I played it at every opportunity as a kid, and have been a member of Napier Old Boys’ Marist Cricket Club for the past 15 years, many of those years playing for, managing, and captaining their social team, the “Hobblers”, and I have been Club Secretary for 12 years.
My team-mates, club-mates and their families have become more like an extended family for me over time, especially since losing my father and mother in recent years.
It’s a given in our household that when my club or a club mate needs help or support, I just go and do it, and they return the loyalty.
It means a lot to me to have people believe in me.
So thank you Del, James, Glen, Dan, Stu, Scott, the Matts, Joshes and Rhys’, Tony, Nihal, Arun, Gaurav, John, Wayne, Rogan, Dave, Pete, Abby, Marion, Mary, and all the other clubmates and my extended NOBMCC whanau who have helped and supported me over the last decade and a half.
It’s America’s Cup time in New Zealand, but I’m just not feeling it.Aside from all the global pandemic problems taking focus and fans away it’s just not the same any more.
Or that the billions of dollars involved in a single competitor’s campaign would make any Auckland real estate agent’s commission look like loose change;
Cast your mind back to 1986-87 in Freemantle, Western Australia and how it seemed our entire nation got behind KZ7, made of fiberglass & Kiwi innovation – “The Plastic Fantastic”!
“Dirty” Dennis Conner saying “You’re a loser, now get off the stage” to NZ designer Bruce Farr.
In the vein of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and USA for Africa’s “We are the World” New Zealand icons, TV and music stars even came together under the name “All of Us” to sing “Sailing Away” (I still have the vinyl record) – The only true New Zealand America’s Cup song. Listening to it 35 years later still brings a bit of a proud tear to the eye.
The New York Yacht Squadron could stick their Manhattan millionaires where the sun didn’t shine – We’ve had Barry bloody Crump SINGING A SONG!!
(Special musical mention goes to Dave Dobbyn’s “Loyal” for the 2003 America’s Cup campaign but, from memory, I think it got hijacked into a Lotto advert, sadly).
Even I got into the spirit of things – I would put my bike upside down on the deck of our trailer in the back yard.
The front wheel, turned side on, was KZ7’s steering wheel; The up-turned pedals were the grinders’ cranks.
The trailer’s triangular draw bar was the bow and the jockey wheel handle at its end cranked the sails up and down.
I raced for nautical miles and miles never leaving our grassy backyard in suburban Napier.
KZ7, of course, didn’t win.
Core samples, cries of bad sportsmanship and a yacht race that became billionaire backers racing lawyers.
Great, patriotic times (even if still today most New Zealanders couldn’t tell their spinnaker from their forestay and think that a “Grinder” is a dating app on their phone)!
The races were held in Bermuda, and the coverage and time difference meant it wasn’t as wall-to-wall as it had been in previous years.
There were even indications that our team, Team New Zealand, the ingenious kiwi battlers of the 80s were becoming.more and more like the rest of the syndicates and focused on money and power.
So was it becoming a case of “All of Us” becoming “Us vs. Them”?
In a time when the country was facing up to profound levels of inequality and housing unaffordability so much being spent on something so unrelatable to average New Zealanders, or seemingly frivolous given the overarching societal circumstances rankled with lots of people.
Even the fact the race seemed preordained to be hosted in Auckland no matter what riled a few.
With international travel currently off limits I know many social media friends who have only just visited Hawke’s Bay for the first time recently and loved it!
We may even let you have your photo taken with the Ranfurly Shield! 😉
Its the sound of waves breaking on Napier’s Marine Parade.
And that?
It’s a magpie calling on a fence in Waipukrau.
Then there is the roar as hundreds of cricket fans cheer when Ross Taylor sends the ball soaring over the boundary for six at McLean Park!
These are all familiar sounds to Hawke’s Bay locals, but may not be so well known to those outside the region.
Recently the chances of Hawke’s Bay locals and others further afield hearing Hawke’s Bay over the airwaves became slimmer and slimmer and one of New Zealand’s biggest media organisations, NZME (“New Zealand Media and Entertainment”), was at the centre of both.
One affected me indirectly, while the other had a more personal impact.
I wish this was a new problem, but it has been going on for as long as I’ve been a curmudgeon! 😉
Hawke’s Bay had been fortunate to retain at least some local content during this time via NZME’s “The Hits” and Mediaworks’ “The Breeze” breakfast shows remaining local, broadcast from Napier and Hastings studios respectively, but this Jono and Ben announcement certainly seemed to threaten that status.
