Marching to their own beat

Erina Mayo travels to from Auckland to Wellington every weekend between September and March to be part of the Lochiel Marching Team. Photo / Dean Purcell

The doors at the end of the tunnel open and her gameface switches on. Ahead, she sees the drawbridge, the sloping arena of the esplanade, a stand - filled to bursting, yet silent - and the tip of the St John's Highland Church steeple. An unseen band strikes up Colonel Bogey, the goosebumps rise a little further... go.

Marching may be dying on its feet, but Erina Mayo has never loved her sport more than at this moment. Appearing at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo is her test series decider and the Lochiel team uniform is her black jersey. Much more than a performance, this is an expression of identity - precise, reliable, professional. Well, I had been warned, "Ernie" is a marching geek, and a scientist to boot. Exactitude can be a way of life: watch the clip on YouTube and see for yourself.

"Edinburgh, that's the pinnacle for me," says the 29-year-old. "Even though I thought I knew what to expect - I'd heard all the stories from the old girls about how magical it is - really, nothing can prepare you for how big, how amazing it is until you're there. But I was packing myself because as far as I'm concerned we were representing our country. What we do is purely New Zealand. I don't know what it's like to be an All Black, but I think the feeling would be quite similar."

Yes, Mayo is a marching zealot and has spent much of the past three years bouncing between her Auckland home and Wellington, where her team is based. It's cost her thousands to be present and correct every weekend from September through to March to train, compete and help run the team's weekly housie nights in Kilbirnie. These women are old-school amateurs who boast a share in the highest winning record of any top-level team in the country - 29 national titles in almost as many years.

Luckily for Mayo, she timed her Tattoo run perfectly. After accepting five of the many invitations they've received since 1978, Lochiel may have only one more Edinburgh appearance left before their uniforms go into mothballs. White boots and short skirts don't hold our attention as much as they used to, Mayo even had a battle to get a few measly photos of her team hung on the walls of her flat. So it's sadly apt that her most cherished marching memory will be forever set at an event celebrating archaic, militaristic splendour under a fading sun and in persistent drizzle. Not to mention the bagpipes.

It's also apt that one of the world's more odd and mostly uncharted sports is suffering an odd and mostly uncharted collapse. Other than a recent public squabble over older marchers being told to swap their skirts for pants, the sport has all but wandered into the sunset.

It's hard to find a definitive explanation, but our one-time enthusiasm for precision drill seems to have grown from sporting competitions between various factory teams during the 1930s. While the winner was decided by a variety of other events, the day usually featured a mass march past the spectators and owners, a ritual that eventually became an event in itself, to be handled by specialists.

Then the marchers broke free, held their own meetings and in 1944 formed a national body, the New Zealand Marching Association, to formalise rules and co-ordinate competitions. This horseless dressage then jumped the Tasman and found fans among young Australians who have since developed a stiff-legged marching style so different from ours that we can no longer compete against them. Even so, both styles remain creatures of their time. Marching will always have a shelf in the shed of kiwiana.

It may never have got going, though, without the war. In the absence of competitive sports, squads of women sprung up throughout the country, all racing to create their own quasi-Napoleonic look with badges, boots and epaulettes, adopt a suitable regimental name, and all but become toy soldiers. Then there's temperament - to march even half-well requires old-fashioned military virtues; discipline, commitment to your mates, and the repression of individuality as everyone works toward robotic unity. And how we lapped that stuff up... from the 40s through to the mid-80s sports grounds in cities and towns alike were hammered flat for seven months a year by the ladylike stomp of white boots.

When telly arrived, marching finals were broadcast live, making the likes of the Continental Guards and Lochiel household names - but just the teams, mind, there's nothing rarer than a marcher who's name rose above the busbied ranks. There was even a seven-part television drama based on a fictional team that screened in 1987, while Auckland punks The Scavengers became The Marching Girls when they relocated to Melbourne in 1979. So, marching was just something women did, until for some reason they didn't any more. According to Marching New Zealand there were 368 registered teams at the peak in 1974, and even after a slump set in there were still 350 teams hard at it 10 years later. But the slump became a collapse and by 2006 the national body could boast only 96 teams across all age groups, a figure which is boosted by the new Fernz and Kiwi childrens' grades, Masters teams, and the non-affiliated, non-competitive leisure marchers.

