Ellerslie cricket club
The home-grown legends include Bill "Chook" Fowler, Martin Pringle and umpire Barry Frost.
Over the years Ellerslie has always suffered from a moving population which made it hard to gain junior cricketers and keep them through to senior level.
It is usually left up to a few keen parents to ensure the kids are looked after and coached properly and the club has been lucky to have them.
People like Roy Schnauer, John Molesworth, Dave Cosgrove, Harold Butler, Wayne Young and many more were assisted by regular club members over the years.
Like junior cricket it has always been a tough assignment to get a Ladies Team to be associated with the club but with winning comes recognition and in the early 80's Ellerslie gained a ready made team from ALHA made up of some very good cricketers including past NZ & Auckland reps.
As far as records show and from photos of earlier teams The Ellerslie Cricket Club was up and running in the early 1920s playing in the Auckland City & Suburban competition.
The Roaring Twenties Given all the facts, it is known the club existed in the 1920s and was very strong playing in the City & Suburban Competition.
Other players to strengthen the club in the early 1970s were Alan & John Verral, Ian Rout, Graeme Atkinson and many others.
During the 1976/77 season the then Secretary of the ACA Mr Quinton Baddelly introduced promotion relegation twice a year and this timed in very well with Ellerslie's performances on and off the field and by winning each grade Ellerslie entered both at Christmas and at season's end they were knocking on the Premiership door.
Ellerslie gained the services of two outstanding English professionals, Wilf Slack, a stylish left hand opening batsmen and medium pace bowler who was West Indian and Ian Gould an excellent wicketkeeper and right hand batsman.
Both Wilf & Ian hailed from the Middlesex County Cricket Club 2nd XI but in future years would both move on and play for England.
The 1983/84 season was the turning point for the club when it finished This was the year of big, mean Ole (Stan) Mortenson: Ellerslie's English professional from Derbyshire.
Other notable players of the day were the old sea dog Alan Hill and the young brigade of Martin Pringle, Martin Bradley, Mark Sumich, John McGregor & Mark Keogh who were to be the nucleus of the team for many years to come under the captaincy of Bill (chook) Fowler.
This was not to be the last of Ellerslie's successes as they went on to win the ACA 2 DAY PREMIERSHIP title in the 1985/86 season and probably the main reason for this was a good all round team spearheaded by Devon Malcolm a very fast right arm bowler and another West Indian playing out of the Derbyshire County Club in England.
Ellerslie also played in the Premiership final against Grafton in a 3-day match at Eden Park but were outclassed on this occasion but finishing 2nd was no mean feat.
Sadly a number of Ellerslie's premier players retired in the early nineties leaving a big gap to fill but it has had many fine performances since, with still many more to come.
As well as the contribution given by all the players over this period to gain such successes it would not have been possible without the undying presence of Frank (Bomber) Lancaster: the Premier Teams scorer.
Bomber has hardly missed a game and is still turning up wet or fine to score for the team he has cared for, for over 20 years.