New Zealand media’s talent pool is shallow enough as it is without just swapping the same people around and simulcasting them on yet another network.
NZ Cricket didn’t want to commit to Radiosport’s five year offer, citing advances in technology and a changing media landscape discouraging them from tying themselves into broadcasting on radio for that length of time.
(This opinion apparently failed to take into account that Radiosport has also been broadcasting over NZME’s online streaming service “iHeartRadio” for some time now)
So, from the end of this domestic and international cricket season the dulcet tones of Brian Waddle, Jeremy Coney and their cricket commentating colleagues were out of jobs and will no longer keep summertime gardeners company.
New Zealand Gothic:
Transistor radio playing test cricket,
Freshly mown lawn,
Reel mower quietly pinking in the background.
Ladders, planks & tin of paint set up
For a fresh summer coat on the weatherboards..
Cricket commentary from McLean Park, Bay Oval, Seddon Park, University Oval and all the other grounds around New Zealand will fall silent on the airwaves from April.
Personally, it meant an opportunity I never thought I would have was lost.
Because for three domestic Supersmash T20 cricket matches at my beloved McLean Park, I was one of those Radiosport commentators!
Late last year I got a phone call.
I had mentioned on Twitter earlier in the year about wanting to do cricket commentary, or had been doing my usual social media promotion of McLean Park / Napier / Hawke’s Bay, when I got an email from someone at RadioSport asking if I’d like to send in an “audition tape”, as they were looking to expand their regional roster, and Hawke’s Bay was somewhere they felt they were a bit thin on the ground in.
I was taken aback – Knowing what media in NZ is like (see above), this was not just something that comes along every week.
Unlike The Hits, cutting back regional resources, Radiosport was trying to expand – Having local voices at the likes of Hagley Oval and McLean Park.
So I recorded an ad-libbed over of commentary on my phone one evening after my daughter had gone to bed and emailed it off.
I didn’t hear anything back, so thought I must have sucked and forgot about it.
Until I got a call one afternoon in November.
It was Malcolm Jordan from Radiosport. “Did I get back to you about your audition tape?” he asked.
I replied “No.”
“Oh, sorry, we liked it! We’ve got some Supersmash T20 games coming up at McLean Park in December and January, would you like to commentate them?”
And so began what would unfortunately turn out to be one of the shorter careers I have had.
This was an opportunity to watch the game I love at a place I love and tell the nation (and anyone else listening online around the world) all about it!
And they paid me to do it!
But the money wasn’t the best part.
The best part was that they BELIEVED IN ME!
The day before my first match Malcolm phoned me and went through some pointers for commentating he had sent me.
“We didn’t pick you for no reason. We know you can do this!” he said (or words to that effect).
Because while I believe I am capable of doing the things I want to do, that doesn’t mean a hell of a lot if no one else does, too.
I’d be a multi-media star broadcasting Hawke’s Bay to the world by now if it did!
It’s not even something I’m used to in my day-to-day, non-writing job of a decade and a half!
So to have someone believe in me, pretty much out of the blue was, well, unbelievable!
The games were played and I think I did a reasonable job for my few times in the commentary box.
A personal highlight was I got to step out onto the pitch block in the centre of McLean Park – the closest I would likely get to playing there!
My short stint was completed, pay was deposited, and I looked forward to possibly doing it again next season.
Except as it currently stands I won’t get to.
I know I’m no Richie Benaud, Ian Smith, Jeremy Coney, or Brian Waddle.
I was never going to be able to chuck in my current job and set off on an international cricket commentating career after a couple of T20 games.
But this was an opportunity – something that doesn’t come along very often.
It was a light at the end of the tunnel that said If I stuck at this and worked on it there was a chance, a possibility, AN OPPORTUNITYthat somewhere down the track I MIGHT just be able to make a career of it.
With NZ Cricket and Radiosport parting ways that light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be a freight train coming the other way.
As I wrote in a tweet about the Provincial Growth Fund recently:
How many Super Rugby, or even All Blacks games (Napier has hosted only two in 20yrs!) could have been played in sold-out, 15,000-20,000 capacity regional stadiums like McLean Park, rather than the regularly 1/2 – 3/4 empty Eden Parks, or (Wellington’s Westpac Trust Stadium) “Caketins”?
Main centre Super Rugby fixture crowds have been pitiful and/or declining for some time, and the whining about low attendances from rugby bosses has only gotten louder, yet do they change tack and spread the games around?
Hawke’s Bay and their NPC team, The Magpies have been fortunate to have the local support, income and success over recent seasons to weather the storms Tew bemoaned.
