KEEPING BUSY: Lynn Stanton, pictured last week at his graduation from Victoria University with a Master of Education degree . . . 'I took the Covid-induced spare time to finish off my masters.'
Bring to mind one sporting memory, and watch as sibling memories line up behind it, ready to transport the “viewer” to long-ago scenes of triumph, disaster, joy and disappointment.
An obituary on Len Cudd brought the memories flooding back for one of his old teammates, Lynn Stanton, who was captain of the Marist team Cudd coached to promotion in 1982 (the obituary did not mention promotion).
That year, Marist played in the Central League Third Division North, along with Gisborne United and Gisborne Thistle. The winners of the northern and southern competitions were promoted automatically to the Central League Second Division, while the runners-up were to contest home and away playoff matches to determine the third team to go up.
Massey University won the Third Division North and Marist – competing in the Central League for the first time – finished second.
That meant Marist had to contest a two-leg playoff against Third Division South runners-up Nelson Suburbs if they wanted to play Second Division football.
Stanton, now 69, recalled the playoff, and the dramatic circumstances in which Marist prevailed, after a Wellington pub conversation with another Gisborne football old boy, former Thistle midfielder John Lange. It was Lange who told Stanton about Len Cudd's death, and Stanton looked up the obituary online.
Mention of Marist's Central League second-place finish triggered memories of the promotion playoff.
A quick search of Gisborne Herald archives showed why those playoff games would remain so vivid for Stanton, an education consultant who as a player seemed to be tireless and fearless in the execution of his midfield duties.
As skipper, he was a key member of the 1982 Marist side and was the team's player of the year. He and club founder and centreback Archie Gillies missed the first leg of the promotion playoff, which Marist lost 2-0 in Gisborne. They were both on holidays they had booked well in advance (Stanton's was a skiing trip with friends; Gillies's was a cruise).
The second leg, in Nelson, was to be played the following Saturday but Nelson Airport was closed because of bad weather and the match was postponed for a week. Marist used the extra week to ensure they were in tip-top condition and — with Stanton and Gillies back in the side — they were a different proposition. Nelson, meanwhile, seemed to have lost the urgency that served them well in the Gisborne leg.
In the 25th minute, a clearance from goalkeeper Peter Short was headed on by player-coach Cudd to Stanton, whose pass gave striker Mike Fenn the chance to hammer home the first goal.
Five minutes after halftime, right-winger Billy Cakebread beat four players before being upended in the penalty area. Cudd scored from the penalty spot to make it 2-0.
With the aggregate score 2-2 after 90 minutes of the second leg, the teams played 30 minutes of extra time, with no addition to the score.
In the penalty shoot-out, Ray Veall and Cudd scored for Marist, and after four shots each the penalty count was 2-2. Stanton took Marist's fifth and final penalty before sudden-death, and was successful. The Nelson penalty-taker shot wide, and Marist had won.
The Herald match report said Cakebread, restricted for much of the season by work commitments and injuries, was in brilliant form.
Others to play for Marist that day and mentioned in the report were defenders Stephen Birtwistle and John O'Donnell, midfielders Jim McMillan and Paul Shelton, and substitutes Gordon Thompson and Robert Burns, who came on in the second half and extra time respectively.
Over summer, the scale of fundraising that would be needed to compete in the Second Division — with over half the teams based in the greater Wellington area — persuaded Marist to withdraw from the Central League and return to Eastern League football.
Their place in the Second Division was taken by Nelson Suburbs, who in 1983 finished ninth out of 12 teams. Massey University finished sixth.
As for Stanton, he is living in Wellington and still working in education.
Born and bred in South Wales steel town Port Talbot — his parents were steelworkers — Stanton went to Manchester University and qualified as a geography teacher.
He and his wife Carol came to New Zealand in 1979 “just for a look”.
Blenheim was the first stop, where Carol worked at Wairau Hospital as a physiotherapist and Lynn worked in a cheese factory as a cheesemaker.
Gisborne beckoned when Lynn got a job at Lytton High School teaching geography and junior science.
He had been told New Zealand was the best trout fishing country in the world.
“I went up the Ruakituri with Billy Cakebread and Gordon Thompson on many occasions,” he said.
“I'd meant to stay (in New Zealand) for two years but fell in love with the place.”
Lynn and Carol's three children — Sian (now in Leeds with grandson Billy), Ryan (now in South Korea) and Jonee (now in Norway with granddaughter Mia) — went to Awapuni School in Gisborne.
Lynn and Carol separated and Carol returned to the UK.
In 1993, Lynn Stanton left Gisborne to work with the new agency NZQA.
He set up his own education and training consultancy in 1996, working mainly with industry training organisations.
In the early 2000s, he went overseas with the work. It took him to Bhutan, Fiji, Samoa, Botswana, Kenya, Egypt, the Philippines and Malawi.
His focus in education has been on national qualifications frameworks and competency-based education.
He returned to New Zealand on March 1 last year and Covid-19 forced him into retirement “for a while”.
He recently picked up some international work, which he does through Zoom meetings with clients in Samoa, South Korea and Uzbekistan.
Stanton continued playing football after he left Gisborne.
He played for BNU (Brooklyn Northern United) Masters for 20 years after arriving in Wellington and teaming up with Gisbornites John Lange and Mike Grealish.
“I gave up football six years ago at the age of 63,” he said.
“My back was sore after a game, and I could hardly walk for a month, so I thought I had better give it away.
“Now I try to play golf regularly and ride my bike to keep fit.”
Stanton said he wished he had known about Len Cudd's death earlier.
“I would have come back for the funeral. He was the best coach that I ever had and a good friend . . . I loved those years in Gisborne.”