Hawkeye’s 60th birthday: The story of NZ’s biggest rugby mascot

A Hawkeye 60th birthday at McLean Park, with Simon Tremain (left) and 1960s Ranfurly Shield era Magpie Hilton Meech. Photo / Doug Laing

Hawke’s Bay rugby mascot Hawkeye has had a 60th birthday without so much as a squawk.

After just a 10-day gestation, Hawkeye first appeared on September 4, 1965 for a Magpies’ Ranfurly Shield challenge against Taranaki in New Plymouth.

On the anniversary, at McLean Park, Hawkeye got a visit from Hawke’s Bay Today, 1960s shield era Magpies prop Hilton Meech, and Simon Tremain, Magpie turned Hawkeye custodian and son of famed captain Kel Tremain.

In the true tribalism of shield fever of the day, in 1965, Hawkeye and Hawke’s Bay fans were welcomed by dead magpies strung on farm fences along the route to New Plymouth.

An unwanted shield trifecta of failed assaults was completed when Taranaki won 21-17.

Hawke’s Bay, desperate to win the shield, had two earlier unsuccessful challenges against Auckland - a 5-3 defeat in 1961, and a 3-3 draw in 1963.

Hawkeye in a Ranfurly Shield era match-day parade in Napier in the 1960s.

The next chance came just over a year later, when the Magpies invaded Hamilton for a 6-0 shield win over Waikato.

It brought the Log o’ Wood back to the Bay for the first time since 1935, and for a reign of 22 defences till it left again in 1969.

During that time, Hawkeye was almost as much the centre of the action as the players, on the sideline, squawking from a sound box fitted for the purpose.

The story of Hawkeye goes back to a campaign by Hawke’s Bay Today predecessor The Daily Telegraph, in Napier, which started seeking ideas for a mascot.

Entrepreneurial Jock Stephenson came up with the idea, as recorded in a publication at the end of 1967.

“Let’s make it a magpie,...and a big one, say 12 feet high with a 20ft wingspan,” he said.

Friend and commercial artist Ian Mills whipped-up a sketch, businessmen Ray and Ernie Wiig agreed without hesitation to build it, and within hours, Hawkeye was taking shape.

At the same time, a supporters club was also being formed, the brand Hawkeye Guys was already well established for the trip just 10 days later, with even greater enthusiasm for the “invasion of Waikato”.

Meech, now 83 and still a regular at Magpies games, wasn’t around for the Taranaki match, having moved south to try his luck in Canterbury.

But he was back to play almost all of the 22 defences and recalls Hawkeye as the “star of the parades” run by the supporters club, which drew thousands of fans into Napier on the Saturday mornings of the games.

“He made the parades,” Meech said, although Hawkeye wasn’t actually a “he”.

A junior Hawkeye was hatched for the more energetic sideline duties.

With Hawkeye’s adulation matching that of the players, the big bird did have one chink, Meech conceding: “We got a bit sick of the squawking”.

But Hawkeye was a people’s favourite, even if it was disrupting traffic in Wellington and Auckland on other missions.

Simon Tremain’s famed dad, Kel (K.R) Tremain also wasn’t in the Taranaki game, his only absence in 11 Hawke’s Bay A matches that season, but he was captain in beating Waikato and retaining the shield for three years.

Simon Tremain played 13 matches for Hawke’s Bay in 1993 (having also played for Otago and Wellington).

A major contribution was to come when he decided in 2009 that Hawkeye should be brought out of storage in Whakatu and given another go.

A special breakfast kick-started another mission, accomplished four years later when Hawke’s Bay beat Otago in 2013 to bring the shield home to the Bay again.

Doug Laing has been a reporter for 52 years, more than 40 of them in Hawke’s Bay, at the Central Hawke’s Bay Press, the Napier Daily Telegraph, and Hawke’s Bay Today. He has covered most aspects of general news and sport.