Sideline Sid Sports correspondant & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

A visit to the TECT All Terrain Park on Sunday showed Sideline Sid what a wonderful asset that the facility will be in the future.

With a grandson and his friend in tow, we headed off to the park that caters for so-called ‘noisy pursuits' on a look and see mission.

The first obvious attraction is the location of equal proximity to Tauranga City, Te Puke and Rotorua.

It makes sense to locate the park in the middle of large population base, rather than on the extremities of either of the two Bay of Plenty cities.

While there is always plenty of criticism of local body politicians, methinks that in this case that they have got it absolutely right.

The location is brilliant for the many sports, which need a location where they can be left alone to do their own thing.

An added bonus is that it gives a degree of isolation from the do-gooders, who invariably complain about noise and pollution such as the Baypark speedway.

The second plus is the amount of land that the adventure park has access to – being some 1650 hectares of manly pine forest and native bush.

The people that have driven the project should be commended for their long-term approach to the new park.

The first stage was to put in place the adventure park headquarters, with an information centre and toilets.

Mountain biking enthusiasts were amongst the first to take advantage of the new adventure park, putting in four different rides, ranging from a kids and beginners loops to the a 10km track for the totally serious riders

In the same northwest corner, equestrian facilities are being undertaken with the potential for riding through the forestry and native bush.

Orienteering and running tracks have also been established.

Other sports that are currently making the park there home, are shooting, motorsport and four wheel drive user groups, that are currently development new facilities.

What has impressed Sideline Sid, is that the new park groups are not asking for handouts, but have got of their butt to develop their groups vision for the future

As Fred Dagg used to say 'we don't know how lucky we are”.

While we don't have a state of the art stadium and have just got a new indoor arena – what we do have in the Western Bay are plenty of green areas for outdoor sport.

The vision of former mayors such as Bob Owens, Knobby Clarke and Noel Pope has left a heritage of a multitude of parks and green spaces.

While the All Blacks and Black Caps are currently the centre of attention, we tend to give little regard to the pathway to top-level sport.

There are two key ingredients in taking such as our local Black Cap stars of Daniel Flynn, Kane Williamson, Trent Boult and Graeme Aldridge, from their formative years to top flight sportsmen.

While the large numbers of volunteers who give their time to administer and coach junior sport are imperative – so is the availability of parks for the youngsters of the region to start their dreams of sporting success.

A number of outdoors sports have be invited to work with the councils of the region to cater for future growth.

Gordon Spratt Reserve at Papamoa is a good example, where the council has provided the additional land to enable cricket to develop two further artificial wickets.

Further development in Papamoa includes a cricket oval with a grass wicket block some time in the future.

Seeya at the Game