Go back 20 years and regional competitions had to be underway by 10am with little likelihood of a prizegiving before 6pm. Now everyone's home for lunch. These days, Auckland has only two teams left, one senior and one under-16: "And I coach both of them," says Sharlene Hedley. "As to why it's got this bad, I've got no idea. Everyone's been trying to work that out for years. We can't get the girls in and we can't keep the ones we've got." The end seemed to have arrived last year when the entire board administering the city's competitions resigned. Well, there wasn't really much left to administer, so the suggestion was that local marchers should instead register with Waikato. But at the last minute two plucky women put up their hands, allowing Auckland's regional champs to go ahead as usual last month, even if "as usual" meant Esprit were again in a division of one. Not that the lack of opponents meant Hedley eased up on her demands.

Esprit still trained at Mt Wellington's Stanhope Rd Primary for two hours every Tuesday and Thursday as well as all-day shifts on Saturday and Sunday. If her team didn't get the scores she demanded on the day, they went home knowing they came last because the boss is a believer in marching's old ways despite the chunks being bitten from it by their new upstart, perky adversary, cheerleading. I'll be polite and say they see cheerleading as facile, but ask a true-blue marcher what she thinks about the pom-pom girls and her reply will probably rhyme with butts.

Even so, most young girls would see cheerleading as the more exciting option and there's no avoiding the fact that chicks with pom-poms are a television staple. In contrast, is it any wonder that marching in complex patterns, then standing stock-still as someone uses a set of monster calipers to measure the spacings between you and your colleagues while judging the alignment of every joint from your toes up, is a hard sell? The sport has tried introducing freestyle marching where the girls can use whatever music they please and create their own dance-influenced moves, but even Marching NZ chief executive Diane Gardiner admits they've all but written off the Paris Hilton generation. "If we can get past them and get to the very young girls... they don't know anything different."

Which may sound Machiavellian, but concentrating on the freshest blood might pay off. It's early days but the various under-12 categories are growing, in part due to a resurgence in interest within provincial areas like the Hawkes Bay, Manuwatu and Canterbury. Unfortunately, though, this is where they hit their second hurdle. "I found it very difficult dealing with the parents," says coach Hedley. Her current batch of under-16s were all under-12s when they started and it seems four years of driving daughters to and from training several times a week eventually gets to working mums and dads. "I was straight-up from the start about the level of commitment needed, and they were all gung-ho.

Now I get messages saying they can't be bothered bringing the girls along or doing any fundraising. I know it's a huge time commitment, but we really need the parents on board. You know, Auckland used to be the strongest association in the country, and I hate to say it, but unless something drastic happens I wouldn't be surprised if there is no association left in five years."

The real problem is that we're going soft, says Lochiel coach Colleen Pobar, QSM, easily the most dominant figure the sport has known. After getting her start as a kid watching her neighbours practise over the back fence, she was coaching at 16 and took over Lochiel in 1966, winning the national title in her first year. Pobar's career has revolved around drawing the best from her girls, so while she appreciates present efforts to encourage people into any level of physical activity she does see it as something of a dumbing down. "It's all about participation now, play and go, SPARC push that a lot.

Of course there's room for participation, but there must also be room for encouraging people to be very competitive. Lochiel are among the country's elite athletes and there must always be these sorts of pathways so that those who want to achieve at that level can come through." Lochiel are now a year-round operation. Before they stepped back from domestic competition four years ago, the team would begin preparing for local events in September, compete through to March, and then gear up for overseas appearances from April. They have been a popular fixture on the Military Tattoo circuit for decades, appearing in Britain, South Africa, America, Japan, Canada and Denmark. It was a rewarding grind, but Pobar did give it away until an invitation arrived three years ago to perform in Norway.

Like the Blues Brothers, it was time to put the band back together, but her mission was far more straightforward - any opportunity to march for Pobar will get a queue forming. The fastest way to get the squad up to speed was to have them compete against other New Zealand teams, but Pobar wanted her younger girls to be able to take them on without with the pressure the Lochiel legacy carried with it, so a new team, Storm, was created. The Lochiel strip now appears only overseas.

