It's a Permaclean-Up

Tales from a laundry sponsored cricket club

It was a summer like no other.

Love and love lost, death and indignant injury, drama and big life decisions, and it all rose and fell with the tides of cricket.

A good cricket club is like a family, and families can be full of love and warmth, but they can also drive you a little mad. The summer of 2006/07 was a prime example, with the whole gamut of life experiences coming thick and fast and happening all around me, to me and others I was close to.

I won’t go into too much detail but that summer the Permaclean Cricket Club lost two of our playing members in untimely deaths which shook me, and I’m sure others, to the core. I didn’t give much away at the time, but I was struggling. The idea of life being too much to bear crossed my mind often and I drank a lot to cope with a degree of unhappiness in my life. I was 24 and single, driving a delivery van for a job and wondering what the heck I was going to do with my life. I still don’t know, but cricket gave me purpose and distraction and people to talk to, not about problems so much, but anything and everything else.

A report of the 2000/01 Taupo Final, from my early years as a Permacleaner.

We had a lot of fun in my early Permaclean days, especially when we played at our home ground out at Opepe, about 10 minutes southeast of Taupo on the Napier-Taupo road. It was a farm paddock essentially, one where the farmers sent sick animals to recover or, well, die. There was a thin concrete pitch in the middle of the paddock with matting on top and the field was often littered with sheep shit and the grass was far too lush for an outfield. I remember marking out my fielding position by kicking the ground clear of the tiny, plentiful brown balls of shite and assessing the grass for length, to decide whether there was any point in diving for a ball that threatened to get past me, or if it was easier just to let it pass and wait for the grass to stop it.

The thin wicket strip was a bone of contention too, and opposition teams hated coming out to play us at Opepe. Either side of the skinny strip there was a bit of a hump where the field met the concrete, and more than once a wide ball has hit the mounded, angled earth and flown off in crazy directions. Once, an obvious wide was being left alone by a Wanderer’s batsman, a team you could call our mortal enemies. He relaxed as he expected the ball to fizzle past him and end up in the keepers gloves. Instead, it took a nasty deflection and was suddenly bound for his helmetless head, which it struck with sickening force, seeming to gather extreme pace from the pitches border. He was ok in the end, with a lump on his forehead to show for it, but not before there were some choice words and unpleasant exchanges from beyond the boundary and a few apologies on the field.

It wasn’t perfect, our field, but it had a whole lot of character. On a summer’s day I’d drive my little red 92 Corolla out to the ground and park it by the rickety old “clubrooms”, a small shed with a toilet out back which struggled to keep up with the demands placed upon it. Often times, more than one of us was extremely hungover and a day in the sun was the last thing we wanted but a pie or sandwich from the bakery and a Carnival fizzy or a Powerade would get us through. Nearing the end of a days play, the prospect of an ice cold beer from the chilly bin (for some reason we preferred Rheinecks) would remind us why we loved this bloody game so much.

Permaclean and the old Opepe hut. Brett Grindrod.

2006/07 was probably my best season performance wise for Permaclean, finishing with the most runs and second most wickets for the season, taking the allrounder of the year award off Simon Dufty for the first time in donkeys years. I even played the last few games of the season with a broken coccyx, after jumping backwards off some shelving at work and landing fair and square on the handle of a pallet jack, right up my jacksie! Many a laugh was had when I pulled out my inflatable donut pillow for a stint at the scorers table.

We won the Taupo comp that season, and had began to compete quite well in the wider Bay of Plenty competition. Except for the game at Kawerau, a small mill town halfway between Rotorua and Whakatane. We left Taupo with only 9 players, a couple of which were sourced from the pub the night before, and headed into a cauldron of a playing field at the local cricket ground. It was my first game as captain, largely because every other more likely candidate was unavailable. Apparently I won the toss and decided to bowl and I have no idea why. We got given one more player by the locals, then got belted around as almost everyone had a bowl. Facing a target of almost 300, our demoralized and short staffed batting order didn’t even reach three figures. It was an abject lesson on several fronts. Our main strike bowler, David Muir, pulled up lame early on, I had to wicket-keep either side of my bowling spell and our ginger mate Bevan, who we’d roped in from the pub, was not as good a bowler as he said he was. More than once we had to fish our ball out of the nearby stream. Despite all the pain of that day, I have fond memories of an aftermatch feed, beverage and laugh, and all those involved now have a dark humored tale to tell.

