Cricket: Napier Technical Old Boys clinch 11th overall premier men's club crown in 12 years

Napier Technical Old Boys premier men's team have claimed the overall Hawke's Bay competition bragging rights with two matches remaining in the 50-over competition. Photo/supplied

The Napier Technical Old Boys premier men's team have clinched the overall championship bragging rights again in Hawke's Bay this summer.

The Innovative Electrical-sponsored NTOB side accomplished the feat with two rounds left to play in the MJF Shrimpton Memorial Cup 50-over competition last weekend.

"Our points lead is to too big for Havelock to make up," said player and NTOB club manager Morten Freer of the Reynard Health Supplies Havelock North CC team who are the 2018-19 55-over champions. "This is our seventh overall title in a row and the 11th one in the past 12 years."

The Texans are also going to Cornwall Cricket Club (Auckland) next month to defend their crown as national premier men's club champions.

This time last year, the Liam Rukuwai-captained Texans rewrote a 140-year-old history in the Bay when they won their sixth consecutive overall crown, becoming the first side in the province's top grade to eclipse the five-on-the-trot feat that United Cricket Club (Napier) established from 1894-95 to 1898-99.

The Hastings Cricket Club had also matched United's record at the start of the World War I in 1914-15 to 1918-19, since the competition began in 1882-83, although records were kept only since 1883-84 according to NTOB president David Caldwell.

In 1990-91 NTOB almost folded because of dwindling numbers, an affliction that had got hold of Napier Old Boys' Marist club and Napier Boys' High School.

One night at the church hall at Wycliffe St in the winter of 1990 they had gathered to merge with Napier Marist club.

A lawyer and former first-class cricketer, Andrew Morrison, from the firm of Sainsbury Logan, had revealed to the gathering that former club member Jack Minett had bequeathed a handsome sum of money to the club.

Part of the condition of receiving that fiscal fillip ($250,000) was to ensure NTOB remained a single entity, which warded off any efforts to merge.

The Jack Minett Technical Cricket Trust was formed and funds were grown from investments through it.

That was how Napier Marist and Napier High School Old Boys evolved into NOBM.