Report – The Grove Orewa Men’s Centre Pairs – 16th & 17th November 2024

Takapuna’s Walter Howden and Murray Mathison each achieved their North Harbour gold stars when winning the centre’s Grove Orewa men’s championship pairs at the weekend.
In Sunday’s final, played at Birkenhead, in conditions made difficult by a nasty wind, they beat the strong and vastly experienced Riverhead combination, Gordon Smith and Grant Goodwin, 16-13.

For Murray, especially, it ended what has been a long, and often frustrating, journey to achieve his five centre championships to join the gold star elite. His first was as long ago as the 1997-98 season when he was in a Glenfield four which also included current centre president, Neil Connell.  Since then his sporadic successes with Takapuna in 2011-12, 2013-14 and 2018-19 seasons, have been interspersed with several near-misses, and in all he has been seven-times a centre championship runner-up.

So when after Sunday’s closely-fought win over top bowlers in Smith and Goodwin he gave a brief gesture of a raised fist it was a measure not only of his delight but of his relief.
Mathieson, who turns 83 in March, might well be the oldest male to have become a Harbour gold-star holder. But the former New Zealand hockey representative and top squash player has belied his age in what so far has been a vintage season. It’s also a family double for the Mathiesons as wife Connie won her gold star a few seasons ago.

The dominant performer at last month’s Masters tournament, Mathieson has shown some remarkable stamina, with his pairs win a striking example. For to make the play-offs he and Howden, who is also a veteran at 76, had to endure a marathon Saturday in the qualifying rounds.  After going through their section-play they then had to face a play-off game to make the quarter-finals. This was against Takapuna club-mates, Jerry Belcher and Ian Hardy, who they duly dispatched 30-7.

Their qualifying matches on Saturday were at Helensville, so with their four games plus the car trip to Helensville and return Mathieson and Howden had to endure a 12-hour day.

Howden’s previous titles were achieved at Takapuna in 2012-13 and 2016-77 and his last two at Orewa, in 2017-18 and 2019-20. Together he and Mathieson blended well, with Mathieson in top form on first day and Howden the key player on the final day.

In the quarter-finals they beat Birkenhead’s Daymon Pierson and Nick Cape 21-17 and in the semi-final another Birkenhead combination, Brian Wilson and Evan Thomas, 22-9, after just 16 of the scheduled 18 ends.

In the quarter-finals Wilson and Thomas had a comfortable win over last season’s winners, Takapuna’s Simon Poppleton and Jason Parker.

Smith and Goodwin were also decisive quarter-final winners over Manly’s Andy Dorrance and Matt Higginson, then had a much tighter semi-final clash with Takapuna’s Steve Hoeft and Dennis Hale.