Napier Athletic Club life member Maurice Callaghan pores over the names as he plans for the club's centennial in March. Photo / Doug Laing
Napier Athletic Club life member Maurice Callaghan pores over the names as he plans for the club's centennial in March. Photo / Doug Laing
Hawke’s Bay’s oldest athletics club stages its centennial next month – with two major hurdles.
Napier Athletic Club life member Maurice Callaghan, who’s had 54 years with the club, says people don’t do reunions like they used to, and, if they do, they’re likely older people he can’t locate, becausephone books with numbers and addresses are also a thing of the past.
“I think we’ve lived through better times,” he said, as he pored over names from the 75th jubilee in 2001, club record holders, coaches, officials and committee members.
“There are a lot I’d love to know where they are,” he said.
The March 21 commemoration features a revival of its grass-track McKenzie Mile and sponsored meeting at Marewa Park, last held over 20 years ago, and a dinner.
Once also a cycling club, based at McLean Park until its gear and the wooden Harris Stand was destroyed by fire in January 1984, it has become mainly a children’s club, with older athletes graduating to the Hastings Athletics Club and its all-weather track.
Better-known athletes from the Napier club were Olympic Games middle-distance runners Dianne Rodger (nee Zorn), Tony Polhill and Jason Stewart, and 1950 Empire Games javelin bronze medallist Cleone Rivett-Carnac.
The celebrations will feature a panel Q&A with former club members 1976 and 1984 Olympian Rodger, 1967 national Under 20 triple jump champion Grant Birkinshaw, livestreaming commentator and 2022 national women’s 800 metres champion Holly Manning, and Auckland-based decathlete Ethan Phillips.
Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter, based in Napier and with more than 40 years’ experience covering news events, sports and issues in Hawke’s Bay.
