JUST what was in the Whanganui water systems around that 1998-2000 time frame?
As the Tennis Wanganui junior representative teams get set to compete against their Manawatu opposites at the Basset St courts tomorrow, development officer Gene Ridgway is looking at a slightly less fertile nursery for the first time in about five years.
Six key players have turned 17, now being ineligible for the Under-16 squad, and their departures are the early flow-on effect which will likely be felt next summer as Wanganui will attempt to hang onto the Christie Cup at the senior level.
Presented in 1963 by Dr Howard Christie for contests between Wanganui, Taranaki, Manawatu, Wairarapa and (until 2008) Hawkes Bay, it is safe to say Wanganui was at the lower end of the totem pole for Central Districts most prized team tennis trophy.
Five decades at the bottom, to be precise.
However, since snatching the Cup from a shocked Taranaki in 2012, Wanganui has been dominating the challenges for three straight summers, with their bigger provincial neighbours either showing up at Basset St or welcoming them to their own courts and always walking away scratching their heads.
Yes, the acquiring of key professionals like Victor Romero, Emma Hayman and Leela Beattie helped tip the balance, as did the rock-steady consistency of national masters champion Karen Cranston.
But Christie Cup is 24 games, six men and six women playing across singles and doubles matches, and you can afford no weak links.
This was where an incredible youth movement came to the fore - one we have not seen in this area in decades, if ever.
Teenaged cousins Paige Hourigan and Kyle Butters became world-ranked juniors, while the young ladies who debuted against Taranaki in Paris Butters and the Hiri sisters, Gabrielle and Dana, have grown from squad rookies to linchpins.
Names like Michael O'Callahan, Charlotte Gollan, Taylor Quirk, Anna McIlraith, Rebekah Butters-Chamberlain and several more have also come and gone, having done their part to often make defences of the Cup a foregone conclusion before the mixed doubles section would start at the end of the day.
However, the years roll on, and with Hourigan, the Hiri's and the Butters children all either departed or soon to leave home to seek their fortunes around the sporting globe, the gaps are beginning to appear.
Through sheer will, Wanganui held onto the Christie Cup this season by 13-11 and 12-12 margins against Taranaki and Manawatu in away fixtures, with both those squads only likely to keep getting stronger.
Whatever happens next summer, this is an appropriate juncture to look back on the phenomenal success of the Wanganui team over these past four years, and the crucial part those amazing teenagers, who through some twist of fate all "came up" at the same time, have played in it.
In the coming years, we may quickly come to appreciate just what a special era it has been.
The Saracens enigma
The Matt Burke Engineering Marton Saracens might want to take a special recommendation to the next Wanganui Cricket Council of Clubs meeting - play the local season from January 1 to April 30.
There seems little scientific reason why the country team performs so poorly in the lead-up to Christmas, getting routinely beaten from October onwards, and then suddenly just come to life after the revelry of New Year has died down to play some sublime cricket.
Saracens went from staring at the wooden spoon in the new eight-team Coastal Challenge Cup, to finishing fifth by handily winning both their January playoff games against Property Brokers United and Bayer Marist.
This was followed up by continuing their unbeaten run in the combined Whanganui Twenty20 tournament; the one format they did all right at the end of 2015, although their opposition had no representative players, thereby claiming their first trophy in February.
Today, unless St Johns Tech can manufacture an extraordinary batting and bowling effort in 100 overs, with the rain also staying away, Saracens will go on to win the Porter Hire Premier 1 red ball competition as well.
They have beaten United in all the big games in the latter half of this summer, thereby keeping possession of the P1 version of the Wingnut Trophy, played for between the sides on a challenge basis.
Although Marton have not had a good run against Tech, they sit in the driver's seat on this last day of the summer to make it two championships and thus, statistically, end 2015-16 as Whanganui cricket's most successful Premier 1 club.
"We sort of tend to struggle before Christmas most seasons, and then things just come right," said senior batsman Scott Oliver said in February.
"I've got no idea why that is."
He's not the only one.