The idea for the team was formed in the Cave Rock hotel over a beer by Kevin, Tony McKendry, Lee Brown, John Monk etc about 1987. These guys all played for Sumner Suburban Cricket Assoc teams but as there was no equivalent "Old Mans" grade in CSCA so they applied with the SCC permission to join the CCA grade & were granted permission.


In the 1st 5 years or so the team was competitive & usually finished in the top 3 or 4 places in the competition. Also we had a very good social life & most Saturdays after the game as well as the compulsory beers at the club house of the team we played against, if it was an away game, it was always back to Sumner after. We had an annual tennis competition to finish off the season famously hosted by Malcolm & Joan Corbett (who had a grass tennis court). The tournament would start about 1.00am & often finished in the dark & if the games didn't finish in the dark the prize giving certainly did.


As time went by quite a few of the regulars stopped playing for various reasons( often just getting older) & we struggled to get numbers but carried on playing thanks to a lot of wring ins. About this same time Dave Boreham started the Sumner Misfits.(The original team had just been called the Sumner Presidents.) After a few years of competition in Presidents grade against each other the 2 teams joined forces as both were struggling for numbers.


Over the past couple of years the team spirit has rallied along with the amount of beer after the game .... which of course leads to greater player numbers. The team is really looking forward to carrying on the success we ended with last year.

Season Report 2010/11

The season started badly with an earthquake which threatened to delay the season but didn’t and ended badly with an earthquake which threatened to cut it off at its knees and did. What with the second earthquake, a couple of cancellations and a couple of byes the team managed to play only thirteen games.

The 2009/2010 season had seen the squad expand both in terms of numbers and quality. Hopes were therefore high that the team would be reasonably competitive. However, a number of these players either did not play at all this season or played very little. On three or four occasions at 7pm on the Wednesday preceding the game only six or seven players were available although through the recruitment of brothers, brothers-in-law and sons we did actually manage to put eleven players on the field for all but one game.

Not surprisingly the team struggled results wise. While early on we had some close games against the top teams, as the season went on our results just got worse and worse. For example, when we played East Shirley Gold, the co-winner of the grade, in the first round they got past our 120 for 7 with nine overs to spare but seven down. In the second round they surpassed our meagre 86 in only 13.4 overs with nine wickets to spare. On several occasions we were badly handicapped by not having five recognised bowlers.

We did manage to win two games, one early on quite easily against Sydenham Hospital, the eventual bottom team, and one somewhat harder earned against East Shirley Blue in something of a reversal of form on what proved to be the last Saturday of the season. This turned out to be particularly good timing because it improved our final position from bottom to second to bottom (out of eleven teams).

David Miller

Captain