Thanks sport

SECOND OF FIVE: Sunday, October 7, 1984 . . . Gisborne City striker Kevin Meacock rams the ball home at Childers Road Reserve after Mount Wellington goalkeeper Norrie McLeod (left) had only been able to parry Grant Turner's shot in the 49th minute of City's last national league game of the season. Six minutes later, Meacock scored again and City went on to win 5-0. Less than 48 hours earlier, under floodlights in Christchurch, the Kevin Fallon-coached City team had beaten Christchurch United 5-0. Those defeats were the heaviest either of those two New Zealand football powerhouses had suffered in their 15 years of national league play, and Gisborne City won the league by 14 points. City's bid for a historic treble — the season-opening Air New Zealand Cup, the national league title and the Chatham Cup — came unstuck the following Saturday, when Manurewa beat them 2-1 in the Chatham Cup final at Mount Smart Stadum. On the same day that City had beaten the Mount by five, Manurewa had lost to Papatoetoe by the same margin. Gisborne City eventually won the Chatham Cup in 1987 under player-coach Steve Sumner, who had scored the cup-winning goals for Manurewa in 1984. Gisborne Herald file picture

IF absence makes the heart grow fonder, when we emerge on the other side of Covid-19, there will be bear hugs, sloppy kisses and waterfall tears at the reunion with my lifelong mate — sport.

We were pretty tight before the world went viral.

Cricket, golf, rugby, league, even darts, blasted from the Sky Sport channels on my big screen.

But now it's gone, thanks to a decision I thought I'd never have to make. Removing sport from my Sky TV package. We'd been best buds for years.

Many a cold one was drained in front of an All Black test, Black Cap one-dayer, Tiger Woods-won major.

I loved it. Despised it. Cheered it. Abused it. Dropped to my knees in awe of it. Threatened to put a golf club through the screen in frustration at it.

It was a theme park ride that regularly peaked at heart-in-the-mouth, teenage-girl-screaming, hot-dog-for-lunch-losing intensity.

That ride is over. For now. In its absence is this void that Sky's Movie channel, Netflix and PlayStation can't fill.

However, pushing the global pause button on sport has given sports lovers the chance to fully appreciate the contribution, the enrichment sport has made to our lives from a personal to historical level.

With that in mind and with the sports news coffers mirroring Mother Hubbard's cupboard, Herald sport will run some of this journo's favourite sporting memories in a series called “Thanks Sport” . . .

Thanks Gisborne City: It started at noon with The Big Match, a football show hosted by the classy Brian Moore.

That got the juices flowing before Liverpool-loving Dad, my brother and I headed from our Lyndhurst Street home, across The Oval, then on to Childers Road Reserve to watch our beloved Gisborne City in action during the 1980s.

The grass amphitheatre and stand in the Sky Blues' heyday were filled to overflowing.

My mates and I would try to get a spot behind the opposition goal to enjoy the roasting the visiting goalie would get from true-blue City fans.

At halftime the fans would stage an exodus across the field to the other end as Blue Is the Colour crackled from a suspect speaker system.

At their peak, City won the national league and Chatham Cup (New Zealand football's FA Cup).

Armed with All Whites, exciting imports and home-grown talent, they combined quality attack with no-nonsense defence. When they scored, the decibel level hit eardrum-exploding level.

When they won, and they did that plenty in those times, we headed home buoyant, inspired and ready to watch A Dog's Show.

The All Whites squad for the 1982 World Cup finals in Spain included five Gisborne City players — a New Zealand record for the number of players from one club at a World Cup tourney.

But that's another story.