It began with Ben Dormer. Early in 1994 he suggested that a practice pitch could be cut in the middle of a cow paddock that had not been used for years and in which the grass stood a metre tall. No one knew if the ground beneath was suitable but somehow the idea took root.
After a local contractor had taken 25 bales of hay off the paddock, we found the land was almost flat and we took the decision to make a cricket ground. Six months and a lot of work later, we had one.
David Fox, a consultant engineer, consulted John Gardner who has his own cricket ground near Kaiapoi, then measured out an oval to test match proportions and laid the wicket block North South.
Kevin Blair, Warner Mauger and Peter Dormer formed a construction team that excavated an area large enough for six pitches. The square was sown during late March and early April. In 1 997 it was extended to accommodate eight pitches.
Because of the number of willow trees in adjacent paddocks we decided to call the club The Willows. Richard Cowles designed a logo and letterhead.
The first meeting of The Founders took place over a picnic lunch on May 1st 1994. The founding members accepted their positions with little idea of what they were letting themselves in for.
Waiter Hadlee CBE, elder statesman of New Zealand cricket, graciously agreed to be a Patron, and John Mitchell, Deputy Principal of Burnside High School, who once scored 1 27 against Pakistan at the age of 17, accepted the position of President. John retired in 2003 and was superseded by the Hon. Mr Justice Hansen.
Originally we thought that the club might play only four or five games a year and so a second-hand house would suffice as a pavilion. But in the end we decided to have a new building. Gerald Austin designed it and local builder Eric Roberts built it. lt was named after Trevor Campbell OBE, founder of the London New Zealand Cricket Club in 1950.
The scoreboard was named after Peter Preston, a dear friend of mine, who played rugby, cricket and soccer for Wellington but who was the victim of a tragic accident at the age of only 22. He was struck in the head by a cricket ball when practising at the Basin Reserve, and died after lying unconscious for three months in Wellington hospital .
Kevin Blair formed the driveway to the ground and Waimakariri District Council planted the trees. But no one had considered the need for water. We found a small well in the existing sheep yards, but it soon ran dry. Only the generosity of Kevin Blair got us through the first season as he regularly filled the well from his contracting water tanker. Since then the club has acquired two water rights and installed four, 5000 gallon
holding tanks.
We needed advice on how to form a square. Vince Cusack, a groundsman of enormous experience, agreed to help, though with some reluctance when he discovered how little any of us knew. Nevertheless, he has remained with the club and acted as Square Supervisor, receiving many accolades over the ten years.
For regular work on the square, Frank Rapley, a well known North Canterbury cricketing identity, suggested Peter Devlin. Peter has maintained the square ever since.
Over the first three seasons, soak hoses were attached to the outlet at the southern end of the ground and turned on for a couple of hours after every game. But then Adrian McFedries adopted the club as his contribution to the game of cricket and spent countless hours installing a sprinkler system for the square whilst also making numerous other contributions to enhance the ground’s appearance.
The permanent sightscreens were constructed out of trawler nets. Kevin Blair provided a roller, later superseded by a larger model donated by Hirequip NZ Ltd.
Working from a picture out of The Cricketer magazine, an Italian firm made the Father Time weathervane for the pavilion roof. When the then secretary of the MCC, Roger Knight, visited the ground, he suggested we should pay royalties to Lord’s!
The Founders drew up the objectives of the club and a list of cricketers who might be interested in becoming members from the outset. After consultation with secondary schools and assorted cricketing sages, they also drew up the first season’s fixture list. In that first season, eleven fixtures were played. Now, ten years later, 23 colleges are hosted every season.
The ground opened on October 23rd 1994 with a 40-over game against Christ’s College 1st XI. Craig McMillan, who has gone on to represent New Zealand, scored the first 50 for The Willows, and appropriately Ben Dormer, whose idea had started the whole thing, scored the first 50 for an opposition team.
At 3.30 that afternoon, after prayers from Rev. Bob Tremewan, Vicar of All Saints Rangiora and Rev. Fr Brian Cummings SM, Rector of St Bede’s, Waiter Hadlee officially opened the club.
Trevor Campbell spoke, and then Mrs Carol Shadbolt, on behalf of the Shadbolt family, presented a trophy in memory of Ormond Edmund Dormer (1904-1992) and Winifred Ruby Dormer ( 1907- 1994) whose ashes were scattered under the two willow trees on the banks of the nearby creek.
In October 1 999 the stone entrance to the ground was opened and named the Waiter Hadlee Entrance, in recognition of the Patron’s enormous contribution to cricket in this country. All but two of the surviving members of the 1 949 tour to England Martin Donnelly, Bert Sutcliffe (who have both since died), Geoff Rabone, John Hayes and Waiter himself were present for the occasion. On the preceding evening a dinner for 40 cricketers was held in the Town Hall and hosted by New Zealand Cricket. Twenty of those in attendance were under 21 years of age.
The Willows owes a great deal to the headmasters, coaches and others involved in secondary school cricket and to lain Gallaway, past President of New Zealand Cricket; to Don Neely New Zealand Cricket Historian, to the Umpires Association for supplying officials every Sunday, and to Christopher Doig, the then Chief Executive of New Zealand Cricket, for their support during the development of this project.
In ten years a lot has happened. Here’s to the years to come.