“This brought back memories of my time back in Gisborne — such wonderful memories, lovely people.”
Past players Buster Taylor, Mike Cotton, John Strang, Gavin Smith and David Kirkpatrick were there with whanau and friends, along with Jan Wilson, daughter of former Tangihau Station manager Laurie Cooper.
“Bill was the first captain of the Ngatapa Rugby Club when they entered the town competition in 1957 and some surviving members of that team were there to party with Bill,” Cotton said.
Ngatapa had been a sub-union with five teams in a country competition but lack of playing numbers resulted in the shift to town as one club.
Cotton said Maxwell was presented with a club cap and one of only five Ngatapa “Invincibles” jerseys given to the club by the manufacturer, Canterbury.
Readers of The Gisborne Herald have also been in touch with the sports department to confirm the identity of two “unknown” players in the 1958 photo that accompanied a story before Maxwell’s birthday.
Sid Hain was top left and Ivan Blair, bottom right.
Hain, 79, was still at school when he had his first game for Ngatapa in 1957.
A boarder at Auckland’s King’s College, he played for the club in his Easter break and a full season the next year after leaving school.
“It was pretty tough rugby,” he said.
“I was really far too light to be useful.”
He was fit, though, and as a farmer, “walked everywhere”.
Nowadays, Hain is patron of the Poverty Bay A&P Association and can often be seen mowing the showgrounds in the lead-up to shows.
Blair, 81, still plays badminton.
In one rugby game at a club jubilee, he played at the age of 69 and scored a try. Badminton had kept him fit, he said.
“It was a good team,” Blair said, reflecting on his earlier rugby days.
“We all got on well together.”
