Ponsonby Rugby Club

The 1870s, in rugby terms, were where it all started. Not just at Ponsonby, but throughout New Zealand. At the instigation of Charles John Munro, New Zealand born but England educated, the rugby game was introduced here and on 14 May 1870 the first match, between Nelson Club and Nelson College, was played. The country would never be the same again.

The game really took off in Auckland in 1874, but the founding of North Shore Football Club a year earlier was important, as there was now a second club to compete with Auckland. In 1874 four new clubs were founded – Ponsonby was one – and the game started to catch on. It was perhaps appropriate that our first opponent was Grafton, since the clubs flanked the inner city area and waged a fierce rivalry for the next 100 years. If Ponsonby tended to have the upper hand, Grafton wasn’t an outfit that went quietly and there was an intensity of feeling between the fans that few other rivalries have matched over such a prolonged time.

These days, after clubs have come and gone, amalgamated or simply grown old and folded, Ponsonby remains the sixth-oldest operational club in New Zealand, behind Nelson, Wellington, Dunedin, North Shore and Thames, and is the oldest under the Auckland Union banner.

Within three years Ponsonby was challenging Auckland’s dominance, and 12 months later usurped the crown. Ponsonby was the quickest of the new clubs out of the playing blocks, and the one that built a relationship with its community the fastest. In that short space of time, the club had been renowned for turning up on time and with a full muster – not always, and dirty wet mid-winter days tested the mettle of players who had no changing facilities on the ground, but most of the time – and for not loading its team up with guns from other clubs. This last was a significant issue and there are plenty of examples of ring-ins, who were always among the city’s best players, appearing on Saturday.

Ponsonby had its stars, although a few were not seen much after the accident to Parnell’s Fred Pilling in 1877. That season, though, the club had its first contact with players who would be chosen for New Zealand; both Joe Warbrick and Ned Davy, who went to Australia in 1884, played for Ponsonby this season although each left Auckland soon afterwards.

Apart from the first Auckland team in 1875, when the members paid their own way and were therefore men with the time and money to spend 17 days away playing football, Ponsonby was represented in most Auckland teams. By the end of the decade the core of what was to prove Auckland’s dominant team of the next decade was in place.

Ned Davy’s younger brother, known as Hookey, also came north in 1877 but he stayed and played for the next 12 years. He was quick, agile and clever – one of the first real backs in the city. Then, in a bunch in 1879, came three men who would star for a decade. Jack Arneil, Jim Braund and Bob Whiteside, to give them in alphabetical order, all had special skills that led to their being regarded as the best in their respective roles among all clubs and, in two cases at least with Braund not quite up to the same mark, as being among the best in the country.

Arneil was a tough, durable forward who was especially skilled at dribbling, an essential art at the time. He also developed into a fine leader who, with Tom Macky, gave Ponsonby two strong men at the helm. Braund excelled at fullback, where his sure handling and clever kicking set him apart, while his running game was also dangerous. Whiteside was solid, strong, fast and a try-scoring menace. The trio were written up, week after week, for their deeds on the playing fields.

The Macky brothers, Tom and Joe, were the most durable of the original members. Tom played on until 1888, and Joe was one of the club’s early Presidents. They were the first links in a chain that extends down to today – good players who became good club men, and whose wise counsel was often sought.

The club’s first leading player and first Auckland rep, Walter Jones, was given credit later as being the club founder, but those comments were only aired when he died. He was certainly one of the founder members, along with brother Fred, but played little part in club affairs after 1877 (he retired immediately after Pilling’s death, as he was a good friend) and devoted most of his recreational time to yachting.

By the end of the decade, Ponsonby was generally considered the best of Auckland’s clubs. Auckland might still have been favoured in some circles, as much as anything for its position as the pioneer club, but the torch had been handed on.

With only a few interruptions since, that torch has remained firmly on the western rim of the city for the next 140 years.