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JUST after the departure of Stoddart’s team in 1888, the New Zealand
Native football team left on a tour of England which proved to be one of
the most remarkable ever made. Averaging three matches a week, it played
108 in about eight months, and lost only 23 of them. The tour was
promoted as a business venture by J. A.
Warbrick (who was killed by the
Waimangu geyser in 1903),
James Scott, and T. Eyton, and
in Melbourne a trainer was engaged
to teach the team Australian
Rules football. This idea was subsequently dropped, although the
trainer accompanied them
throughout the tour. On the way
to
England the players kept fit by stoking the ship’;
furnaces, and when she stopped in the Suez Canal
they went ashore and played a
game of football in the desert. Their uniform was black and gold and on
the peak of their braided caps they won the letters, ‘N.Z.N.F.R.’ — New
Zealand Native Football Representatives. Not all of them were
natives, however, several prominent
European players, including
the brilliant Otago halfback, F.
Keogh, being included to strengthen
the side. Following this tour and that of Stoddart’s team there
was a growing agitation against’ speculative teams,’ and a desire for
more effective control led to the formation in 1891 of the New Zealand
Rugby Union, which was largely a monument to the initiative of E. D.
Hoben, of Hawke’s Bay. It adopted black jersey, white pants, and black
stockings as the uniform of New Zealand international
teams, but this was subsequently changed in favour of the all black
outfit which acquired for New Zealand international teams their
distinctive name.
Southland, Canterbury, and
Otago refused to affiliate at first, but Canterbury capitulated in 1894,
and Southland and Otago players, realising that they were being excluded
from consideration for New Zealand teams and debarred from playing
representative matches
against affiliated unions, set up an agitation which resulted in the
affiliation of those districts in 1895.
New
Zealand teams in Australia in 1893, 1897,
and 1903 had unbroken
triumphs. New South Wales and Queensland, sending teams to New Zealand,
had little else but mortifying defeats as
their lot. In 1905-6, when David
Gallaher’s ‘ original All Blacks’ had brilliant victories in the
United Kingdom, losing only to
Wales, New Zealand football stood on a pinnacle. Yet already rival
influences were at work.
Hockey, golf, and soccer
were competing with rugby for the public’s interest and support,
and League was just around the corner. Rugby is still preeminent, but it
no longer has a monopoly.
Spirited play in the third
test, South Africa against New Zealand in 1937, which the former won
by 17 to 6.
The All Blacks in a line-out
against the Midland Counties in 1905.
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The New Zealand Native football
team which toured England in the season 1888-9. James Scott and J.A.
Warbrick are at the left of the back row, and T. Eyton is right of
that row.
A cartoon from an English paper
when the 1905-6 All Blacks were in the course of their triumphant
tour. The sketches illustrate incidents in the match in which New
Zealand beat England by 15 points to nil.
A section of the crowd during a
test match held at Athletic Park in Wellington. Throughout New Zealand
crowds watch football with an interest and fervour that is only
equalled by racegoers.
The 1924 All Blacks team
which won all of it's thirty matches played in Great Britain and
France.
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