KeithQuinnRugby
Thinking and talking about rugby every day for 50+ years
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From my travels I have collected many photos; had them sent to me or saved them, because, well, behind most of them there is a good story!
1965 Springbok fullback Lionel Wilson after a fearful collision during the South Africa v Canterbury match.
9 June 2014
The 1965 South African fullback Lionel Wilson sent this picture to KeithQuiinnRugby.com some years ago. It is from his private collection of memorabilia and shows how he looked after being involved in a fearful collision during the South Africa v Canterbury game. He recovered from the black eye and played a test match a week later! Wilson came to New Zealand to live permanently in the years after the tour. Read more »
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8 June 2014
The mighty Colin Meads of King Country New Zealand, who was the symbol of everything that was tough about rugby in the 1960s and '70s. Here he is with his upper body covered in plaster playing with his young son. Weeks earlier near his farm Meads had suffered a broken back after a motor vehicle crash. A matter of months later he had recovered sufficiently to play full international games again, though his All Black days were over. Read more »
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3 June 2014
Some people journey to Jerusalem or Mecca or other Holy places. Here is Keith Quinn at his personal 'place of pilgrimage'; at the grave of William Webb Ellis at Menton, Southern France. It serene place where one can reflect whether the man buried there really did start the game of rugby in 1823. Read more »
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1 June 2014
In the 1950s when the big test matches were played it was common for air planes to fly over the grounds dragging advertising slogans. This gave the opportunity for wonderful photographs to be taken. This one was taken in 1959 when officially it was 57,000 people attended the All Blacks v British Lions in Christchurch. Note the packed crowd on the embankment (right hand side) but seated fans on the ground in front of the bank. Read more »
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NZ tumbled out of the 4th Rugby World Cup at the semi-final stage; ahead 24-10 at one stage,
the AB's then leaked 33 unanswered points to lose 43-31.
ATTENDANCE RECORDS
For many years the record for the largest crowd to watch a rugby international was the 95,000 that packed into the old Ellis Park ground in Johannesburg in 1955 to watch the first test between South Africa and the British Isles. There were also 95,000 present in Bucharest in May 1957 to see France play Romania, although it should be mentioned that the game was actually played as a curtain raiser to a major soccer match!
A record was thought to have been set at Murrayfield in Edinburgh in 1975, when it was reported that a crowd of 104,000 watched the Wales v Scotland international. However, in the end the official attendance was listed as 80,000.
The biggest total of people to watch a test match in New Zealand is the 61,240 who attended Eden Park in Auckland for the fourth test between New Zealand and South Africa in 1956.
For decades the record attendance for a test match in Australia was the 48,898 who came to see New Zealand play Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground in the third test of 1980. That total was impressive enough considering the lesser place rugby held in the hearts of the Australian sporting public at the time. However being twice world champions in the 1990s helped the upsurge in popularity of rugby union. Coinciding with the rise in rugby’s significance came the building of much larger sports arenas, most notably for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.
The latest record total for crowds at a rugby test in Australia therefore also became the world’s best. At Stadium Australia in Sydney on July 15, 2000 with the Bledisloe Cup at stake the All Blacks and the Wallabies played in front of 109,878 fans. A year before on the same ground 107,042 had watched the same two teams in action.
At the other end of the scale, there have been many times when officials have been disappointed with the size of crowds that have turned out to see major rugby matches.
Easily the tiniest crowd to watch a significant rugby match would have been the few dozen people who stood about on the sidelines of Owl Creek Polo Ground in Glenville, in upstate New York, for the match between USA and South Africa in 1981.
To avoid anti-apartheid protesters and prying news media, the two teams traveled in secret to a destination which only a few officials knew about. They also had quietly scheduled the match to begin 24 hours ahead of its planned playing time, and goal-posts were only erected (by the players of both teams) five minutes before kick-off. When the teams ran on to the sloping, muddy and manure-smelling field, 60 state police leapt from unmarked cars to guard the event, but they cannot be claimed as boosters to the total attendance figure of 25!
Had there been a scoreboard at the ground it would have shown a final score of South Africa 38, USA 7. Perhaps this was the only international where there were more points scored than people attending.
One of the South African players in the game, Thys Burger, claims some sort of world record. He says he helped put up the posts; when the game started he acted as touch judge for a time, then he came on to play as a substitute and finished his day by scoring a try between them!
From Wyn Gruffydd - the Welsh broadcaster; 'How Do You Know a girl from Cardiff has had an Orgasm?'
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