1981: Day of Shame

I don't know if they deliberately scheduled tonight's All Black Springbok match on the 25th Anniversary of the first match of the tour. I doubt it, there wouldn't be a weekend this winter that wasn't the anniversary of something (they don't have a game in Hamilton - which I think is in good taste - although more on that later).

I'm going to take advantage of this anniversary to do a little bit of history writing. Hamilton, Molesworth St and the Tests at least, I may decide to cover some other events, and write some analysis as well as recalling events, we'll see how we go.

Poverty Bays vs. South Africa was the day that the sport boycott was officially broken. The protests in Gisbourne weren't that big - I imagine 500 people is a large march by Gisborne standards, but given people travelled from outside it was a tiny fraction of the Gisborne population. The protests were larger away from the match, 600 in Dunedin, 1,500 in Auckland, 3,000 in Christchurch.

In Wellington, my hometown, there were 5,000 people on the streets the day the sports boycott was broken. They blockaded the National party headquarters (often a worthy goal), and marched on parliament. I know how 5,000 people fills Wellington's streets - that was their beginning.