united kingdom :: hi Guest                      unique sporting equipment :: rapid skill development :: unlimited healthy fun

Crazy Catch is a family business located in Mauku, a small rural community to the south of Auckland, New Zealand. We invent, manufacture and market unique sporting equipment that provides rapid skill development and unlimited healthy fun.

The original story goes back many years. Andrew’s father, Ian Sinclair was a keen cricketer and in his younger days used to practise for hours. Sometimes this was with ‘test’ matches on the back lawn with friends, at other times throwing and catching a ball against a weather board shed. The practise paid off and Andrews father went on to represent New Zealand and was 12^th man in New Zealand’s first ever test match victory over the West Indies in 1956.

When Andrew was growing up, together with his father, they made a basic rebound net using metal pipe, fishing net and a car tyre tube. This received a hammering in the backyard over many summers and with many repairs. Moving on to the year 1998 and Andrew’s father made yet another net for Christmas for our three enthusiastic, sports mad, ball throwing sons. Needless to say there were hours of use and most importantly a bit of creative thinking taking place. We started tinkering and many prototypes later the “Original” Crazy Catch took shape.

There is the super-fast ball return, quality product features, ease of use, all of which we are proud but then there is ‘Crazy Catch’. This is the unique ‘insane’ invention where the rebound net has two sides. On one side the ball return is ‘sane’ with the ball returning in a predictable fashion as you would expect. However turn the net around to the ‘insane’ side and the ball return rockets back in all sorts of directions, much to the surprise of the unsuspecting user. This allows the Crazy Catch to provide a challenge for all skill levels from youngsters through to elite athletes. The ‘Original’ Crazy Catch provides the ‘insane’ ball return for a ball the diameter of a cricket ball / baseball.

There was an instant market in New Zealand primarily associated with cricket for Christmas and birthdays,  schools and clubs. We then began receiving requests from people to see if we could produce a product with the same unique features but with other sports in mind. This included Daniel Anderson, coach of the New Zealand Warriors. As a result of this we have now developed the ‘Chaos’ and ‘Extreme’ range. These are larger models that can be adapted to provide the same unique ‘insane’ response but with a larger ball such as a soccer ball or netball. We have recently added to this the Crazy Catch ‘At Large’. This is the same size frame as the ‘Original’ but again provides the ‘insane’ ball response for larger balls. These innovations have resulted in Crazy Catch offering hours of healthy fun and rapid skill development for almost any sport involving a ball and for all skill levels.

In New Zealand during the development phase, a close association with NZ Cricket has led to a recent signing of a license agreement. The Crazy Catch nets are used extensively at the NZ Cricket High Performance Centre as well as many cricket clubs.

There has also been ready adoption among leading New Zealand rugby and rugby league teams. In the space of four years there are now well over a thousand Crazy Catch nets in use just in New Zealand alone.

There is ongoing innovation at Mauku and with our three boys, (Sam, Luke and Heath), involved in a range of sports including cricket, soccer, tennis, touch rugby and hockey, there is no shortage of participants for market research. The Crazy Catch sits very well with our family philosophy of ensuring the children developing adequate skill levels to allow them a healthy lifetime participation in sport. We are fortunate to be supported by a great bunch of people from the local community and we must make mention of Nigel, the local ‘Mayor’ of our road with his faithful, vertically challenged canine friend, Cybil.

Andrew’s parents now live in Whakatane which is a coastal town in a beautiful part of New Zealand. While Ian is no longer playing cricket he is a keen supporter and is active with golf and fishing. Fortunately we frequent their place to sample the fish from the many successful outings.

We look forward to seeing Crazy Catch at your school, in your club and in your backyard.