Cricket: Mount tuck bats under arms and walk

Jason Dovey, the Mount Maunganui Cricket Club president, outside its new shared home with the Mount Maunganui Sports Club. Photo / John Borren

The Mount Maunganui Cricket Club had been happily ensconced in its own pavilion since 1987, with superb viewing facilities over Blake Park's number one ground.

But not any longer.

Financial pressures and the decision to install new hockey turfs - encroaching on the playing space in a few years' time - gave the cricketers no choice but to pack up their kit bags and wander across the road to a new base.

They now share facilities with the Mount Maunganui Sports Club.

But out of the forced move comes a positive future, with the prospect within a year of the wicket clay being dug up to establish a new cricket block beside the rugby pitches on Blake Park.

Mount Maunganui Cricket Club president Jason Dovey said the move was inevitable and would give surety to junior cricketers in the area.

"Basically, securing a long-term future for a clubhouse somewhere on the park was vital as that [old] building is not going to be there in 2019," Dovey said.

"Our main drive behind it is we have 150-170 juniors and we want to give them a future and a roof over their head.

"It is a compromise. There is a lot of history that you are leaving but you have to build for the future. It is not for us but for the kids coming through."

He said sticking with a pavilion which had such a short-term future would have been a serious financial drain on the cricket club.

"The council have been obliging. They could see the predicament we were in.

"It costs roughly $12,000 a year to run that building. There was no point us spending that sort of money for the three years left so we thought, 'let's start spending our money over there'."

Joining the wider umbrella of the Mount Maunganui Sports Club had worked well so far.

"The transition has been good. They have been very, very welcoming and obliging, which is the good thing. It is still only early days but we are really happy."

After becoming naming-rights sponsors of the Bay Oval Pavilion next door, Carrus Corporation has signed a three-year sponsorship deal with Mount Maunganui Cricket to help continue its leading junior coaching programme.