LATROBE CRICKET CLUB - HISTORY

The Latrobe Cricket Club is situated in the heart of the City of Morwell, Victoria 
Australia. The City Of Morwell is located 150km's, south east of Melbourne and is part of 
the Latrobe Valley region.

The Latrobe Cricket Club was formed in August 1967, with teams being entered in A, B, C and
under 16's, but only B, C and D (u/16's) grades, were excepted into the Central Gippsland 
Cricket Association.

The original proposal for a club name was to call the club "Latrobe Valley Cricket Club", 
but it was agreed to just use "Latrobe" as a one word name, instead of the original spelling 
of "La Trobe" after the Governor of Victoria.

Latrobe Cricket Club was allocated the Maryvale Recreational Reserve, Morwell and played on
a malthoid pitch, the club is still situated on the Maryvale Reserve. Since those early 
days Latrobe has now the most modern cricket clubrooms, training facilities and enjoy the 
luxury of having two grounds on the reserve, one being a synthetic wicket (called the number
two ground) and the number one ground having a turf bench, consisting of six wickets.
The club also has another synthetic wicket located at the local Kurnai College, Maryvale 
Campus.

Performances on the field over the first couple of years for the club were fairly modest,
and the under 16's team only lasted for that first year. With the club not fielding another
junior team until the 1982-83 season, the club now has a strong junior development program
with junior teams at under 16, 14 and 12 age levels.

The first high point for the club was in season 1969/70, when both the "B" and "C" grade 
teams won their way through to the CGCA's grand finals, only to be defeated in both grades.

In 1983-84 Latrobe entered a "A" grade team, and it took only to 1985-86 season to have some
success with the team being unluckily runners up.That season the club also won its' first 
CGCA club champion award, which they have since achieved on another seven occasions.
In the last seven seasons (to 2001/02) they have won this award five times and have been 
runners up on the two other occasions, one year the club was beaten by a solitary point, 
with this success the club has now become the most successful club currently playing in the 
CGCA.

The Clubs' first premiership came in season 1986-87 when the under 16's won a well deserved
premiership. That same season the club had entered two under 16 teams.

The following season the club won its' first senior premiership, when the "C" grade team 
were successful, though again the "A" grade team were beaten in the Grand Final, when at the 
end of the first day, they were in a very sound position to win the game, but they had to 
settle for runners up.

Then the ultimate success came in season 1997-98 when at last the club had its' just rewards
with the First's(as it is called now) winning that elusive premiership.Premierships were 
coming to the club with the "Seconds" winning seven out of the last nine, with achieving 
five in a row, and the only thing stopping the seconds for winning six in a row, was when 
the club helped the league out by entering two teams in the first X1 competition, also the 
under 16's had claimed another two premierships, and the under 14's winning their first 
premiership in season 2000/01.

From those early years the club has come a huge way, with new projects always on the agenda.
In 1983 saw the second ground constructed on the Maryvale Reserve, then in 1990 the 
construction of the new clubrooms commenced with the building today valued in excess of 
$240,000.One of the major decisions of the Club was to construct a turf bench on what is 
called the number one ground, and on April 25th 1997, construction commenced on the turf 
bench, and on the historic date of November 29th 1997 the first grade team bowled the first
official ball in a CGCA game on the turf.

With the hard work completed and the continued improving of the turf, the club now is 
enjoying hosting CGCA final games on the turf, and also GCL games. And in its' second season
1998-99 our second's won the premiership on it.

Numbers for the club were always increasing with the success of the club on and off the 
cricket field, the club enjoyed a great social life with the ladies of the club always 
encouraged to join in, and this became a fantastic asset for the club when in season 1991-92
the Latrobe Cricket Ladies Committee was formed. And has now become a vital working part of
a very professional Latrobe cricket club.

Numbers were so large in season 1987-88 that the club entered an extra team into the "C" 
grade to now have four senior teams and an under 16's. The following year the CGCA 
competition went to four senior grades and our A Reserve team was formed. (Now called 
seconds') In season 1998-99 with our four senior teams our junior teams now consisted of 
16's, 14's and under 12's. And in this season all six teams contested the CGCA's finals.
(under 12's was a participating competition) The seconds won their 5th grand final and the 
club won the league championship.

Season 1999-2000 was a great highlight in the clubs' history, when again all six teams 
entered the CGCA finals campaign, with the 1st's, 2nd's and 3rd's all winning premierships
and the club enjoying a great season by again winning the league championship.

Season 2000/2001 was a huge challenge for the club when the CGCA's first competition was 
ravaged by clubs withdrawing from the competition, and to save the comp Latrobe committed
two teams to play in the first comp. This put pressure on the clubs' great depth in the 
lower grades, but at the conclusion of the season, saw the club finish on top of the 
ladders in the 1st's, 3rd's, 4th's and the under 14's, with the under 16's also finishing
second. Only the 3rd's and 14's were able to continue to the grand finals, with only the 
14's bringing a well-deserved premiership home for the club. 

With the club still enjoying the increase of club numbers, training facilities had to be 
improved and in season 1999/2000 the club finished the construction of three new training 
nets to give the club access to five hard wicket nets and also three turf training wickets 
were also constructed. Future projects include two extra turf wickets to bring the number to 
an eight-wicket turf bench.

