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

It is interesting to read that Tauranga City Council is seeking to throw more money at keeping and attracting more sporting events to our beautiful city. My question is – what for?

At the moment we have a large number of ad hoc sporting events during summer with little or no coordination between them. A classic example was on January 4, when we had the Rugby Sevens going head to head for spectators (and gate takings), with the HRV Cup cricket – some 20 yards away. The large number of sports fans in the district at the height of the holiday season were forced to make a choice between the two codes. One positive that did come from the clash was the amount of parking utilised within a relativity short walk of the two Blake Park grounds.

Sideline Sid's tuppence-worth says that before we start throwing money willy nilly at events, which will become a Dutch auction run by council, we should plan.

I Googled the word 'plan” and it came up with the following meaning: A detailed proposal for doing or achieving something and an intention or decision about what one is going to do.

I am not knocking any of the current sporting events or potential events we may attract to the Western Bay region, but we need to have a coordinated and organised approach to avoid clashes, such as on January 4, 2014.

Another current irritation is the multitude of local websites to purport to be the holy grail of events in the district, with most having a mishmash of information; and in many cases leaving out some of the big sporting events.

A starting point would be an umbrella group, such as the Western Bay Summer Festival of Sport, where all organisations would lay their cards on the table in advance to maximise participation, spectator numbers and spending in the local business community. The plan would have a structured sporting calendar, where everyone benefitted, with a starting point perhaps being Sport Bay of Plenty.

Now that I've got off my soapbox, I'd like to ramble on about the Bay of Plenty senior men's cricket team. The Bay boys won and defended the Hawke Cup, which is the symbol of NZ minor association cricket superiority on five occasions in the last 12 months, before losing the prize to Manawatu at the weekend.

In the time from when they relieved Hamilton of the Hawke Cup just more than one year ago, the Bay of Plenty team repelled challenges from all four NZ Cricket zone representative teams.

On the way to winning and retaining the NZ Cricket minor association prize, a number of records were obliterated from the history books. The 701 runs smashed against Hamilton, in January 2014, stands as the all-time most runs in an innings since the Hawke Cup was presented by Lord Hawke in 1910.

Brett Hampton (194) and Joe Carter (187) smashed Simon Winters previous highest Bay score of 181, in the 2013 Hawke Cup victory against Hamilton.

Hampton who takes no prisoners at the batting crease has blasted 512 runs in just six Hawke Cup appearances. Bay pace attack bowler Tony Goodin has been no less impressive, taking a remarkable 34 wickets in just seven Hawke Cup Direct Challenge games.