MINEHEAD’S Ollie Groves is spending this winter playing cricket on North Island in New Zealand and has played in his first match since arriving on the other side of the world.

Playing for Stratford Premier Men in their one-day season opener against Woodleigh, the young tall rounder entered the attack at a crucial stage of the innings, applied pressure and shut down the scoring rate to end with 2 for 9 as the opposition were bowled out for 207.

The 18 year old then played his part with the bat and ended six not out as Stratford reached 211 for 7 in 43 overs to record a comfortable victory.

Ollie is just the latest in a long line of players who have taken part in the link that the West Somerset club has with the Taranaki district of New Zealand. The link between the two sporting communities first started almost 50 years ago.

Talking about the New Zealand connection Minehead stalwart Stuart Tudball, who was the first player from the club to enjoy the link, said: “It all started in 1979 when a New Zealand cricketer Kerry O’Neill - his sister was working at Raleighs Cross - wanted to play cricket locally and the owner of Raleighs brought him down and introduced him to Minehead CC.

“I went in 1980 and was the first from Minehead- in fact I went four times. On one of those I played at Stratford where I scored my career best of 153!”

Since then there have been many exchanges involving cricketers, rugby players and a few footballers , some have even ended in marriages and people from New Zealand living here and vice versa.

“We think that over the years as many as 45 people from Minehead have been part of this sporting connection with Taranaki, with perhaps not quite so many coming back the other way.”

Several of the current Minehead players have taken part in the exchange including Ellis Taylor, Ian Buchanan, Dan Bowditch and Braden Taylor

Former captain Buchanan, who spent the 2018-9 winter playing in New Zealand, said: “It was a brilliant experience and something that I’d wanted to do for a long time .A lot of those who I have looked up to at Minehead CC have been there before.

“Playing on the other side of the world in different conditions was a fantastic experience for me, both for cricket and life in general.

“The standard of cricket was really good and was quite a tough challenge. In some matches we would be up against players with international experience, or had played for Central Districts.

“The beauty of it is that it’s a two way thing with Taranaki players coming over here, while over there everybody knows about Minehead which is amazing when you think it’s the other side of the world.

Ian added: “It’s great that Ollie has got himself sorted with Stratford which is the same club that I went to and that he’s made a good start.”

Stuart Tudball summed up the exchange up when he said: “It’s quite an incredible story of something that has grown from one chance meeting at Raleighs Cross - if the landlord hadn’t brought Kerry O’Neill down to our club, a lot of peoples lives would not have been enriched in the way that they have.”