I think the only NZ team to play less “Home” games at McLean Park are the All Blacks.
The Hurricanes have played 11 games at Napier’s McLean Park since Super Rugby began in 1996.
That equates to an average of one game every two years, with stadiums in three cities – Wellington, Palmerston North and Napier to potentially choose from.
Napier hosted absolutely no super rugby games for 6 years – SIX YEARS! – between 2004-2010.
As I’ve written before, some find it easy to Forget About Hawke’s Bay, but recently, as our awesomeness has become more and more apparent, that is becoming far less of an excuse and we are harder to ignore.
In 2016 Newshub ranked New Zealand’s 21 Best Super Rugby Venues, with McLean Park coming in at number nine (technically sixth, as Christchurch’s Lancaster Park, Wellington’s Athletic Park & Dunedin’s Carisbrook no longer exist) citing:
“Usually hosting just one Super Rugby match a year the games are generally
packed to the rafters with the locals reveling in a brief taste of top-flight footy.”
When this year’s Hurricanes match against the Durban Sharks at Mclean Park was announced this time last year one newspaper item began:
“McLean Park’s status as the Hurricanes’ home away from home appears in no jeopardy.”
It appears that bit of spin might have been writren with tongue firmly in cheek.
Losing Puff
This almost utter lack of faith in their regional, grassroots supporters is hard to fathom.
They can’t really claim it’s for financial reasons, as ticket sales from a packed McLean Park would obviously far out-do recent poor Wellington ticket sales, and the main reason for the Crusaders selecting Napier over their own venues in Nelson and Timaru was the income from ticket sales and the local support!
The Hurricanes could either pack out Napier’s McLean Park, Palmerston North’s Central Energy Trust Arena, and elsewhere in their zone repeatedly..
As a life-long cricket fan and player it breaks my heart to think that McLean Park may be struck off the international schedule after the recent farcical game abandonment.
As a sporting venue there are few more picturesque grounds in the world – Phoenix and Norfolk Pines surround with Hawke Bay sparkling in the background and Cape Kidnappers reaching out to the distance of any wide shot of the park.
The cricketing deities may smile upon the clay block out in the park’s middle, but when the skies (and ticket-buying fans) weep, it can be another story.
Drainage at McLean Park has long been an issue and while it may not affect the “mainly rugby” aspect of the ground, cricket’s red and white leather balls don’t take to moisture quite as well as their oval, synthetic rugby cousins.
The ground underwent improvements around that time with, I believe, a re-turf of the field and drainage improvements made.
Just before Napier’s World Cup games began it was declared the “Pitch is Cricket-perfect”(Napier Mail 4 March 2015). A groundsman was even quoted as saying:
“We have very good drainage out here on the park and we plan to keep it that way. Across the park we have drainage lines about 1.5meters apart, so it drains very quickly into the sump”
McLean Park’s World Cup games all went ahead without outfield issues (even when it rained the morning of the final game between West Indies and UAE).
Volunteering at McLean Park’s Cricket World Cup games. Photo c/o Steve Dykes
I doubt many venues would have been playable after such a deluge.
It similarly poured down when the All Blacks finally returned to McLean Park to play Argentina in 2014, but the game went ahead with great ticket sales and the city thrived with all the visitors.
Yet, for whatever reason, one of the greenest pieces of grass in an otherwise bleached-dry region was “too wet” to play on.
That’s not good enough.
It’s even worse when you consider ratepayer money went into getting the game here.
I had naively thought New Zealand Cricket dispensed matches out in an egalitarian manner – West Indies will play here, India there etc., but this is not entirely the case.
Hosting venues (or rather the local councils behind them) “bid” to host bigger games like NZ v Australia.
Not only is there an expected, ratepayer-funded cost in the logistics of hosting of these games, but there’s also an added financial sweetener to attract them here?
So to have a big game like this Chappell-Hadlee match canned in such a ham-fisted manner with players, international media and worst of all the rate and ticket-paying public left in the lurch harms not only McLean Park’s reputation and reliability, but also Napier’s finances.
We want to see Hawke’s Bay promoted on the world sporting stage. We want people to visit and enjoy our wonderful region. We want to see international sports played here and as Napier and Hastings’ combined population is around 130,500 – the 5th largest population base in New Zealand (Hamilton = 150,000 and Tauranga = 128,200) we are in the box seat for hosting such events.
There are two One Day Internationals against England and Pakistan scheduled to play in 2017/18. For the sake of one of New Zealand’s most popular international sporting grounds let’s hope things are sorted by then.