Van trips to away games were always a bit of fun.

There were two funerals that year, and enough relationship dramas for a sitcom, so at seasons end I packed my bags (and my donut for my still tender tailbone) and headed for the UK. I had no plan except staying in London with ex-Permacleaners Hamish McDowell and Steven Blunt (Mush and Blunt) but eventually I wound up in Scotland, where I found Breadalbane CC and the love of my life. I missed a New Zealand summer but came back in late 2008 and was made captain of the team. I like to think it was because of my international experience, but basically it was because no one else wanted to do it anymore!

We won another title in 2008/09, playing in only the local Taupo competition this time, going through the season unbeaten. We also won yet another Movember title, see picture below. In one game Steve Lawson (114) and myself (87) put on 196 runs for the 3rd wicket against Taupo Youth, a Permaclean record for all partnerships. I’m pretty sure I nicked one in the 30s and didn’t walk, and I still beat myself up about that, but hey, it looks good now in the yearbook, and those kids needed to learn a lesson.

Movember handlebars all round.

This season was also memorable for one of the most amazing innings I have ever seen played by anyone, anywhere and at any level. My old Taupo-nui-a-Tia 1st XI teammate and good friend Hon Cheung Au-Yeung had joined the team in 2004/05. He’d always been a prodigal sporting talent and had enormous athletic ability, holding the javelin record at school as well as being one of the fastest sprinters too. He could spin the ball a mile with his leggies and could whip the ball down at pace when he bowled fast, but he had a hard time controlling it all. With the bat, he looked the goods but would often get out quite softly, missing a straight one or playing a lavish cut or drive. I don’t think I’d ever seen him pass 50, but on a steaming hot January day in 2009 he performed one of the greatest escape acts known to man. Needing 240 to win against Geothermal, and playing at our formidable home ground at Opepe, Permaclean had fallen to 43 for 6 and were in dire straits. Batting at eight HC, as he was affectionately known, shared in a 73 run partnership with Geoff Kilgour, the only top order player holding it together this day. Kilgour was out with the score at 116, and in came Permaclean’s self-proclaimed hero, Bradley Mitchell. There was plenty of time to bat, but in the huts we’d already mentally prepared for defeat. Never one to lie down easily however, Mitchell and HC added 39 for the 8th wicket, before HC was joined by the tall timber of Brien Wills. No stranger to a memorable late innings stand, Wills had just last season added 102 for the 9th wicket with Kilgour, also against Geo. Today, with HC blazing away at one end, Wills helped add 43 for the 9th wicket as those in the cheap seats began to believe. Wills was out with the score at 198 and we were down to our last man. Pete Lobb could hold a bat. Problem was, he liked to block a few and then have a wild swat at whatever ball he preordained. We clenched our butt cheeks and buckled in for the ride. The pair swung away and ran like demons. HC began cramping up badly but still kept hitting boundaries. Lobb lobbed a few over the top and we inched closer. We were out of our seats now and standing on the boundary, riding each ball and cheering every run. I don’t even remember which of them hit the winning runs, but once achieved we ran onto the field like superfans and lifted HC up to our shoulders, carrying him off the field, cramping and dehydrated, the most unlikeliest of hero’s. Quiet and unassuming off the field, Hon Cheung had played like a superstar in making 112 not out off 88 balls, carrying the lower order and the weight of expectation from his teammates as he played the innings of his life. I was so stoked for HC and still refer to this day as HC day.

The best part of a Permy win, or loss for that matter, the aftermatch drinks!

We give Bradley Mitchell a hard time, but he truly is a legend of Permaclean cricket. A vertically challenged man, he possesses powerful lower body strength which propels him toward the bowling crease, where upon he whips his right arm around and over in a fluid, free-flowing motion that sends the ball hurtling towards the opposition batsman. Able to swing the ball both ways but a master of the in-swinging yorker, Mitchell has skid through, or slid under, many a batsman in his time. At last count his career wicket tally stood at 326 from 156 matches, all 45 or 50 over affairs. His average over more than a decade is just 10.65, and he has a best of 7 for 7, although I think that might’ve been the game he refused to complete an easy runout so he could add to his wicket tally!!

