By Dale Budge
It is safe to say that the Mauku Cricket Club, in the heart of the Counties Manukau region, is one of the oldest clubs in the country.
How do you define the term “oldest” when comparing clubs?
While other clubs were started before Mauku, most have ceased to exist or have had time out as such. It is widely believed that Mauku Cricket Club is the oldest continuously operating club in New Zealand having first begun life in 1859.
The club started when a local Mauku community member, Mr Crisp esq. created a team to play an Army team which was based out of Drury and the club has continued on ever since. The club was originally based in Mauku (as opposed to Patumahoe) in those formative days but when the old pub was relocated across from Mauku to Patumahoe, funnily enough the cricket team’s home location seemed to adjust to Patumahoe. The Mauku name was retained for the club, which is important in terms of history and acknowledgement of the club origins.
There is 160 years of history between the formation and its current life but keeping track of that history has not been easy.
“As the club has continued on through the years, the stewardship of the organisation has changed many times – and in that time, much of the information that makes the club’s history has become difficult to access,” current club president Joseph Hunter told Counties Sports Hub.
“To rectify that, we are reaching out to previous club Presidents and members, such as Phil Dennison and Chris Innes and local community heritage sources to try and rebuild our club history into a single documented space to preserve that whakapapa, the genealogy and identity of the club while understanding better the significant contributions that have been made by past members in terms of serving our community through sport development.”
Playing numbers dwindled over the past 20 years and the club has dropped down the senior grades but there is renewed belief in the current committee and playing group and the future now looks to be bright.
“With a future focus, we are very much a club focused on growing cricket in the expanding Patumahoe / Mauku communities and while acknowledging our past we are building a current culture of cricket that is played with effort, with respect for the game and those involved while supporting each other to perform as well as we can,” Hunter said.
“Our culture is one where we are trying to build an appreciation that all connected as current members of the club are stewards who have a responsibility to represent this club to a high standard, understanding that they are part of a special club being 161-plus years old.”
The club operates one men’s T20 team and a number of age-group teams and they have the ambition of climbing up through the grades as their playing numbers build.
Counties Sports Hub wrote about an initiative where they are inviting former players and community leaders to play in a semi-regular T20 contest, that they hope will grow the club.
“Our club right now is humming along nicely, driven by a small but effective committee – supported by sponsors Searle Group Ltd, Punchbowl Kiwifruit Services and Weck’s ITM,” Hunter explained.
“We’re continuing to draw players to the club even mid-season with ex-players returning to the pitch to bolster our senior team group and we hope to expand this next year and return to 40 over cricket while maintaining a T20 side also.
“Our Junior numbers are growing each season too, which is excellent for future development. We’re certainly enjoying being back in cricket mode with the juniors back at it this weekend and will continue with our invitational games which have proven popular and very competitive with the club senior side needing to win the next match to even the ledger for the 2020/21 season.”
There appears to be a lot more chapters to write in Mauku’s storied tale in the years ahead.
Recent Comments