Statistics have a habit of going in one ear and out the other of some people.
But not 79-year-old Derek Cockburn.
Statistics, particularly cricket statistics, have played a big part in his life.
He is in Dunedin for the 53rd annual South Island primary school tournament this week, where he has been soaking up the action and keeping statistics.
Cockburn, a retired jeweller from Christchurch, has put together a record of in-depth statistics for the past 53 years.
He has been to every tournament himself, including five in Dunedin, and spends each morning going over the scorebooks and recording statistics.
Cockburn, a patron of Canterbury junior cricket the past 10 years, attended the first 20-odd tournaments as a fan, baggage manager or coach.
However, in the early 1980s, he realised a proper record of statistics was missing.
"Word of mouth got twisted sometimes,'' he said.
"There was another 20 runs added on to totals. So I went back and tried to get through all the scoreboards and check it out and get it stabilised.''
Cockburn has kept statistics first-hand ever since, and can promptly tell you 103 hundreds have been scored and 43 hat tricks taken in the history of the tournament.
He was on hand to help the Otago Daily Times on Wednesday, when it needed to confirm if Dunedin player Beckham Wheeler-Greenall (13) was the first player in history to take a hat trick and score a century in the same match.
Cockburn confirmed six players had completed both feats in the same tournament in the past, but Wheeler-Greenall was the first to do it in the same match.
Even in an age of electronic devices, Cockburn steers clear of computers and phones, instead preferring pen and paper.
He has dedicated a spare room, which he admits contains "many folders'', in his Fendalton home for statistics.
"It's pretty tidy. My wife [Marcia] doesn't go in there very often. She knows where I am,'' he said.
Cockburn said his passion for keeping the statistics up to date kept him coming back every year, but conceded he would look at handing the reins over to someone else in the next couple of years.
After travelling around the South Island and watching the tournament for more than half a century, Cockburn has gathered some memories.
He recalls teams having to supply their own umpires in the inaugural tournament in Invercargill in 1963, which resulted in a boy's uncle giving him out lbw for 95.
While he could not recall what year it happened, he also recalled a bizarre dismissal.
"I've seen a player play at the ball, his hands were detached from the bat all of a sudden and it got caught behind,'' Cockburn said.
"The batsman dropped the bat as it was being caught behind. I don't know what happened, but he stayed on.''
Cockburn has also seen some of New Zealand's best cricketers, including Sir Richard Hadlee, John Wright and Brendon McCullum, play at the tournament.
Former All Black and Black Cap Jeff Wilson produced the best bowling performance he had seen, when he took a tournament record 37 wickets in 1987.
Of the 59 wickets Southland took that year, Wilson took 37, a record Cockburn does not think will ever be beaten.
Otago's Ken and Ian Rutherford, who combined to score three centuries between 1969 and 1979, were the best batsmen he saw.
"All the tournaments have been fascinating,'' Cockburn said.
"It's been a privilege to be associated with it.''
● Beckham Wheeler-Greenall can not stay out of the runs.
A day after taking his hat trick and scoring a century, the 13-year-old scored another century in his side's game against Southland Country.
He scored 101 off 118 balls yesterday, at Brooklands, in Mosgiel, as the Dunedin side had a convincing first-innings victory.
