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

Arriving at Blake Park around mid-afternoon last Saturday and walking a short distance to the Baywide cricket action brought a smile to the face of Sideline Sid.

The reason for the short hike was the multiple sporting action on the vast green space in the middle of Mount Maunganui. With the club rugby season less than three weeks from kicking off, the Mount teams were having a hit-out against Waikato opposition.

Right opposite the rugby action, the first women's cricket international to be played in the Western Bay was taking place.

With the final games of the T20 series between the New Zealand White Ferns and the West Indies happening on Blake one, up on the top level grass wicket two club cricket games were taking place.

Blake Park, and the hockey and bowls centres in the immediate vicinity are a hub of sport, which is now attracting international competitors from around the globe.

While the Western Bay may lack the coveted (as thought by some) big stadium – what we have in the middle of Mount Maunganui is a several grounds that have seen international events this summer, and during the rest of the year they host local grassroots sport.

This summer the bowls and croquet centre hosted international competition and the Bay Oval had 11 games in the Cricket World Cup Qualifying tournament, with such diverse cricket playing nations as Holland, Nepal, Uganda, Papaua New Guinea and Canada playing on Blake Park.

Later this week international hockey returns to the Tauranga Hockey Centre, when the Black Sticks face Japan in a three-match series

We can thank the foresight of the old Mount Maunganui Borough Council in dedicating such a big area of green space to sport. However in the 1920s0-1930s, when rugby and cricket first started to use Blake Park, the sleepy seaside town with a permanent population of just few hundred residents saw the park was some distance from the village centre.

While there was perhaps no master plan in developing the park, the various Mount Maunganui and Western sporting organisations saw the potential. Rugby was the first to stake a permanent claim to Blake Park, with the Mount Maunganui Rugby Club setting up a permanent base many years ago. Cricket came and went, as the cricket club had periods of inactivity.

Tennis and netball originally used the tar-sealed tennis courts before both developed their own top class facilities. Hockey moved off the grass at Blake Park to develop top level playing surfaces, with bowls and croquet coming together to establish greens to accommodate international competition.

However, the real big thing Blake Park has got going for it is plenty of space to accommodate the large numbers of youngsters who arrive to play Saturday morning junior sport, before its becomes a base for senior games in the afternoon.

The multitude of sporting events at Blake Park during the weekend got me thinking: Do we need a ‘bells and whistle' stadium in the Western Bay? Or should rugby think about developing a boutique venue, such as the other sports using Blake Park have done?