A club built with love

My visit to beautiful art deco Napier happens to fall on the wintriest July day Hawke's Bay can throw at me. It's wet and windy, murky and misty. Cricket has seldom seemed further away.

But I'm off to visit a cricket club, I'm told. A quirky cricket club, the like of which I won't have seen before. Fine by me, all a little bit rugby-ed out after a month in New Zealand watching England lose to the All Blacks, and having never knowingly declined a chat about leather, willow and everything in between.

Twenty-five minutes outside Napier, with the town's remarkable Riviera-style architecture long gone, fog thickening and rain lashing the windscreen harder by the mile, we reach a farm just outside Te Awanga. Here I'm greeted by a pair of blokes grinning bravely from behind their hoods. They introduce themselves as Sam Howard and Chris Nilsson, the latter immediately striking as the first person I've met who wears an eye patch. As they discuss whether Sam's 4x4 is sturdy enough to reach our destination, I'm thrown a pair of gumboots. Sure, the weather's bad, but where the hell are we headed, I wonder.

We follow a beaten, barely discernible path, rolling through undulating hills, with sheep and cows huddled on the side, leading us to a massive, open bowl, gentle banks of varying sizes and steepness on all sides. Look east and you see the South Pacific, look anywhere else and it's sheep, vines and hills. The sky is steely but the walls of the bowl are green and lush, and there's a vast, levelled, muddy oval in the middle. This is the New Zealand Peter Jackson had in mind when he embarked on bringing Mordor to the screen.

Although it may not be clear to the untrained eye, this is Clifton County Cricket Club. Sam, who has given me the lowdown en route, earns his keep in finance and serves as club secretary and Chris farms the land. In mid-winter, there's no turf on the outfield, but from high up on one of the tallest banks, with those views of the ocean, this is clearly a cricketing paradise. Sam and Chris, spotting my increasingly evident inner child, indulge me with some history.

"The genesis of the club was in the mid-1980s," says Sam. "It was set up by our fathers when they were our age [30s-40s] in order to get into cricket and to get all their mates together. It turned into a Sunday family thing.

"I remember it fondly. They were all laymen cricketers but they invited some amazing players down: Geoff Howarth came to stay with us for a few nights. The best memories weren't necessarily specifically on a cricket field but more the small things - playing backyard cricket and just being in thrall of Geoff and learning the game.

"For all of us there was plenty of nostalgia over what were great days. So years later Matt [Nilsson - Chris' son, Sam's mate] and I decided we wanted to recreate this for our kids. We were lucky to have this amazing unused space basically in a back garden so we thought, 'Why not'?

"When we started, it struck a bit of a chord with a large group of people and word spread. We had 150 people interested before we knew it. Families loved it, especially the kids. Even in a country like New Zealand, a lot of kids live on concrete, so it's great to get them out on the farm, where it's low-tech, to just enjoy the outdoors. It was a great group of people and with a bit of organisation it could be special. Everything - our visions, numbers - just grows week by week."

This is a cricketing community - built from scratch, remember - at its best. The inspiration for the club is English village cricket, with families gathering on the green and old mates catching up.

"We're lucky," says Chris, picking up the story, "because we have all sorts of people as members and everyone has pulled together. We've a guy who's given us mate's rates on an awesome irrigation system - pop-up up sprinklers every 15m - and we've got amazing soil. We're building our pavilion and all sorts of guys involved in construction are throwing their weight behind that."

"We started thinking that perhaps we could build an iconic New Zealand cricket ground," says Sam. "What we have now is a beautiful cricket ground… out the back of a farm."

As we survey their work, it's hard to disagree. I'm assured that the surrounding area is not always so verdant: in summer, Hawke's Bay is parched and arid. The hope is that the ground, with its natural beauty and fantastic man-made additions, its enhancing nip and tuck, will act as a green circle amid the dusty desert. The club's caps are a crisp turquoise - the colour of the Hawke's Bay ocean and summer skies - that serves as a striking counterpoint to the backdrop of the lush green outfield and the dry hills.

This place is not just a pretty face, though. It's not simply a vanity project or quest to carve out an entry to rival Wormsley, Queenstown or Dharamsala as the aesthete's choice in the cricket-ground beauty pageant. "Putting together a place this stunning is all very well but it needs to be relevant," Sam says. As the two of them set off on an explanation of that raison d'être, I can't help but feel it's a far more multifaceted place than first meets my satisfied eyes.

"We'd like to host big matches," says Sam, "but our true aim would be to have an impact on the development of the junior game and to combine that with an amazing community for adults. We want the club to be something people truly feel a part of, so that when new folk move to the area they are helped to settle, and that sense of community will drive the club for future generations. We don't want any exclusivity: Every member has the right to one of our turquoise club caps or to play on our great ground, not just those who are best at cricket.

"We also work with youths. We arrange games against local high schools and the deal there is to bring all the kids out to the countryside to really teach them to love the game and its traditions, take some advice from Mark Greatbatch [the former Black Cap, who is a member] and others like that."

It's not all about cricket, though.

"We're slowly taking over the Nilssons' farm, whether they like it or not!" laughs Sam. "We've fenced off land for a conservation project, which has seen us plant 5000 trees with many more to come, as well as adding a predator project and reintroducing native birds. We're looking to educate kids and our members about sustainability and conservation. It's a three-pronged project, about conservation, recreation and agriculture working in tandem: the people involved in the recreation need the farm, and the conservation works because of the people involved in the recreation.

"We'd like to take the recreation further, too! AJ Hackett - Mr Bungee - lives at the bottom of the drive and is talking about setting up a flying fox and, slightly less adventurously, we've got a croquet lawn and things like that. Not all of our 200 family members are keen on cricket. Some are seven and just want to roll down a hill; others are over the hill and just want to have a beer!"

I was told the cricket club I was coming to wasn't ordinary. An hour later I know that to be true. But there's one final peculiarity yet.

Clifton is to play its part in the World Cup. On February 25, the club will host the "Legends of Cricket Art Deco Match", where various past greats will line up in a "gentle" New Zealand v the Rest of the World T20. Greatbatch (naturally) will play, alongside fellow local boy Ian Smith and others such as Dion Nash and Chris Harris. The rest of the line-up remains under wraps.

Some weeks after my visit I spoke to Greatbatch about the club and its big day. "I've played the odd game here," he says, "and it's no exaggeration to say it's a very special place and has the potential to be one of the best spots to play in the world. The club wants to create a legacy and foster a love of the game with teenagers and I'm involved in that and do some coaching.

"It'll be a special day in February, we're back and forth now to tie up the internationals, and we may look to get some kids and members involved playing too as that would tie in with the club's inclusive vision. Watch this space."

As well as being a celebration of cricket, the day will be about all things Hawke's Bay. The aim is to attract 3000-plus spectators: all those with a ticket to any of the World Cup games in Napier receive free admission, while it's NZ$10 for others, which goes straight to the club's conservation initiative. Local wine (some of the world's finest) and food (not bad either) will be showcased, as well as the area's link to the Art Deco Movement.

All of which sounds like a wonderfully mad day at a wonderfully mad place.