There are a few things you need to know about Malcolm Jones.
He has worn a tie to all 187 first-class games he has scored, even the ones at Molyneux Park where it is often hotter than hell itself.
He is a stickler like that.
He is also quick-witted. Very few people can beat him to a good-natured barb.
His sense of service is tireless. He is a life member of three associations and has collected several awards for his volunteer work.
Basically, he is a good bloke.
And he loves the Otago Country Cricket Association to the moon and back - or at least four times around it and halfway around again.
The 70-year-old has spent an enormous amount of time driving between his home in Mosgiel and his home-away-from-home in Alexandra.
For the past 17 years - 16 as chairman - he has been on the board of the association and has made the four-hour round trip to attend meetings and games.
He retired from the role earlier this month.
A rough calculation suggests he clocked close to 52,000km driving back and forth during the best part of two decades. It is just 10,921km around the moon.
‘‘I prefer Molyneux Park to the moon,’’ he jabbed.
Told you he was quick.
He also does not regret a single kilometre of it.
‘‘Jonesy’’ was hooked, you see. Hooked from the moment he answered an SOS to score a Hawke Cup game back in 1981.
"It just all goes back to that very first day,’’ he said. ‘‘I scored the second day of a Hawke Cup game ... and it was just the welcoming nature of those people.’’
Jones moved from Poolburn to Mosgiel in 1999. He could have let his involvement with Otago Country drift but, not only did he chose to stay involved, he stepped it up.
The association ran into some financial difficulty in the early 2000s.
‘‘I hated that. That was a terrible time and I wanted to try and help.’’
Jones put his name forward and was elected to the board. A year later, he was appointed chairman.
The association was close to $40,000 in debt.
‘‘At that stage, I’d been involved for over 20 years and I wasn’t going to let that go. We needed to get it right.’’
Jones had the time and the will and that is the magic recipe for getting things done.
The association eventually eased into a more comfortable financial position.
It hosted the South Island Primary School Tournament ‘‘which brought in quite a lot of dough’’.
There was a cash injection from a golden oldies tournament which helped as well.
But the association had to borrow some money from North Otago and Otago cricket associations.
Jones helped orchestrated the fight back from his base in Mosgiel. It mostly involved keeping a close eye on the budget, filling out funding applications and doing anything the association could do to cut expenses and lift revenue.
Helping keep the OCCA afloat and securing its immediate future was an undoubted highlight.
‘‘That and the two Hawke Cup wins,’’ Jones said.
Ah, the Hawke Cup. It is the big prize for the minor associations and it has been around since 1910.
Central Otago, as the association was known back then, had never won it. But it assembled a crack squad in 1995-96.
It was full of familiar Central names like McKnight, Blakely, Breen and O’Connor and they managed to wrestle the trophy off Taranaki at Pukekura Park.
‘‘They were long,’’ Jones said when asked about the celebrations.
There was more glory in 2011. This time, a team rechristened Otago Country beat rival North Otago.
Jones scored the first Hawke Cup victory and was manager of the 2011 side.
‘‘You try and you fight hard and that is what you aim to get.
‘‘For most of the guys that play at Hawke Cup level, that is their test match.
‘‘I’ve made so many lifelong friends through cricket which I might not have done had I done something else. It has been incredible.’’
One of his prized momentos is a photo of him holding the Hawke Cup at his beloved Molyneux Park.
He has always had a soft spot for the venue. It has been the beautiful backdrop to so many cricket dramas over the years.
But that love has not always been reciprocated by New Zealand Cricket. As the game became increasingly professional, the demands on venues grew.
Suddenly it was not enough to offer a hearty lunch and some warm hospitality. The facilities were tired and run down, there were no bells and whistles and the pitch block badly needed some attention.
At the same time, a lot of money was spent on turning the University Oval into a quality international venue.
Molyneux Park was falling behind.
NZC withdrew its warrant of fitness following the 2008-09 season and pulled it again in 2011.
The playing surface continued to draw criticism when cricket was reinstated. Improvements needed to be made but the OCCA did not have the cash reserves.
Jones had already scratched his mark out at the crease a long time ago. No-one was dismissing Molyneux Park without a fight.
He had been attending games at the venue ‘‘before they had planted the trees and you know how big they are now’’. They are giant, glorious shade-givers these days.
A seat under their branches on game day is Alexandra’s version of a corporate box. People will arrive early to secure their spot. All of that was under threat.
Money. If you can appeal to people on that level, chances are you will capture their attention.
Jones instinctively knew the value of Molyneux Park to the community, but it was going to take more than a gut feeling to convince the Central Otago District Council to invest in the venue.
‘‘It is a great place to watch cricket,’’ Jones said.
‘‘It is in a basin, so you can hear what the slips are talking about and that sort of stuff. It just has something special.
‘‘One of Molyneux Park’s, not difficulties, is it is off the road. You can drive through the heart of Alexandra and nobody would know there was cricket on.
‘‘So we had to try and explain to the council what was happening.
‘‘We needed to get some figures together to show the council what value cricket added.’’
As Jones put it, ‘‘I was far from qualified at that sort of thing but I started getting some figures together’’.
He rang around coaches and teams and tried to get a sense of how much money they were spending.
Were they staying the night? Did they go out for a meal, pop to the cafe, grab some groceries, have a drink at the pub? It all added up to enough to convince the council to invest in an upgrade of the dressing rooms.
The No 1 pitch block was upgraded.
Molyneux Park was back in vogue but there was trouble brewing.
‘‘Don’t get me started,’’ Jones said.
NZC signed a broadcasting arrangement with Spark Sport which included televising the Super Smash games.
That had dire ramifications for Molyneux Park.
Alexandra had traditionally hosted limited-overs cricket during the period between Christmas and New Year. But those valuable games have been lost to Queenstown, which is better placed to meet the requirements of the broadcaster.
‘‘The timing could not have been worse,’’ Jones said.
News the games had been lost broke the day before OCCA was to meet the council to discuss funding for a new electronic scoreboard.
‘‘The council were livid. Absolutely livid that they had spent close to $180,000 for the dressing room and probably about the same amount of money for relaying the cricket block.
‘‘They had invested that money to get it up to scratch and the broadcaster doesn’t want to come anywhere near it.’’
The venues still hosts Plunket Shield cricket, but that is a low-profile competition.
Typically, a twenty20 fixture would have attracted a crowd of 1500. It is a huge loss.
The battle to get those games back will have to be led by the next generation.
‘‘I could write a book on the people [who have helped inspire and support me] ... but more recently it is guys like Lindsay Breen and Shayne O’Connor, who have an absolute passion for Otago Country and Molyneux Park.
‘‘Shayne could have walked away from cricket on the back of what he did for the Black Caps and Otago. But he is still coaching teams in Central and is giving back.
‘‘I hope, maybe in some small way, I may have encouraged him to contribute.’’
Jones plans to keeping fighting for Molyneux Park and the OCCA, even in retirement. But he will also get to spend more time with his partner Nic Armstrong, who also scored for Otago for a long time, and their sons, Hayden (19) and Shannan (16).
They have been his pillar while he has helped prop up Otago Country cricket.
