TCL: Diggers Cricket Club reaches 100th year

Formed at the conclusion of the First World War, Launceston-based Diggers Cricket Club launched its centenary season at the weekend ahead of another campaign in the TCL.

The club began its existence with regular matches against the Ulverstone Diggers and continued on for 50 years before the next generation - including life member Robert Anderson - took up the mantle.

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"In my early days they still used to play the Ulverstone Diggers and it was an annual event by then," Anderson said.

"They'd alternate between [being played at] Launceston and Ulverstone and us younger blokes couldn't play for obvious reasons - we weren't returned men.

"But we were always there scoring, umpiring, making a cup of tea or doing something or other."

Playing stocks eventually grew thin in the mid-1970s and calls came for the club to wind down.

Anderson and his colleagues would do no such thing.

"At one stage in the club's history the older chaps decided it was time to shut it all down, it had run its race etc." Anderson said.

"So with that we had a meeting with them in the old ANZAC hostel - it's no longer there - and they told us what they wanted to do and we said 'no, it's not stopping'.

"The club has just kept on going."

Not long after the club took up residence at Rosevears, where it would stay for several decades before the ground's lack of facilities led to a move.

The club trained at a variety of locations including Windsor Park, Invermay Primary School and Mowbray Primary School before settling at a new base in Hagley about seven years ago.

The move stoked calls for amalgamations and name changes but the likes of president Lee Clarke - one of the club's longest standing members - and vice-president Sarah Cunningham have held firm.

Anderson said Diggers' new brigade would keep the club in good stead heading into the future, where plans are in place to grow the outfit from two teams to three.

"It's a really great achievement for everybody who's been involved in the club right down to these younger people that they've still got it going," Anderson said.

"I don't think they've got any intention of letting it go."

And should there be any question of what the club stands for 100 years after its formation, Cunningham has already answered.

"It's a club full of guys who love the game of cricket."

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