KeithQuinnRugby
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9 January 2015
Browsing through rugby things in the New Zealand summer (as you do!) I found this amazing shot of Tommy Gentles a Springbok test halfback from 1955-58. (see attached photo) Get a look at how teeny this man was! The records show that he stood 1.60metres tall (that's about five feet 3 inches. His weight was a little over 57kgs = 9 stone. The photo was taken before a rugby test match in 1955 when Tommy made his debut against the touring British Isles team. Dare I suggest rather than in the dressing room as the caption for the photograph suggested it was taken perhaps in a studio before the official team photograph. But I met this man...
In 1996 I was the tour TV commentator to South Africa with Sean Fitzpatrick's All Blacks. My host commentator friend from SuperSport as we went from game to game was the great Hugh Bladen. Right from the start of the tour Hugh gently badgered me to speak at the famous Wanderers Club in Johannesburg's pre-test function later that month. This I agreed to do and it was a truly splendid event - and an honour to be at.
When I rose to speak I tried to touch on what the resumption of a full test series between the All Blacks and the Springboks meant (the two nations not having met in a series since 1981) - especially to New Zealanders who would be watching my call on TV of the 1996 fourth test over the following weekend back at home. I harked back to watching the Springboks play the All Blacks as a kid in Wellington in 1956 in the second test - that was 40 years earlier. I tied my speech into the fact that at 5am on the morning of the second test, as an eight year old, I had crept into a place in the queue on the footpath outside the ground, kept for me overnight by my oldest brother George and his mate Bob Gregory. We wanted only the best place to watch the test, and that would be on the Athletic Park embankment which you had to really commit to get in those far-off days.
At the 1996 luncheon I felt quite emotional re-telling that story, as going to that game and feeling the excitement it and that whole tour engendered, and later listening on the radio to the vital fourth test in Auckland, had had a massive influence on how I wanted my future life's direction to go.
Is it too much to tell you that when I finished speaking and stood back from the podium the Wanderer's crowd of 600 gave me a standing ovation. I was very proud I can tell you - and I can still feel the strength's of Hughie hug when I got off the stage!
All of us then stood around - as you do at rugby lunches and yarned away. I must have shaken the hands of 100 smiling South African men (no women there as I recall!) who came up and chatted. It was fun to be at.
But the best part was when a stranger in the crowd said to me,"I bet you don't know who this?' and I turned and immediately recognised his friend. It was Tommy Gentles. Well, at his height and with his distinctive bespectacled look how could I ever have forgotten him? He had played in that game I had queued to see!
It was lovely to meet him and we had quite chat. Of course I marveled at how short he was and all that - but at the same time my admiration for him grew as I tried to put into perspective his size as he stood next to me, while remembering what a brutal game that second test had been at Wellington. The Springboks had won by 8-3. (George, Bob and I had stumped home in a very gloomy mood afterwards.)
After our chat and it came time for Tommy and I to part he said the loveliest thing, 'Nice to meet you Quinn,' he said, 'You made me cry here today.'
I have never forgotten the outright thrill of such a compliment.
But really, when you think of it memories of the old days should do that for all of us when we hark back to the games we saw and played in the good old days - when there was room in the game for huge men who wore the big shirts - but also for little guys too - who proved they too had big hearts.
[Footnote I; Tommy Gentles played 6 tests for the Springboks between 1955-58. He also, believe it or not, played professional rugby league for a time for Wigan in England. He died in 2011]
[Footnote II;My brother George and his friend Bob Gregory are still mates and are in regular touch. Bob is one of my best friends too. Bob and I were at TWO lunches before Christmas this year. Both men are distinguished academics with the title of 'Professor' ahead of their names; George in Canberra and Bob at in Wellington and Hong Kong. Bob played representative rugby for Wellington in the 1960s.]
[Footnote III; Hugh Bladen is hugely popular still at the microphone in South Africa. His distinctive TV calls are heard regularly all over the world I love the guy.]
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On this day he captained the AB test team for the 52nd time, thus passing Sean Fitzpatrick's old record of 51. NZ beat Australia by 23-22 in Sydney
APIA PARK
Headquarters for the game of rugby in Samoa. Apia Park is a ground with a colourful past. Just as Twickenham in London was once a market garden, and cabbages were grown at Lancaster Park in Christchurch during World War I, Apia Park in the capital city of Samoa was once a horse racing track and a golf course.
Situated close to the city, the ground was originally owned by the occupying German Government. The first horse racing was held on Kaiser Wilhelm II’s birthday in 1910. Later, Chinese, Melanesian and Samoan labourers ploughed the swampy land, aided by oxen-drawn carts. They levelled an inner field and plans for rugby were drawn up. The locals did not worry that a large, shady tree was left intact on what was to be inside the field of play.
Horse racing died out in 1939. The first rugby game on the park was in 1924 when an Apia Selection played a Pago Pago Naval XV. Apia won 33-0. During the same year a Fijian team on its way to play Tonga stopped in Apia. Its two games against the locals were split one win each. It is not recorded how the teams coped with playing around the tree!
These days the rebuilt ground, with its superb backdrop of palm trees and other native flora and fauna, must be one of the prettiest in the world.
Apia Park has always been a highly significant place for sport in Samoa. In 1991 before the advent of a home TV network, crowds used to come to the ground and sit for hours overnight waiting to watch on an imported giant TV screen the matches of (Western) Samoa at the World Cup in Britain.
For years the field was also used as a golf course, but in 1975 the inherent dangers of people walking near such a course led them to shift to a new venue, at the Royal Samoan Golf Club. Only then for the first time could rugby truly claim the grounds.
In 2007, Apia Park was one of the main venues for the 2007 Pacific Games. In 2015 it will play host many events at the Youth Commonwealth Games, the opening and closing ceremonies. It will also host the All Blacks from New Zealand for a much anticipated game against Manu Samoa. The ground has a capacity of 15,000.
Which New Zealand Tennis Sponsor's representative always included two of his 'own' invented words in his speeches at the Heineken Open prize givings in the 2000s - and what were the words?
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