Cricket Club

For the genesis of the Victoria College Cricket Club one has to go as far back as the early summer of the year .1906 when at a meeting regularly convened about fifteen enthusiasts decided that the time was ripe for representatives of the College to show their prowess on the Cricket field.

Nothing was then done, however, beyond the formation of the Club and its affiliation with the Wellington Cricket Association.

The following year saw the Club definitely entered for the Association's Junior and Third Class Championships and a strong Committee elected to carry on its executive work.

To its foundation officers the Club owes its successful inauguration and its subsequent carrying on in face of many difficulties. In the earliest days of the Club conditions would not permit of the hiring of an Association practice wicket and it says much for the first Club members that they were enthusiastic enough for a year or two to practice on the Basin Reserve and elsewhere in the early hours of the morning.

In 1907 the first inter-Varsity match with Canterbury College —the forerunner of several such fixtures—was played and resulted in a win for Victoria College after an uphill fight.

The next important epoch in the Club's history was its constitution in 1909 by the Wellington Cricket Association as a District and its corresponding entry into Senior ranks. It cannot be said, however, that the senior eleven won most of its matches during this period of its existence, but all its games were played page 78 in the best cricket spirit with the result that the greatest possible camaraderie existed amongst all its members, a condition which could not fail to influence the lower elevens. About the same time the name of the Club was altered to "The University Club."

In December, 1911, the first Inter-Varsity match with Auckland was played and Easter, 1913, saw the first of such matches with Otago University.

The inter-Varsity games, however, have been played somewhat intermittently, great difficulty having been experienced in all the attempts which were made to make the fixtures annual ones.

And so the Club carried on, suffering many a defeat and snatching here and there a victory as often as not as surprising to the victors as it was disconcerting to the vanquished. Then there arrived the period, the most eloquent of all, when owing to the fact that during the great war practically all the members of the Club, many of whom paid the supreme sacrifice, were absent from New Zealand on active service, no option was left for the Club but to disband temporarily. This enforced action lost the Club its senior status, but on the re-formation of the Club on the cessation of hostilities, a fresh start in the Junior and Third Class ranks was made with renewed vigour, and the present season 1923-24 sees the Association's Junior A Championship won by the first eleven.

The passing of time and the ravages of war have brought about a change of policy with respect to the Club's constitution. The old names are seen no more in the batting and bowling-averages and those more closely associated with the Academical and social work of the College are successfully carrying on the good work, the foundations of which were so surely laid during the first decade of the Club's history.

This is as it should be, and there is now little reason to fear that the University Cricket Club will not in future worthily uphold all the traditions so firmly implanted by its founders.