the things I’ve come to appreciate more about him through the years.