CRICKET BREAKING NEW GROUND: Emmet Riordanhears from a passionate cricket aficionado who has had the rare good fortune to realise a long-time fantasy in Co Wicklow.
IN THE 1989 movie Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner happens upon "Shoeless" Joe Jackson walking through his cornfield in Iowa, the ghost of the former Chicago White Sox baseball player imploring him to "build it and they will come".
In true Hollywood style, Costner sculpts a baseball diamond, where members of the side that infamously became known as the Black Sox for their part in throwing the 1919 World Series step from the corn stalks to play a little ball.
Swap the endless, flat cornfields of Midwest America for the rolling hills of Wicklow and you will find Ireland's very own answer to how one man's dream can become a reality. And not a scriptwriter in sight.
Next Sunday, up a quiet country lane close to the Beehive Pub (by the N11), Peter Savill will unveil his new Oak Hill Cricket Club pitch and stunning pavilion on his stud farm in Kilbride.
And they will come, the first match taking place between an Ireland XI and Lashings, cricket's answer to the Harlem Globetrotters, a mix of present and former Test-playing legends such as Zimbabwe's Grant Flower, India's Dinesh Mongia, the former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif, and the England spinner John Emburey, all led by the West Indian Richie Richardson.
It would be far too neat to believe Savill sat down one night to watch the movie and the rest is history. "I've never seen the movie actually," he admits, knocking that half-tracker of a storyline straight out of the ground. "I must see it though; someone was telling me about it recently and my wife has seen it."
Savill's love of the game was nurtured from an early age, his father, Harry, persuading a fisherman in Scarborough to give him some old herring nets to set up a cricket net in his back garden.
"He taught me how to play the bouncer, the shooter and the fast ball, for the quality of the wicket left much to be desired and Dad always bowled as fast as he could," is how Savill remembers his introduction to the game.
He went on to play for the first XI, in cricket and rugby, at the great Benedictine school at Ampleforth, York. Rugby was king and Tony Bucknall, who went on to captain England, was a fellow pupil. Other past pupils include Lawrence Dallaglio and the Easterby brothers Simon and Guy.
In the Yorkshire of the 1950s and 1960s there was no shortage of top-class cricket to watch during summer, with the likes of Fred Trueman and an emerging Geoffrey Boycott high on the list of attractions. A young Savill could not get enough.
"I watched every ball of the Scarborough Festival from 1955 to 1969, when I started work in London," he remarks.
It was in London that the genesis of the idea of building his own cricket game took shape.
"I played for a Surrey League side called Send Cricket Club. The ground was in the private estate of an old lady who was mad keen on cricket. I though how wonderful it was to have a cricket ground on your own property. And when we moved here to Wicklow in '99 I started thinking about it."
In the interim Savill went to work in the Caribbean, becoming a successful publisher in the travel industry, eventually selling up at the age of 43 in 1991.
The entrepreneurial instinct didn't keep him away too long; three months later he went from poacher to gamekeeper and for good measure became the biggest tour operator in the Caribbean.
His love for cricket was also kept sated, as with perfect timing he got to see first-hand the great West Indian teams of the late 1970s and the 1980s. And if Costner wanted Shoeless Joe, more than any other player, to hit homers on his baseball diamond, there is one player Savill would love to have seen in his prime playing at Oak Hill.
"Without doubt the greatest cricketer there's ever been is Gary Sobers - the most versatile, the most talented cricketer of all time without any question," he says.
"A fantastic batsman, he could bowl quick off a comparatively short run-up, bowl chinamen, googlies, could field at short-leg like nobody else I've ever seen and was a fantastic cover fielder as well."
Savill's other great sporting love is racing, though you get the feeling it trails in a few lengths behind cricket when it comes to enjoyment. Although the trainer Mouse Morris was also a schoolmate, his interest in the Sport of Kings took a little longer to develop. "Racing was about the only sport I wasn't interested in when I was at school; that came when I went to Cambridge University and got dragged along to Newmarket."
The poacher-turned-gamekeeper theme also marked his life in racing. The highlights of his career as an owner include Celtic Swing's French Derby win in 1995 and Royal Rebel's back-to-back victories at the Ascot Gold Cup in 2001 and 2002. He also owned Polish Patriot, Europe's champion sprinter in 1991.
But it was to be during his time as chairman of the British Horseracing Board that Savill was to have his biggest influence on the sport. His target was the bookmakers, who, he believed - and still believes - were bleeding the industry dry.
"They (the bookmakers) do have a lot of power and I enjoy a battle. During the course of my time there I took on the bookmakers and pushed the racing industry's income from prize money from £59 million (sterling) to about £103 million in the space of six years.
"We certainly improved the finances of the sport, but even when I left they weren't what they should be; and they are not today, unfortunately, because bookmakers, sadly, take too much money out of the sport."
Savill's home life was moving at pace also. Marrying Ruth in 1996 at the age of 48, he was, as he describes it himself, "swapping a bachelor lifestyle for a wife and six kids in the space of eight years".
It was Ruth who first spotted Springfield House and the Savills and their young family moved into the 300-acre stud farm in 1999.
It was only after his tenure as chairman of the BHB came to an end in 2004 that Savill got back to his dream of his own cricket pitch, and he was determined to apply the same strict standards that had marked his business career.
"I didn't just want to build a second-rate cricket ground; I wanted to have a state-of-the-art one. I went and looked at the various paddocks and decided on what was the best one to build it on."
In May of 2005 work started on the eight-acre site, which included a 30-foot slope that created to its own problems.
"We had to dig down 15 feet through shale and rock and build up the other end 15 feet to create an oval semi-amphitheatre.
"I also wanted to make sure we had a top-class square, put together by someone who had the experience of doing that.
We brought in 80 tons of Ongar loam from Surrey and Colin Dynes, a former consultant to the Trent Bridge Test ground in Nottingham, to create what I believe will become the finest square in Ireland.
"And finally I also wanted to build a nice pavilion and the finest pavilion that I have ever enjoyed and played cricket in was at my old school back in Ampleforth College."
Thanks to the good filing system of the Benedictine monks, Savill was able to build an exact replica, right down to the beautiful oak-beamed ceiling, which gives the interior a church-like feel.
He has named the pavilion in memory of his father, who took a keen interest in the building of the ground and visited it on numerous occasions well into his 90s. He passed away last year just before Savill received planning permission for the pavilion.
Of course, Savill's idea isn't a new one, not even in the context of Co Wicklow.
John Parnell, father of Charles Stewart, founded Avondale Cricket Club in the mid-19th century on the family's beautiful estate in Rathdrum.
Stanley Cochrane, heir to the soft-drinks fortune, also built his own ground on his estate at Woodbrook, the remnants of which can still be seen in the pavilion design at the side of the golf clubhouse.
Savill doesn't intend heading back to the days of "big house" cricket though, and has his ideas on what he can achieve at Oak Hill.
"I want to use the facilities that we have got here to help develop interest in the game amongst young cricketers. I would love to play a part in helping young cricketers emerge and interest emerging amongst young players in Ireland."
One man's dream enabling other's to fulfil theirs - now that has the makings of a good Hollywood production.
Peter Savill
Marriedto Ruth with six children aged 3 to 11.
Born: July 20th 1947 in Scarborough, Yorkshire.
Education: Ampleforth College, York (1961-1965); Cambridge University (1966-1969) LLB.
Business interests: International Voyager Publications (1975-1991); Shorex International (Tour operator, 1991-1996); Chairman of British Horseracing Board (1998-2004). Horse owner and breeder.
Estimated worth: €82 million.
