North Otago Senior Competition Winner - Borton Cup

About:

The Borton Cup is for the winner of the North Otago Senior competition. It was named after John Borton, who a successful and prominent farmer in the North Otago region during the mid to late 1800's. The Borton Cup which is presented each year is a replacement as according to engraving on the current Borton Cup, it was presented by Waitaki Boys High School rector Frank Milner as the original was 'destroyed by fire WBHS 1920'.

Union where first Senior champions in 1920-21 (the club had only been formed 11 seasons earlier) and along with the Oamaru Cricket Club dominated the competition with Union winning the Cup 10 times before the outbreak of the second world war in 1939, Union being the last to win in 1938-39.

The Oamaru Cricket Club where the first to be presented after the war with the Borton Cup, however Union brought back the Cup to KGP the following year. Union fared well in the following decades with it only been bettered by Oamaru in terms of number of senior competition wins.

Gradually over the years Oamaru's dominance started to wane as other clubs started to be more competitive. An example of this would be the Albion Cricket Club which up to the 1970ties only won the Borton Cup 7 times but since then has more than doubled this figure.

In 1993-94 a finals system was introduced at the end of the season to determine the winner.

Since then Union's senior team has won the Borton Cup 5 times and has played in the finals other than 1994/95, 2002/03 and 2004/05.

Tureka is listed here as they were one of the club that’s combined to form Union in 1909. They were the inaugural winners in 1899-1900 after an undefeated season, and won it again in 1904-05.

December 2008