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Only a truck on the far side of the field is 'watching' this full test match.
Big Crowds at Test Rugby? It hasn't Always been the Case!
11 February 2015
This is a photograph taken at one of rugby's rarest events. It was a 'secret' test match played at Owl Creek Polo Field in Glenville, New York in September 1981.
The game was watched by the world's 'smallest' attendance at an officially sanctioned rugby test match. 30 'approved' rugby people watched the action (though obviously only on one side of the field.)
South Africa won the game by 38-7. The venue, date, & time of kickoff etc were all kept under wraps so as not to encourage anti-apartheid protests against the South African team. They had just come from a turbulent 3-test, protest ridden tour of New Zealand and were heading home.
In the picture to the right in the headband is the Springbok captain Wynand Claassen.
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Every day there is Rugby History 12 September 1981
Click to show A plane flies over a thrilling 'Barbed Wire Climax!'
Protests of all kinds against Apartheid on this cheerless day at Eden Park. But the Springboks go home losing to the ABs by 25-22.
A-Z of Rugby
Click to show AITKEN, George
Buller, Wellington, and Scotland
2 internationals for New Zealand 1921
8 internationals for Scotland 1924–29
One of a number of players to have played for more than one country, Aitken came from Buller in New Zealand’s South Island. He made his first-class debut as a teenager before the outbreak of World War I and resumed his career after the war.
Aitken’s debut for New Zealand in 1921 was in the first test against South Africa – the first game between the two countries.
Two years later Aitken, having been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, was in England studying at Oxford University. After becoming an Oxford rugby blue he won his first cap for Scotland in 1924. (He had Scottish parents.)
George Aitken was a centre of considerable speed and talent. He is perhaps best remembered in the rugby world as part of a very fast and dangerous Oxford University three-quarter line, all of whom joined him in the Scottish international team at various times.
10 Questions to well known sporting people
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Who was known as 'The Olympic All Black" - and why?
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