Peter Thomson
I live on an island off the east coast of Australia. Bribie Island, Queensland, to be precise — about 50km north of Brisbane.
We have an 800m bridge that connects us to the real world. But, frankly — as a Kiwi-born former globetrotting sports journalist — nothing “connects” me more with my roots than a weekly sports crossword that appears in 10 New Zealand newspapers, including The Gisborne Herald.
It so happens I create them. In fact, I’ve been producing sports crosswords now for 40 years (hell, doesn’t that date me!) — mostly an Oz-flavoured weekly puzzle for Brisbane’s Sunday Mail. But, for the past few years (the realisation of a long-time goal), a Kiwi version of “Sportsword”.
It’s a labour of love that often has me thinking back to how it all began.
I remember it well. Working as a rugby writer for The Daily Telegraph in London in the early 1980s; despatched to Gloucester to cover a match (rugby’s equivalent of an FA Cup tie); fascinated to find a rugby crossword puzzle appearing in the match-day programme.
I guess you’d call it an “epiphany” of sorts. Whatever, I resolved there and then that somewhere down the track I’d work out a way to create sports crosswords — if only as a side gig to the more serious business of keeping baked beans on the table through my work as a sports writer/sub-editor.
Fast forward to 2023 and here I am producing a “Kiwi Sportsword” book (50 puzzles) to support a wonderful charity — New Zealand Riding for the Disabled.
It’s by no means a coincidence that “Kiwi Sportsword” has been launched in the run-up to the men’s Rugby World Cup in France.
Rugby, it’s fair to say, has shaped my life (I make no apology for the strong rugby flavour that permeates my puzzles) and, on reflection, I consider myself blessed.
Blessed to have scored a job, way back, as a cub reporter on the then Evening Post in Wellington and, ultimately, as a sports journalist; blessed to have had the opportunity to roam (and work) the rugby world; and, yes, blessed in retirement to retain a passion for sport that continues to sustain me.
In spruiking my “Kiwi Sportsword” book — a novel gift, I suggested in a recent Facebook post, that might just “beat the hell out of socks and undies!” — I must acknowledge our first World Cup-winning All Blacks captain, David Kirk, for his generous endorsement.
As it happens, I too have fond memories of 1987, though I admit my “achievement” rather pales alongside Kirk’s after he replaced an injured Andy Dalton to lead the ABs’ history-making World Cup campaign.
Living and working in Brisbane at the time, and somehow inspired to write a “poem” for the first time in my life, I came up with a modest ditty entitled “Bring on the World”, which morphed into ABC TV’s World Cup theme song.
A “one-hit wonder”, you might say.
“Kiwi Sportsword” is available only through NZRDA’s website (and at select RDA events).
For details, visit www.rda.org.nz/crossword
■ Peter Thomson is a former sports journalist who has worked on newspapers in New Zealand, South Africa, Wales, England and Australia. Email: peter@sportswordcentral.com