Gathering Our History

I’m Paul Neazor, the Ponsonby Rugby Club historian. I’ve written about scores of club members and their contributions but this is only being written at Peter Thorp’s insistence – and his threat to write it himself - so I’ve given in and will do as he asked.

I’m originally from Wellington, moving to Auckland when I was 23. When I shifted there was only the one club I wanted to play for, despite the fact Ponsonby as a suburb was, at the time, about as far removed from the Wellington I knew as it was possible to be. My home club, Onslow, had not long been lost in an amalgamation that produced Western Suburbs, an outfit I felt no ties to, and Ponsonby was everything I felt a local footy club should be.

I got the gig as club historian basically because, in the mid-1990s, I asked to do it. It’s like so many things at sports clubs – if someone is willing to take it on and makes a reasonable fist of it, they keep the job as long as they want. My first task was to compile the book launched to coincide with the 125th Jubilee, Passion and Pride. At the time I only had a small reputation in the sports writing world, so the club took a punt. I hope the investment has been repaid, at least in part.

Research was different in the mid-1990s. There was no internet. If you wanted a look into old papers, a trip to Auckland Central Library was necessary. There I sat down with rolls of microfilm, putting each one through the scanner and finding the relevant passages. It was a long, slow process, but over a couple of years I found most of the key bits.

What I already knew, but soon became more aware of, was that the club had a special history, both in terms of its record and also of its people. Aside from the well-known names, there were others that kept cropping up, and I wanted to know more about them. I didn’t have the time while doing the book, but filed it under ‘Things to do at some stage in the future’.

Something I noticed was that the Honours Board had errors on it. Given how it was put together in the mid-1960s so it would be ready for the Centenary, that wasn’t surprising. There was little reliable information at the time; Men in Black wouldn’t be published for more than a decade, and Arthur Swan, while diligent, was fairly dry. In addition the club lost many records in the hall fires of the 1920s; the oldest surviving minute books start with the rebuilding after the second fire. Those players of 90 and 80 and 70 years ago were near-forgotten men from another world. George Nicholson, whose memory was tapped into on many occasions, was by then very old and that memory sometimes failed him.

Thirty years on there was a great deal more reliable material to hand than Jack Bourke and Co had. The errors concerning All Blacks were put right immediately because at the time a debate was raging over which club had most and various methods of counting were applied by a variety of people, generally giving highly inflated totals. We got there in the end, coming to an agreement with Otago University – for a long time the record-holder – that both clubs were counting in the same way, and that we agreed with their count and they agreed with ours.

Time passed and Passion and Pride Continues, which covers 1999 to 2017 and includes that scarcely credible run of 10 Gallaher Shield wins in 11 years was produced. Once more a variety of items were highlighted but now it was much easier to run them to earth. The story remained as much one of the people as it was about rugby, and while the club moved on in many ways that was never one.

About the same time Bryan Williams (still not yet Sir Bryan) was making a concerted effort to detail, catalogue and make a digital record of all the club’s memorabilia, and he asked me to get involved. I did, and this kindled the desire to make the club website not just the best in Auckland, but better than anything available in New Zealand – or outside, for that matter. We had the history, but needed to gather it all in one place.

Things had changed in 20 years. As electronic media advanced the website Papers Past developed, which records dozens of newspapers from throughout New Zealand as scans of each page of each edition, dating back to the first and at present ending between 1945 and 1950. It is an invaluable tool, one I use often.

A search engine makes life simple, too. Type in ‘Ponsonby football’ or, later, ‘Ponsonby rugby’, hit ‘Find’ and a few hundred results appear for each year. I read every one that came up, discarded those that didn’t apply to us and kept those that did. If something was missing, like a match report (normally because one of the key words in the search wasn’t found), I could now see that and I had a guide to go to a paper, search the date and locate the piece I wanted.

In this way a collection of some 8000 links was built, which is now available here. They may mention the club in passing – if it was team lists we’re talking about, possibly not at all since Ponsonby was notorious for not filing on time – but all were part of the fabric of early Auckland rugby, and Ponsonby was at the heart of so much of it that these items were kept, for continuity and for interest.

All sorts of things fell out of this research, with the biggest being that half a dozen old Life Members were missing from the Honours Board. How it happened was understandable but it needed putting right and, once raised at the AGM, the records were changed and those old stalwarts given their due acknowledgement.

A fairly full record of games, results, scorers and appearances has now been constructed. A roll of Senior players, now well into the thousands, has been identified and a surprisingly large number, about two-thirds, have first names or, failing that, initials known. Clearly there are more but running them to earth is increasingly difficult; the World War I and World War II years are particularly hard.

Apart from a few wartime matches, results and scores are known for every Senior match the club has played, and in almost all cases scorers are known as well. The appearance record has more holes in it, but one advantage of researching Ponsonby is that the club was talked about more than most, and players got more press mentions. It was an invaluable help.

As well as that, the earliest club officials are now known – the Honours Board records start at 1887 instead of 1874 – and a complete list of the club’s first-class players could be built. Here I have to pay tribute to Clive Akers’ remarkable New Zealand Rugby Register, an extraordinary work that lists every first-class player to appear in New Zealand since 1875 and the matches they played. If there was any doubt about Ponsonby players, a quick check in there sorted it out.

Our Honours section is at least as good as any other sporting website in New Zealand. There are 20 sub-headings, ranging from All Blacks and Black Ferns to Auckland B reps in first-class matches and loan players for both men and women, to short pieces on Senior championship winners and profiles of Life Members. There are links to other sites and profiles of all our internationals, whether New Zealand or Pasifika, available. A couple of former All Blacks who had played a handful of matches for the club, previously unrecorded, came to light, and a small number of first-class players who had been missed off the lists were picked up.

Now the older Centurions, who played before records were kept, have been identified and in early 2026 the final series of blazer presentations will be made to these old warriors and to Life Members.  If leading players don’t have a profile anywhere else on the website, an interest piece has been inserted in the decade they were most involved. Significant figures in club history whose deeds don’t fit into any particular place, but whose contribution was too great to ignore, are here.

By the time we’ve finished, the Ponsonby Rugby Club e-museum will be able to stand with any sporting counterpart in the world. It is a huge job, but immensely satisfying, and once completed the record will be available for ever.

Ponsonby District Rugby Club deserves no less.​​​​​​​