Ultimately, though, the skate club’s facility is long since demolished. The club has not been reimbursed and the errors it had put upon it are unresolved.
Those local concerns, this time over Hawke’s Bay Regional Councillors’ behaviour and the debt the organisation was set to burden all its ratepayers with for the benefit of a few in the Ruataniwha area, did at least see some positive local government change, with the balance of power tipping from pro-dam to anti-dam in this year’s elections.
I would love to say I helped democracy and righted wrongs this year, but that wasn’t the case. I helped shed light on what I considered were problems and wrongdoings, but those issues STILL exist.
That’s a real disappointment.
Though, given the interruption my life had in March-May, I guess it wasn’t a bad run for the rest of the year.
And, as I’ve written many times this year already: “There’s always someone out there worse off than you”.
There is still 2017 (and hopefully many more years) to come to get some good achieved and points on the board.
Now, does anyone know of a good unicorn dealer in Hawke’s Bay?
A couple of weeks ago, just as the school holidays were about to get underway, Napier City Council announced the “pop-up” site they had found and leased to temporarily house the club was now not “looking viable” due to structural concerns about the site.
Add to that another month’s worth of reconstruction and expense by Skating Club members and you have at least 8 weeks for Napier City Council to check and sort building reports, earthquake ratings, codes of compliance and change of usage for the temporary site they found for the Skating Club.
In fact the Community Services and Compliance / Planning departments are a few minutes’ walk apart or mere speed dial away!
Council Community Services / Strategy departments expressed platitudes that this development was “really disheartening for both the team at council and the skate club.”
You will, of course, remember how successful NCC’s recent “operational expertise” in MTG construction and Art Deco Bus operation proved.
You could easily be forgiven for thinking there appears to be a strategy going on here, but it’s not in the community’s best interests.
At best this is an error that would likely see any other organisation liable for what this is costing the skating club.
At worst it could look like an attempt by the council to break a long running, local, mainly voluntary community organisation that it sees as competition to its plans.
Nothing too unusual there – as previously stated such big events rely on volunteers to make them successful – although it pushes the limits of credibility to claim anything requiring dozens or even hundreds of people working for free as a “success” – from a financial perspective at least.
“The working capital expected from the council was not likely to be more than $100,000 and the money would be repaid from projected profits from the 2013 show, which would be the first event run under the new company.”
These requests for more funding may be looking a bit shaky as they come not long after the event posted equally big losses in recent years:
“The accounts show the company received income of $554,000 during the six months to the end of November, $297,000 below the $851,000 it budgeted for and $62,000 below what it received during the same period a year earlier.
However, in a report to the committee, the council’s acting chief financial officer, Bruce Allan, said: “Given the nature of this organisation and the event that it runs, the first half of the year financials provide limited insight into the potential full-year result.”
The show sends out invoices for deposits for booked trade sites during the half-year covered by the report, with the bulk of its income generated in the following six months.
The company said trade site sales for this year’s show had been strong “and indications are that virtually all sites will be sold”.
In October 2014 Horse of the Year had recorded a $108,000 full-year loss.
Horse of the Year were reported as expecting 2015’s event to be a “no growth” show in an attempt to make up for previous losses.
Hastings District Council said the lost revenue in 2014 was “due to problems with security fencing which allowed non-payers into the show.”
But it’s a bit hard to believe such significant losses were due to people sneaking in for free, considering even if tickets were $50 each, that would mean over 2,000 attendees got away without paying.
A more likely cause was the “Further development of relationships with Chinese equestrians, who were funded to attend last year’s (2014) show, had been “put on hold until 2016”.”
In other words “An international equestrian group were PAID to attend two years ago, but didn’t turn up and it doesn’t look like anyone asked for the money back.”
So what was the extra $205,000 Horse of the Year was requesting supposed to be going to?
Certainly not paying up to 400 workers…
Perhaps is going towards debt consolidation?
Perhaps they are paying for even more international equestrians to not attend?
Or perhaps they are looking at diversifying – Just how much are Pegacorns these days?
Horse of the Year is a great event for Hawke’s Bay that brings in hundreds of visitors and millions of dollars – and not just from the Range Rover / Multimillion dollar horse float crowd – Because for every futuristic horse-float-come-campervan there are dozens of regular horse loving attendees who stay in tents and motels, scrimping and saving where they can.
Investments and outcomes need to match up.
This is certainly one gift horse Hawke’s Bay cannot afford to look in the mouth!
