The history of the North Haven Cricket Club began soon after the North Haven housing development was completed around 1976 and a newly formed Resident Association enlisted one of their members and land salesman extraordinaire Roger Sparnon as their spokesman responsible for developing sporting groups in the community. In their monthly newsletter Roger asked for expressions of interest from anyone who wished to be involved in forming Sporting Clubs. One of the responses was from a resident Tony Cosgrove who suggested they form a Cricket team and enter it in the Adelaide & Suburban Cricket Association.
This began the ball rolling with a team being entered for the 1977/78 season in section 6, and armed with a bag of cricket gear the ever resourceful Roger Sparnon had managed to attain through a Government grant the first training session at the Taperoo High School nets was advertised in the Residents Newsletter for a Sunday in September 1977. With enough numbers to form a team it was all go with those attending becoming the first committee and at their first meeting electing Jim McInnes as President, Tony Cosgrove as Secretary and Bill Weir as Treasurer. Other members of that first committee were John Mullner, Paul Tutt, Mick Annear, Roger Sparnon, Robert Clarke, Paul Johanson, John Warda and John Engelhardt, which was pretty well our first team. They also announced that John Engelhardt would be captain with John Warda his deputy.
Fortunately the Peter Cousins Memorial Reserve was available and booked to be our first ground. Our first game of the 1977/78 season was away against Seaview Downs which in a narrow result we won. It was the start of what was to be a tremendous run of success with a hat trick of Premierships which saw the Club move from Section 6 to 2 in three seasons and in the meantime expanding to two teams with their B grade captained by Mick Annear winning a Premiership in its first season giving the Club a double in 1978/79. Our second ground was the Taperoo High School eastern oval. The A Grade teams run ended with a second place in Section 2 in 1980/81 which still enabled the Club to compete in Section 1 for the first time in 1981/82.
The Club continued with two teams until 1986/87 when a third team was introduced with Ray Guscott as captain. By this time we had moved home grounds to Port Districts Football Club with our second ground being a one season stint at Our Lady of the Visitation School before we returned to the Peter Cousins Memorial Reserve. 1987/88 saw the introduction of the Clubs fourth team and they now had teams in Sections 2, 4, 6 & 7 of The Adelaide & Suburban Cricket Association. We even had a brief time with five teams in 1991/92, the E grade playing home games at Almond Tree Flat Oval.
The Clubs social base in the early days was at the Osborne Hotel and later Wee Willies Tavern before they moved to Port Districts where they enjoyed five years until 1988 when Port Districts decided to form their own team. North Haven then moved to the Port Adelaide Presbyterian Football Club (now North Haven Football Club), where the club resides to this day.
The club did have an approach to move to the Ethelton Football Club and it was only after a close vote at an extraordinary meeting called by members that the Club decided to stay with North Haven. Close association with the North Haven Football Club and their President Peter McLennan saw new nets installed and a second pitch laid negating our need for a second ground, and for the first time moving training away from Taperoo High School. The Clubs social base at North Haven has only been interrupted since by a brief stay at the Dog House Club at Royal Park in the late 1990′s.
In the 28 years since the Clubs inception they have had tremendous success becoming one of the strongest and most respected Clubs in The Adelaide & Suburban Cricket Association. This is due in no small way to all the hard working committee members and wives. A special mention should go to those pioneers who set such a solid base in long serving Presidents Tony Fromene and John Engelhardt, the fantastically resourceful Roger Sparnon, long serving Treasures John Mullner, Alex Lewis and Bill Weir and early committee members John Warda, Brian Probert, Tony Cosgrove and Jeff Buck to name a few. I apologize not mentioning more but there have been so many that have contributed over the years.
In finishing I would like to say how pleasing it is to see the Club still thriving with the return to Section 1 under current coach Colin Tuckwell and to see the Club at the forefront of new initiatives with day/night cricket and the twenty20 competition.
This has been a brief run down of the Clubs early days and if I was to detail all the happenings over the years and mention all of the highlights and name all those who have contributed on and off the field I would need to write a book which you never know with the help of that great Club historian Tony Fromene may happen one day.
John Engelhardt – April 2005
