The Formation of the North Castlemaine Cricket Club.

The Castlemaine Mail of Saturday August 29th 1953, had the following report in it.

A cricket club was formed at North Castlemaine on Thursday night. It will be known as North Castlemaine Cricket Club.  An appeal for more members was issued yesteday by the secretary (Mr. John Berry). Players interested should contact Mr. Berry or the treasurer (Mr. S. Butterfield).  An application for entry into the Castlemaine Cricket Association will be shortly made. Attempts are being made to obtain a ground.  

The club applied to the Castlemaine Town Council for use of the Milkmaids Flat ground. (now the Castlemaine Secondry College Junior Campus). It was granted permission to use this ground in a Mail report on the 19th of September.

The Milkmaids Flat ground had a concrete wicket, which had matting rolled out on it for practice and matches. All the clubs equipment was kept under a nearby house.

In their first season 1953/54, the club played in B Grade of the Castlemaine & District Cricket Association.

After 2 seasons at Milkmaids Flat, the club moved to the Western Reserve in the middle of town, at this time it was a turf wicket. The 1980/81 season saw North Castlemaine move to the new oval at Wesley Hill, which had a turf wicket and clubrooms. On this ground the club has built roller sheds, practice nets, put up fences and seats. In October 2004 a water bore was put down by the Wesley Hill Reserve Committee of Management. A sprinkler system was installed to water the inner circle area, but has since been extended to water the entire ground. Further improvements are planned, including renovations of the clubrooms, new practice nets and a new trophy cabinet.

The clubs first premiership was in 1958/59 when they won B Grade after being runners up the 3 previous seasons. B grade were undefeated premiers in 1965/66 and 1967/68.

The club was promoted to A Grade in 1968/69, but only lasted 2 seasons, returning to B Grade in 1970/71.  In 1971/72 the club went to the newly formed A Reserve and were runners up for 2 consecutive seasons before going back to A Grade. For the 1975/76 season the club entered 2 teams for the first time with a B Grade team joining the A Grade. 1977/78 had North represented in all 3 senior grades, but this did not happen again until 1986/87.

The decade of the 1990's was the clubs greatest ever when A Grade won their 1st flag in 1989/90 and followed up in 1990/91. A Grade then won four consecutive flags in 1992/93, 93/94, 94/95 and 95/96.  In this time A reserve won their 1st flag 1992/93 and repeated it in 1993/94.    B Grade made a party of it when they also won the 1993/94 flag to give the club the A, A Res. and B all in one season.

A Grade continued on to win premierships in 1997/98 and 99/00 to have 8 in 11 seasons. They did not miss out on playing finals from 1988/89 to 2003-04.  A Reserve have played in quite a few semi finals but have not got through to the big game.  B Grade won a premership in 1998/99 and were runners up in 1999/00 and 2000/01. 

As time permits, I will add a timeline of the club.