Issue 97 : 30 January 2022

Talofa Lava, Kia Orana, Malo E Leilei, Tena Koutou, Hello ...

... and welcome to the first issue for 2022 of “For The Love Of The Game”, the official e-zine of the New Zealand Amateur Sport Association Inc., founded in 2017.

The New Year has started with ongoing challenges for sport nationally in managing the impact of the pandemic which first arrived in New Zealand nearly two years ago. On the road ahead in 2022, the Association will continue to support all involved in amateur sport through our three strategic pillars of "amateur advocacy", "thought leadership" and "community engagement".



If you have any feedback on this issue, ideas for future articles, or would like to contact the Editor, please click here. And, you are invited to forward the e-zine to others you know, who may be interested in reading it. An archive of earlier editions of the e-zine can be found here. For those who follow Twitter, you can also follow the Association, @AmateurSportNZ.

If you are interested in applying for membership of the Association, please click here.


Queen’s Service Medal Awarded To Three Sporting Volunteers ...

Among the 183 honours received by New Zealanders in the Queen's 2022 New Year Honours List, "Queen's Service Medals" were awarded to three community sporting volunteers, David Bullock, Nigel Perry and Ina Hansen. Unlike some of the more notable sport awards made, recipients of the Queen’s Service Medal (or "QSM") receive little publicity (by way of comparison), but are nonetheless equally deserving of their public recognition.


(The Queen's Service Medal was awarded to three community sport volunteers)


David Bullock has volunteered in administrative positions with indoor bowls in Canterbury for more than 40 years. Nigel Perry has been involved with tennis for 70 years and table tennis for more than 50 years in Marlborough. Ina Hansen has been involved with local and school rugby in many different voluntary roles since the 1970s. The Association congratulates David, Nigel and Ina on their awards and contribution to amateur sport in their local communities.


Viewpoint (1) : Why The Preservation Of Public Recreation Reserves Matters ...

The Palmerston North City Council holds certain land, which cannot be sold under the Palmerston North Reserves Act 1922. In December last year, a new Bill was put before Parliament providing the mechanism for the Council to be able to sell land for development if it becomes “surplus to its requirements”, by amending the Palmerston North Empowering Act 1966. The land in question, which is causing this legislation to be drafted, is the site of the former Manawatu Bowling and Croquet Club.


(The Manawatu Bowling and Croquet Club in 1918)


The combined club was established on the corner of Park Road and Fitzherbert Avenue and was officially opened 30 November 1918, during the "influenza epidemic". Later the tennis club joined the combined committee. By 1938, the combined clubs had two full sized bowling greens, four croquet greens and eight tennis courts. A fire in 1984 resulted in extensive rebuilding and extension of the club buildings. Around this time, croquet was abandoned at the club, while bowls and tennis remained. By 2005, the bowling club had also disappeared, leaving only the adjoining tennis courts (and club). Since then, the ground has been maintained by the Council but not developed for any other recreational purpose.


(The former club grounds, on the corner of Park Road and Fitzherbert Avenue, today)


In suggesting that the land is now surplus to the city’s recreational needs and should be used to build medium density housing, one important social need is being traded for another, where perhaps both can be fulfilled? For example, a new multi-purpose sports facility could be feasible option for the site, while there may be other council-owned assets which can converted to ease the housing crisis? When the reserve was first opened in 1918, then Mayor J A Nash made the specific point that in holding the land in trust for the use of recreation, “the interests of the public had been carefully safeguarded”, to ensure their ongoing access and enjoyment of the area. The ratepayer’s views should therefore be carefully considered given an Act of Parliament is required to overturn their right to the use of the land for public recreation.


"Sinking Lid" May Mean "Sinking Grants" ...

The "Gaming Machine Association of New Zealand" (GMANZ), (an Incorporated Society representing the gaming machine sector in New Zealand) is concerned that the growing trend of local authorities to implement a sinking lid policy on gaming machines means community groups that rely on them for funding will suffer.


(On-line gambling is a growing area of concern given no regulation or enforcement)


Commenting on the Hutt City Council’s recent adoption of a sinking-lid policy, GMANZ’s chairperson, Peter Dengate noted that “research shows that since sinking lid policies were put in place, the number of problem gamblers hasn’t gone down at all”, with increasing numbers turning to on-line gambling sites, “where there is no regulation, no enforcement, no trained staff and no chance of getting help.”


(The odds of "winning big" on pokie machines can be as long as 1 in 33,000,000)


"Safer Gambling Aotearoa" warns against the addictive nature of pokie machines noting that “the ratio of pokies to people in well-off areas is 1 to 465, but the ratio of pokies to people in poorer areas is 1 to 75” and that, “the odds of winning the top prize … may vary from 1 in 40 thousand to 1 in 33 million.” Over the 12 months to 31 August, Department of Internal Affairs data shows that nearly $1 million in gaming machine profits had been generated throughout New Zealand, 100% of which must be returned to the community by way of grants.


“Club Capital” Offers Loans For Capital Or Operational Costs ...

"Club Capital" is a U.K. social impact investment fund focusing on gymnastics. Research carried out by British Gymnastics revealed that a lack of dedicated facilities is one of the main barriers to young people accessing and benefiting from participating in recreational gymnastics. Club Capital will enable more investment into dedicated gymnastics facilities to help tackle this issue.


(Social impact investment funds are a growing source of community club funding)


Club Capital offers unsecured loans of between £25,000 to £250,000 over a four-year term at 4% interest to enable eligible clubs to move into new, or expand or safeguard existing, dedicated gymnastics facilities. Additionally, the Club Capital Recovery Fund makes short-term loans, using Club Capital investment, of between £10,000 and £50,000. The loans provide working capital support to gymnastic clubs in dedicated facilities. This initiative is an example of a new approach to capital-funding community sport, which could also have resonance in New Zealand.

