Old cricket stories revisited
Weraroa Cricket Club in Levin celebrates its centenary this weekend
Horowhenua’s oldest cricket club celebrates its centenary this weekend. Weraroa Cricket Club was officially formed in 1921. A newspaper advertisement appeared in the Horowhenua Chronicle calling for interested parties to meet at the Wells and Cooper Saloon in Levin.
Fast forward 100 years, and the Weraroa Cricket Club is still going strong, from the same ground and from a quaint little clubrooms on Oxford St that has inspired paintings.
Old newspaper clippings helped to document how the club was formed, starting with the call for interest of cricketers for a meeting, instigated by the Broughton brothers and Levin identity George France.
From there it was decided unanimously that a club and committee be formed under the name Weraroa Cricket Club and “it is expected this pastime will be taken up keenly in the district this season”, one article said.
The club needed playing gear, and “on account of the high price of material, it was decided to make subscription one pound and one shilling for the season”.
As there wasn’t much time before the first game, players were “requested to pay their subscriptions as early as possible to enable the committee to have everything in readiness to open the season on Wednesday next . . .”.
“The club hopes to put two teams on the field, one on the Wednesday and one on the Saturday. Honorary members’ subscription was fixed at 5s. It was decided to admit to membership six schoolboys free.”
For more than a year now a Weraroa Centenary Working Group has worked hard to put on the event and were happy with the numbers attending given the difficulty of international travel due to Covid-19.
Current president Darryl Morgan said a lot of work had gone in to hosting the centenary, including a renovation of the clubrooms and changing rooms.
Centenary Working Group coordinator Peter Davies, himself a top batsmen for the club for decades, said he was pleased a host of former club stalwarts were joining current players in celebrating the milestone.
He was joined on the Centenary Working Group members by Julie
Harper, Cheryl Nielsen, Shaun Brown, Daryl Morgan, Robbie Janes and Brett Cole, with input from numerous others.
Davies said there were more than 130 tickets sold for what was four days of planned celebrations, starting with a welcome and a game of twilight cricket at Weraroa Domain tonight — clubrooms and bar open.
Davies, who joined Weraroa after moving from Australia in 1981, was heading a group tasked with ensuring the celebrations were a success.
Facilities were given a facelift and a great deal of planning had gone into the centenary, including tracking down some Weraroa old boys. Among the attendees are some life members that committed so much of their lives to supporting the club.
All-time leading run-scorer Trevor Chambers is attending the function. On leaving secondary school, he remembers being interviewed for his first job at the Horowhenua Power Board by Weraroa life member, the late Kevin De Castro.
“He said I could have the job, but only if I played for Weraroa. But I was always going to play for the club anyway,” he said.
Chambers would go on to score 7309 runs in the 1980s and 1990s from 280 turns at bat at an average of 29.59. His high score was 170.
He originally started as a batsman but quickly turned his hand to bowling too as a way to keep involved in the game. He ended up taking 501 wickets too.
“Otherwise it was a long day if you got out cheaply,” he said.
He fondly recalls healthy rivalry with the only other club in Levin — Levin Old Boys. It meant games were intensely competitive on the field, but everyone was good friends and extremely social off the field.
“We always got on really well afterwards . . . it was a great competition to play in. It was the people you played with and played against — and the fun that you had — that kept you coming back,” he said.
In the early days he said he learnt a lot from the likes of Gerald De Castro, Peter Hudson and Chris Webb, and also current mayor of Horowhenua Bernie Wanden.
“When I first started the standard of cricket was really, really high,” he said.
He also played in Weraroa teams with the likes of Craig Auckram, Steve Carson, Gerald Baines, Carl Trask, Bernie Wanden and Steve Davis. Auckram went on to represent Central Districts, as did Trask, who hold the record for the highest Weraroa score of 196.
Bernie Wanden, a classy top order batsmen in his day who could also bowl too, played many seasons for Weraroa when moving to Levin having previously played 10 years of senior cricket in Wellington, even making Wellington B.
There was never any question of playing for another club.
“My wife [Sharon] was from Levin. She told me I had to play for Weraroa. That was that, “he said.
“I was also working across the road from Gerald De Castro who was at the sports shop, so of course he came over and made himself known.”
Wanden was made captain and played 101 innings for Weraroa,
scoring 2249 runs. With a fledgling business to run, the introduction of Saturday trading put an end to club cricket for Wanden in his early 30s, otherwise he said he would have played a lot longer.