AN informal Hamilton reunion of 1960s Gisborne Boys’ High School and Poverty Bay cricketers sparked memories 260 kilometres away in Gisborne.
Former Gisborne Boys’ High cricketers Pat Malcon, Rob Crawford, John Beuth and Ian MacErlich, along with former New Zealand Cricket president Dave Hoskin, gathered for lunch in Hamilton last month.
The mini-reunion was prompted by the visit from Canada of Crawford, a retired British Columbia supreme court judge. MacErlich sent a photo of the group for the interest of their comrades from the “good old days” of Poverty Bay cricket.
Gisborne-based contemporaries of those who gathered in Hamilton are getting thin on the ground but one who remembers them is retired science teacher Don Cook.
“Pat Malcon still has the highest score on the honours board for Poverty Bay — 215 against Central Hawke’s Bay,” said Cook, whose time in the Boys’ High first 11 “overlapped” Malcon’s.
“He played for Rugby Old Boys in the university holidays and was primarily a batsman, although his medium-pace bowling wasn’t too dusty either, and he was a good fielder.
“He was first five-eighth for the Boys’ High first 15 and later on he played cricket for Wellington.”
After his playing days, Malcon had a long and distinguished cricket coaching and selecting career with Northern Districts.
Rob Crawford and Cook were contemporaries in the first 11 and had “ruined each other’s back yards” playing cricket.
“He was a wicketkeeper-batsman, and after school he played for High School Old Boys and Poverty Bay,” Cook said.
Crawford studied law at the University of Canterbury.
“He played for New Zealand Universities and the New Zealand under-23s, then he went to Canada and studied natural gas law. He met and married a Canadian teacher and has lived there ever since.”
Crawford was appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in September 2001 and retired in August 2019, having reached the age of compulsory retirement, 75.
John Beuth was in the same year as Cook and Crawford at Boys’ High and was in the first 11 with them.
“He was a useful fast bowler who played for Poverty Bay and whose pace was quite sharp,” Cook said.
“When he left school he played for Marist and made the Northern Districts team — quite a feat for any Gisborne-based cricketer.”
Ian MacErlich was “a couple of years older” than Cook and Co.
“He was a useful left-handed batsman and a very sharp fielder,” Cook said.
“He played for Poverty Bay but moved out of the district. I came across him a few times in age-group cricket. He had a son playing when I was umpiring in the ’80s.”
The other person in the photo, Dave Hoskin, played for Northern Districts from 1956 to 1965, bowled the first over for ND in first-class cricket (against Auckland on Boxing Day 1956), and in 1962-63 was a member of the first ND team to win the Plunket Shield. His time in voluntary cricket administration started during his schooldays in Hamilton and culminated in a term as New Zealand Cricket president from 2000 to 2003.
As for Cook, he looks back fondly on a golden age of Poverty Bay cricket that had plenty of colourful characters. Those he didn’t play against, he watched as a youngster.
Rowan Barbour was a batting and bowling colossus who had three games for Northern Districts but would have had many more if he had played in a bigger centre, Cook said.
When Barbour played for Poverty Bay against a touring Australian team at the Oval in Gisborne, he drew an edge from Neil Harvey — rated by some as second only to Don Bradman among Australian batsmen.
The ball flew to the slip cordon, where Len Roderick dropped it.
“Rowan had something to say about that, but Len said, ‘This crowd came to see Neil Harvey bat, not Rowan Barbour bowl’.
“In the same game, Poverty Bay all-rounder Ken Hough — who played football for Australia and football and cricket for New Zealand — hit Australian spinner Lindsay Kline for a six that landed in the middle of the Catholic school playground next door. Richie Benaud waved as it passed him, still rising, at long-on.”
Club cricket produced high drama, Cook said.
Games between ROB and Marist were like “jungle warfare”. And the fact that the eldest Kennedy brother, Don, played for ROB and Rex, Bob and Kevin played for Marist only added to the interest.
Cook played for ROB, primarily as a batsman and latterly as a wicketkeeper, and played two games for Poverty Bay. But his standout bowling memory came in his last game for Boys’ High when he captained the side and, with regular fast bowlers Barry McGregor and Beuth away on rep duty, opened the bowling with Alister Swann.
“I bowled the second over and took the wicket of High School Old Boys opener Collie Henderson with my first ball, a gentle outswinger. Murray Sharp, our player-coach, almost died of laughter.”
Cook took two more wickets that day — those of Ian Dunsmore and one of the Bartons . . . Hugh or Peter, he couldn’t remember which, although either would have been annoyed at being dismissed by a part-time swing bowler.
Victories for Poverty Bay
Gisborne Photo News of February 24, 1965, carried a report and two pages of pictures of the Poverty Bay cricket team’s five-run first-innings victory over Bay of Plenty in a Rigden Shield match in Gisborne.
The Photo News reported that Poverty Bay A and B teams both had victories over Bay of Plenty elevens when they met in two-day matches at the Oval during Anniversary Weekend.
In the first 11 match, Poverty Bay were dismissed in the first innings for 191 runs. Bay of Plenty looked likely to win as they scored 153 runs by the close of play on the first day.
However, the next morning the “devastating bowling” of John Beuth and Kevin Kennedy claimed six wickets for only 33 more runs, and the visitors were dismissed for 186 — five runs short of Poverty Bay’s first innings total.
The team photo shows all four of the former Gisborne Boys’ High School and Poverty Bay players who attended the “mini-reunion” in Hamilton last month. Rob Crawford was known as Bob in his cricketing days in Gisborne.
The other reunion attendees were Ian MacErlich (shown batting with Crawford), Pat Malcon and John Beuth.
The pictures also show Kennedy brothers Don, Kevin and Bob in the team photo, and Rex as umpire in the action shot, along with a selection of Poverty Bay’s many outstanding cricketers of the 1960s.
Pictures courtesy of Creative Commons, Gisborne Photo News No.128, February 24, 1965