Pobar needn't have worried, Storm came a close second in their first year and won the next two by a country mile (with Erina Mayo leading them after an invititation to come on board almost had her dropping the phone). Pobar admits their success could be an indictment on the sport. "Of course I'm proud of the girls, they worked very hard for it, but looking from a sports point of view I would be thinking to myself 'how does this team come up from nowhere and go straight back to the top?"' Her worry is that she is now counting down to a real retirement, once they've got through a prestigious appearance at the Royal Albert Hall, tattoos in South Africa and Canada, and a likely Edinburgh swansong in 2011. Where will marching be then?

Despite regular coaching clinics there doesn't seem to be many contenders willing to push as hard as Pobar does. "I want to think there's a future because I think this sport is very good for young girls and they should have the opportunity to do it, but I wouldn't like to crystal ball-gaze." This highlights yet another of marching's problems, its heavy reliance on a generation that is preparing to stand aside. In some cases this has already occurred - for instance milliners have all but gone, leaving most teams to make their own hats, while the traditional practice of building teams around a coach rather than being part of a club means they have a definite life span.

Even supplying the marching girls' specialised boots is now down to one 70-year-old man living in Takapuna, and just like Pobar, Robert Tudman has already retired once. Trained in Norwich, Tudman arrived in New Zealand in 1959, working his way up to managing a company making boots for the army. He then set up his own business making ice skating and motor racing boots until a young woman asked for a pair for marching in 1987. "I didn't know anything about marching girls, so I just thought 'marching boots: army boots. That's what she needs'. Then she came in and they were far too heavy and thick. I threw them in the rubbish and started again." He's watched demand track downwards over the years, despite being the only manufacturer in Australasia, but still cranks out about 500 pairs a year and, because he feels an obligation to the sport that has supported him, he does so for a pittance. Each pair of his handcrafted, lightweight, white leather boots sells for about $90.

After paying for materials, and two part-time workers, he estimates he makes $10 on each pair. "Oh, it doesn't matter, I've been very lucky," he says. "After all this time, it really wouldn't worry me if marching died tomorrow, I'd just play golf a couple more days a week. But I want to put something back into it and when I do retire I'll make sure the business keeps going even if I just hand it over." He's already noticed a new market - leisure marchers, teams of mostly retired women looking for some exercise and hankering to recapture the team spirit they enjoyed as teenagers. They're staunchly non-competitive, but as they've grown some teams are trading in their tracksuits and running shoes look for a bit of bling.

Tudman is getting orders for gold, pink and yellow boots, although he's yet to find any suitable leather. Leisure marching grew out of a group of golden oldies who started parading around a netball court in Tauranga during the early 90s, then the idea spread through word of mouth, the media and classified ads. While they are included in Marching New Zealand's national headcount, these women don't seem to want a bar of the parent body; they're hardcore traditionalists. "I know they've put us in their grand plan, but they've assumed wrong," says Jill Nerheny, who helps run a team and co-ordinates meetings on the North Shore.

"There's been no dialogue. I think they're hoping we'll come into the fold and help them make up the numbers they need to keep their funding and that's not going to happen. It is a shame, I'm great believer in this sport, but marching is dying. I get into trouble for saying it but I think they've lost the art of it; this is a sport that was made in this country, but with all the dancing and aerobics it's become americanised. That's got nothing to do with marching."

The real killer, she says, are the lifestyle changes that have heaped new pressures on to the parents who they need to motivate the kids. Marching eats into spare time as much as the costs eat into wallets: "It's got to the point where parents have to be even more dedicated to it than their children," says Nerheny. But if marching is staggering, it's doing so with a straight back, crisp pleats and a stubborn reluctance to lessen its demands. For its part, Marching New Zealand has set an ambitious a target of 2010 members by 2010, more than double the present number. But although there are signs of some women who dropped out in their early 20s now returning a few years later, they know their future lies with the kids, not among the already converted. And they are way too proud to consider following the lead of lawn bowls, which has enjoyed a youthful resurgence fuelled by irony and alcohol.

But if the likes of Diane Gardiner are stuck for a backbone-of-this-nation sales pitch, they should be listening to women like Erina Mayo: "If I have a daughter she'll be marching, that's been decreed already. I was really shy before I started, I lived in a small rural town and I hated being away from home for more than a night but marching has taken me all over the world and put me in front of big crowds. I know a lot of my friends don't understand why I do it, but it's just good for you and it pulls people together. For me, putting my uniform on always feels special and I think it's something New Zealand should be proud of as well."