<i>Ra Ra Ra, Here we are, Grammar!</i> runs to nearly 500 pages - including a player index - and goes all the way back to 1871, when the sport was first played at the school.
Rob Hunt has done the hard yards in a new book on the history of Auckland Grammar School's First XV.
Entitled Ra Ra Ra, Here we are, Grammar!, which is the rugby chant, the book runs to nearly 500 pages - including a player index - and goes all the
way back to 1871, when the sport was first played at the school. The First XV had to seek games against club teams in those early days as there was a dearth of schools in Auckland.
Hunt taught at Auckland Grammar, and so knows something of the Grammar way and the long history of success from a school that has won far more 1A titles (66) than any other and counts a record 51 All Blacks.
But he has approached the book, a three-year labour of love, from a quite different angle.
"I haven't rehashed anything from the Grammar chronicles, which start from 1913. I wanted to get outside of that, so I've got comments from opponents such as King's College, Wellington College, New Plymouth Boys' High School, and Christchurch Boys' High School," says Hunt, who sourced early information from newspapers and other school magazines, as well as interviews of more recent times.
