Marist celebrates 100, not out
There’s little doubt about Robbie Hill’s passion for the Marist Cricket Club. Hill joined the Invercargill-based club in 1981 and his involvement as a player, administrator and coach has stretched through to today.
During the past 12 months, Hill has helped put together the club’s 100-year celebrations that will be held this weekend.
The milestone has sparked some reflection. Hill said the club has had its ups and downs on its way to reaching the centennial milestone, but he was proud it had lasted the test of time and also of what the club had achieved.
The club was formed by the Marist brothers who were teaching at the Marist College in Mary St.
‘‘Historically, there are only probably only two clubs [in Invercargill] who have still got their identities and that’s
Appleby and Marist, and a lot of that is because of the effort that has been put in from the people in the background,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s a great achievement for clubs to reach these sorts of milestones and you’ve got to celebrate them. It’s good to get the old-timers back.’’
Hill pointed to the late 1980s and early 1990s as probably one of the strongest periods for the Miller St-based club.
‘‘In the late 80s and early 90s Marist had five sides; for about three years in a row we won every competition.
‘‘At one stage there was four of us that had played first-class cricket and six of us were playing for Southland.’’
Since then the club has had challenges at various times, but Hill said they were not restricted to just Marist. ‘‘It is not easy out there to get people to carry it on behind the scenes,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s indicative of the ways things are, I’m afraid. It applies to all sports now, I think.’’
One of the highlights of this weekend’s celebrations will be on Saturday night when Bernie
Brown announces a ‘‘centennial team’’ at a dinner at the Ascot Park Hotel. John Ward, Brown, and Hill have been given the task of selecting the team.
‘‘We are calling it a centennial team but the majority of players are post-war because there’s noone that has got any memory of that far back. If we have missed someone back in that period we apologise,’’ Hill said.
Hill said it was the work of Hamish Murie that meant the club had been able to put together such a big weekend. ‘‘He has done a marvellous job of pushing this. We started having meetings about a year ago.’’
There have been about 125 registrations for the weekend, with Bob Wills being the oldest past member set to attend.
The celebrations will start with a game of golf on Friday before a get-together at the clubrooms that night.
Marist senior and senior reserve teams will play at Queens Park on Saturday, before the official dinner at the Ascot Park Hotel on Saturday night.
New Zealand Cricket legend Sir Richard Hadlee will be the guest speaker.