Wellington's Basin Reserve tells its story in new book
The Basin - An illustrated history of the Basin Reserve by Don Neely and Joseph Romanos
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It is one of the indictments of New Zealand sporting history that achievements are so poorly celebrated, or even remembered.
But generally, cricket is better than most at remembering, and the Basin Reserve is among the best at providing memories of the days of yore, and that is not merely due to the fact that it is the home of the New Zealand Cricket Museum.
Anyone with even a passing interest in cricket in New Zealand knows that the Basin Reserve, the gift of nature, is the best cricket ground in the country.
Now the ground and all its glory is celebrated in The Basin, an illustrated history of the Basin Reserve, lovingly put together by the ground's champion Don Neely and writer Joseph Romanos.
While many other grounds in the country refuse to acknowledge their history by naming grandstands after their icons, the Basin Reserve can't be accused of that. Bob Vance, the mover and shaker in so many respects of Wellington cricket, is remembered by the naming of the ground's imposing grandstand in his honour.
Wellington did have a precedent with the unfortunately short-lived Millard Stand at the old Athletic Park.
The Basin has also acknowledged two of the finest cricketers from its region with the gates to the ground being named after Stewie Dempster and John Reid. One of its great benefactors, the Norwood family, is remembered in the main function room.
Regrettably, however, Messrs West, East, North, South and Main tend to be those names preferred for stands at New Zealand sports grounds. That's where short-term monetary expedience hasn't seen sponsors intrude into the naming issue.
In most instances, the grounds are significant cultural entities in the cities in which they are located, but the memories they evoke are poorly represented in the physical make-up of the grounds.
The Basin Reserve is not the first sports ground to have a book written about it. Great Days at Lancaster Park by Gordon Slatter has achieved that honour. But, increasingly, the prospect emerges that an Historic Places Trust map of Christchurch would be needed for newer sports fans to even know where Lancaster Park is now.
What this book does is outstandingly capture the mood of the Basin, the ground which developed after a massive earthquake in 1855 left a previously waterbound area sufficiently upraised for it to be eventually developed as flat land where before there had been none.
A superb collection of photographs captures the changes that have overcome the ground and resulted in the significant reshaping that occurred in the 1979-80 redevelopment.
It is alarming to read how close some of Wellington's councils went to defying the 1873 Deed of Trust which endows the ground to the people of the city, and especially the cricketers. The deed stated that no thoroughfare was to be built across the ground.
It was interesting when studies were underway for the 1990s development of the Basin, as the main sporting venue in Wellington, that it was discovered the actual boundary of the ground was one lane out on the road that encircles the ground.
Fortunately, that was the only chipping off that has occurred as the temptation has been put in front of the venue's guardians to solve the problems associated with increasing traffic usage in the city.
That stadium development, of course, never occurred as sanity prevailed and the railyards development took place to create Wellington's Westpac Stadium.
Increasingly, the ground became associated with cricket and while its old shape left it vulnerable to the blasts of Wellington's northerly and southerly wind companions, it was still a ground that attracted great fondness from those who regularly watched cricket there.
But there is no doubt that the physical changes which have occurred since the re-shaping of the ground have made it even more superbly equipped for cricket.
It proved a timely development as New Zealand entered one of its strongest phases on the international scene during the 1980s.
The first Test played on the refurbished ground produced a victory, over India, and the venue has now become New Zealand's most successful.
It has become the accepted venue for New Zealand's Boxing Day Tests, a reflection both of the visual attraction of a ground surrounded by Pohutukawas in Christmas bloom and the support of the cricket savvy Wellington public.
The fascinating selection of photos chronicling the changes to the ground, and to Wellington, are the real charm of this book, although the vignettes of prose complement it and lift it out of the dusty halls of antiquity.
This is the way our sports grounds, the open air theatres of New Zealand cultural life, should be remembered, and the Basin Reserve emerges triumphant from this study.