Brad collecting yet another award, in his Permaclean sweater.

All the seasons blur into one from memory, a hazy, sun-filled camera roll of mates and mishaps, piss-ups and prizegiving’s, road trips and runs and wickets. We won in 2004/05, beating the Tokelau’s in the final, helped by last minute ring in Jenny Stafford, now Jackson, who is a former Northern Districts Women’s representative. Desperate for one more player, we convinced Jenny to play the morning of the game, wrangling her from her couch (and hangover) at home. Chasing 205 to win, we were cruising along before a mid-order collapse, myself included when I was caught and bowled from a full toss. Needing only a handful of runs to get over the line, and our next man in being the perennial number 11 and fine leg to fine leg fielder Steve Davison, Jenny saw the team home by guiding a ball down to the vacant third man boundary, a shot of a true professional.

Winners are grinners in 04/05. I’m the one trying to make a P for Permaclean, but making a q instead.

Brett Grindrod was one of the clubs greatest advocates, and a PR man for the ages. A modest contributor on the field, even by his own admission, he made up for it in the realm of multimedia, even starting a Permaclean website and creating our very own set of trading cards. There was, at one stage, even talk of a nude Permaclean calendar but this sadly, or perhaps gladly, never eventuated. Kane Stafford, Jenny’s brother who taught her everything she knows (apparently) is perhaps most well-known for his litany of self-inflicted injuries, but is now a swashbuckling striker of the ball in our social twilight cricket team. I’m sorry for mentioning this Kane, but it’s too good to leave out. During my sojourn in Scotland, I got news of one such incident. Racing in to claim a sky high catch, Kano forgot to close his hands as the ball reached his person, and instead of helping to claim a wicket, his palms up strategy backfired when he missed it completely and the ball struck him firmly in the face, sending his teeth through his lip. Kane claims it should’ve been the keepers catch, but I wasn’t there, so I can’t speak to that.

I could go on for hours talking about this club that means so much to me. Whenever we get together now we go over our past glories and shared history, but are just as likely to talk about our failings as cricketers, ribbing each other with the greatest respect. This team has given me a collection of brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, not through blood but through the connection of cricket. If I hadn’t of re-found Permaclean by bumping into Bradley in the pub one night and meeting the mighty, aforementioned Hamish McDowell, I don’t know where I’d be right now. I wouldn’t have met his mate Blunt, and got up to all types of shenanigans with them. I wouldn’t have met Jay Ferguson, our resident policeman, who one night rang me from the cop shop and told Blunt and I to put our shirts back on, after he saw us on the pub street’s CCTV. I wouldn’t have met Geoff or Simon or Laser Steve; nor Surly Steve, Painter or Hamish “BP” Jones; Brad senior or Squashy, or the Wills brothers, Brien and Duncan, Reporoa’s finest. I probably wouldn’t be so fond of cricket and I might not even be HERE at all.

A selection of the Permaclean trading card set.

There are so many more stories I could tell, so many more characters I could illustrate, friend and foe. Everyone who played for Permaclean has their own stories, their favourite tale or their unique spin on one.

My last game for Permaclean was at the Kaimanawa Reserve, behind the Taupo fire station in the middle of town. I remember scoring 44 not out in a losing cause against the Toks, and finishing the innings batting with Bradley’s girlfriend, now wife and mother of his children, as we had clearly struggled for numbers once again. In the end, life overtook us, kids popping out like crazy and jobs and mortgages taking hold. Some moved away, others found new clubs and kept going. But for me, it was the end of the golden weather in a cricketing sense, an era of seemingly endless summers, the slow paced sanctity of a Saturday afternoon spent absorbing sunshine and letting the runs and wickets, but mostly the after match beers, take hold.

As Brett liked to say, when Permaclean cricket is strong, New Zealand cricket is strong. Not sure how true that is, but it’s a good place to wrap things up.