Ian James Gordon was a consultant surgeon in Bendigo, Australia. He was born in Aberdeen on 29 October 1924. His father, James Lendrum Gordon, was a mercantile marine officer and his mother, Mary Ironside Sherriffs, was the daughter of a farmer. He was educated at Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen,

Ellery Arthur Mulvihill Ryan was born in 1917 in Melbourne, the son of a leading ophthalmologist who exerted a great influence on his son's character and interest in sport of many kinds. He went to school as a boarder at Xavier College from the age of six till he was eighteen and left with the prize