The future of the club looks very strong, with the club always able to attract good 
professional coaches, which commenced in the season of 1985-86 when Graham (Pedro) Stevenson
was appointed senior coach, who instilled discipline into training and on field 
performances, this professional coaching has applied ever since with other good coaches 
being recruited with the likes of Kevin Moulden from the TDCA who was the first real genuine
fast bowler for the "A" grade team, club champions in Steve Duncan and Max Brereton had 
stints as club coaches, and since then high profile coaches in Peter Mahon (Geelong)
Karl Ziebell (Preston) and former Gippsland representative members in Laurie Marks, Anthony
Bloomfield and Kris Wells who have taken the club to the ultimate level as the number one 
club in the CGCA.

The commencement of the CGCA 2001-02 season was again under huge stress with many clubs not
committing teams for the start of the season, and the CGCA deciding to only have three 
senior grades that being 1st's, 2nd's and 3rd's.
The CGCA has now made it a rule to only allow clubs to have 4 teams in the competition.
With some of Latrobe members not wanting to also commit themselves to this format the club 
decided to only enter 4 senior teams,and the CGCA would only accept the club entering a 
1st's, two 2nd;s and a 3rd's.

What developed in the season is that Latrobe Cricket Club has capped off arguably its most 
successful season to date in its history by winning all senior grade grand finals plus the 
under 16's premiership. The feat of winning every senior premiership has only been 
accomplished twice in the seventy-five year history of the CGCA. This was last achieved in 
the season of 1972-73, and after this 29-year period the Latrobe Cricket Club has joined an
elite band of clubs by becoming the third club to achieve this remarkable feat.
The 1st's played against Yallourn North who won their last premiership against Latrobe in 
the season of 1985-86; this game was played at the Burrage Reserve.
The 2nd's won their 7th premiership after defeating Moe on Latrobe's home turf wicket, the 
club's other 2nd team were gallant in defeat the week before losing in the semi final and 
the 3rd's won their second premiership also playing at home on the number two ground.
Two weeks earlier Latrobe's under 16's easily won their 4th premiership for the club.
Again the club was dominate in the competition and easily won the League championship.

Season 2002-03 was a disappointing year for the club, with losing three very good senior 
cricketers, one to Traralgon, one to Melbourne and one because of football, then with some 
injuries and sickness to vital players, our club depth was stretched to the limits.

A highlight early in the season was when our first's competed in the Gippsland Cricket 
League Premiers cup, (this was a knockout competition between all the leagues previous 
season premiership teams) with most of our premiership players making themselves available,
we firstly defeated the Garfield cricket club, who were the Warragul premiers, and then in a
high standard game, the firsts defeated a very talented West Bairnsdale team who were the 
premiers in the Bairnsdale league, we then played the Grand Final against a formidable club 
in Bundalagauh at our turf ground, and again in a very high standard game, we were 
courageous in defeat, to be recognised as the second best club in the Gippsland region.

We again entered the CGCA competition with two second teams, the only club to do this.
At the end of the home and away games, our first's just missed top spot and finished 3rd, 
our second's finished second on the ladder, our other 2nd's team just missed the finals and
because of our depleted depth our 3rd's easily missed the finals.

Our under 16's finished on top and were hot favourites to win back to back premierships and
our under 14's finished 3rd.


Our finals performances were disappointing with only the second's and under 16's advancing 
to the grand finals, and their performances in these very important games for the club were 
disappointing when both had excellent chances of bringing home two much needed premierships
for the club, both were defeated.

Season 2003-04 commenced slowly with illness again effecting our executive members, but a 
positive from this was three new club members took on the challenge and came on board the 
executive to help administer the club and all were tremendous for the season as Secretary- 
treasurer and assistant treasurer.

With the slow start we didn't attract any outside interest in the coaching position and 
decided to go for inhouse to our three senior cricketers in Corey Dobson, Justin Vajler and 
Tim Cranwell to take charge of training and the first grade team.

We still entered 4 senior teams and 16, 14 and two under 12 teams – though we dropped a 
second team to the 3rd's to enter two 3rd teams (Sharks and Colts) this made the club even 
stronger and players more happier as the two lower grades were playing one day cricket.

Still the first part of the season leading up to the Christmas break was a struggle with the 
first's struggling to make the four – after the break with more players willing to play the 
club showed its strength – 1st's were solid in the four just missing second spot and the 
2nd's and two thirds fully entrenched in the four also. In the meantime leading up to the 
finals the under 14's had won the premiership coming from 3rd spot. (with some great talent
 in this team) 

Senior finals saw our first's knocked out for the second year in row in the semi final by 
the eventual winner in Moe – our second's and third's sharks made it a great season by both 
winning premierships played at Maryvale Reserve on the same day both games finishing about a 
minute apart.

The huge positive for the season was the bursting on the scene by young 18 year old in Jason
 Stevens who won both the CGCA and Latrobe's bowling average and aggregate – set a wickets 
for game record in the firsts – made the CGCA team of the season – represented CGCA at 
country week and took 8 wickets in a innings early in the season. Fantastic prospect but 
could be heading to Dandenong and joining ex-Latrobe player in Peter Siddle playing for 
Dandenong district team.

The other positive was the finishing off of the turf practise bench with top 
dressing-levelling and roll out couch – which should make this bench a gem to train on this 
season with more tender loving care.

The coming season is looking very promising and exciting with the early appointments of 
senior coaches in TDCA reps Barney Webber a quick oening bowler and the back to the club 
from two years at TDCA premier cricketer in Anthony Bloomfield with recruiting the prime 
mission at this stage – no missing the chance of playing in the first grade grand final in 
season 2004-05.