Isn't THIS a Better Way to Accept Defeat?

13 August 1921

The All Black - Springbok rivalry starts

On the first tour of NZ by South Africa, Carisbrook in Dunedin hosts a 13-5 victory for the All Blacks.

ALLIGADOO
A rugby term sometimes spelt ‘alickadoo’ and rarely heard outside Britain, which means a club official or highly-placed committee man.

One story says the spelling ‘alickadoo’ is derived from the words ‘all he can do [is talk]’.

The other story comes from J.B.G. Thomas’s Great Rugger Players, where it is said Ireland’s ‘Jammie’ Clinch was asked by his team-mate, Ernie Crawford, about the subject matter of a story Clinch was reading on a train, while returning from an international in 1925. When Clinch replied, ‘I’m reading about a Spaniard called Alicardo, who thinks a lot of himself and is always blowing his load,’ (bragging) Crawford was highly amused and likened Alicardo to the rugby officials riding on the train with the team.

After that Crawford used the word frequently around Dublin. It became distorted by Irish accents to ‘alligadoo’ but it stuck as a term for an officious committee man.

The media were inititially uncertain whether Albert Anderson of Canterbury had been named in the team as a lock forward - or whether it had been Brent Anderson of Wairarapa-Bush who had also played in the final trial in the same position.