You can read more here.


Te Araroa Mourns Morgan Waitoa ...

Enoka Morgan Pohoikura Waitoa (known as "Morgan"), tragically failed to resurface while diving for kaimoana near Te Araroa with his son and grandson on 29 December last year. He was interred in the family urupā in Taungahāpuku Urupā, Toetoe Station, Horoera, Te Araroa.


(Morgan Waitoa, carrying the ball, was a Ngati Porou East Coast RFU centurion)


Campbell Dewes, a founding Association Board member and current President of the Ngati Porou East RFU, is Morgan’s first cousin and recalls the significant contribution Morgan made to sport in the community over his lifetime.

Waitoa played 115 games over 27 years for Ngati Porou East Coast RFU, as well as helping to run the Saturday morning J.A.B. (Junior Advisory Board) fixtures for 5 to 13-year-olds over many years in Te Araroa. He played his first rugby for the Hicks Bay RFC, then Te Araroa Combined RFC, before moving to Tokarārangi Sports Club, (also based in Te Araroa).


(Waitoa lay in state on Hinerupe Marae before being interred in the family urupā)


You can read more about Morgan’s passion for rugby, whanau and whenua, here.


Viewpoint (2) : “A Man Is Not Dead While His Name Is Still Spoken” ...

Is the pride of society in its sporting, commercial, cultural and social achievements also seen in the care and maintenance of the monuments erected to those responsible for them? The derelict tomb of “the Father of Rugby in the Wairarapa” might suggest a degree of indifference to our rich national history, with a need to recover and restore its contemporary memory.


(The derelict tomb of Barney Ronaldson in Wellington's Karori Cemetery)


Less than 100 years after his death, the memorial to Thomas Sheriff (also known as “Barney”) Ronaldson in Wellington's Karori Cemetery is crumbling, while the memory of his contribution to sport and society in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries increasingly fades.

You can read more here.


From The Archives ...

A MODEST AUCKLANDER ABROAD

OBSERVER, VOLUME XXVI, ISSUE 3, 7 OCTOBER 1905, PAGE 12

“P. A. Vaile, knowing little about lawn tennis, evolved from his versatile brain a back stroke that enabled him to write a book on tennis and revolutionize the game. Stimulated by his success, and though not a golf player, he invented a golf stick guaranteed to drive a ball three miles. Then, with characteristic modesty, he proceeded to apply the principles of science to football and cricket, and the sporting world gazed upon him with admiring awe.”


(Percy Vaile was an "active self-promoter" when it came to sport)


Percy Adolphus Vaile (aka “Pembroke Arnold” Vaile) was born in 1866, the second son of Dunedin stationer John Rippon Vaile and his wife Rosa Maria (nee Price). He is perhaps in our sporting history, New Zealand’s most world-renowned sporting innovator, critic and author.

Over the first four decades of last century, he wrote no fewer than ten best-selling books internationally, including “The Strokes And Science Of Lawn Tennis”, (1910); “The Soul Of Golf” (1912); “The Tennis Primer” (1915); “How To Learn Golf”, (1915); “Modern Tennis”, (1915); “The New Golf”. (1916); “The Backhand Book”, (1918) and “The Short Game”, (1936). An out-spoken sporting critic and self-promoter, he was not well-loved in his home country, (unkindly referred to in the media as “the Expert in all things”), but he found a warmer following in the United States where he eventually lived most of his adult life.


(Vaile wrote a number of popular instructional books covering various sports)


Percy was educated at Otago Boys’ High School. He was admitted to the bar as a solicitor in 1889, by which time his family had relocated to Auckland following the bankruptcy of their stationery business on George Street, Dunedin. He married Gertrude Elmsly on 11 May 1888 with whom he had two sons, Austin and Hilton and two daughters Idaline and Lillian. The Vaile family embraced the spirit of innovation. Together with his brother Ernest, Percy lodged a patent in 1897 for “an improved candle wick”, and in1891 with his cousin William for “a roller-eyelet for the speedier lacing of boots, shoes and corsets”. He has two golf club designs to his name: the "swan-neck putter" for which he (unsuccessfully) applied for a patent with the manufacturer F H Ayres in 1905, and "the stroke-saver".

Percy Vaile was the founding President of the Otahuhu Lawn Tennis Club in 1895, a member of the Remuera Bowling Club and Auckland Amateur Athletic & Cycling Club. He was an early promoter of cycle ways, introducing a Private Member’s Bill to Parliament in 1900 on behalf of Auckland’s Cycle Path League.


(Percy Vaile, pictured left, died of coronary thrombosis in Chicago, in 1940)


In July 1907 Vaile left Auckland for London, never to return to New Zealand. In June 1913, he left London for New York, while his wife and daughters returned to New Zealand. Vaile played in the American Championship Tennis singles in 1913. In 1914 he invented a special billiard cue for assisting a snookered player.

During World War 1, Vaile returned to London where he joined the London Regiment of the Honourable Artillery Company, attaining the rank of Lieutenant. In 1925, he moved back across the Atlantic to Chicago to resume his occupation as a golf and tennis critic. At this time he changed his name; (it would appear to avoid debts and debtors in New Zealand). Percy (aka Pembroke) Vaile died of coronary thrombosis at Cook County Hospital, Chicago on 19 July 1940 at the age of 74, after an illness of two years.


The Final Word ...

“Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”

(Viktor E. Frankl)


© New Zealand Amateur Sport Association Inc. (2669211), 2017

Registered Office, Level 1, 57 Willis Street, Wellington, 6011

P O Box 582, Wellington, 6140


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