Sport and Memory
On Lancaster Park and nostalgia
Thanks for all the feedback on the Spinoff piece about the Stadium. Good and bad. I’ve had people wave me down at the pub cos they want to talk about, and I’m glad to have sparked some discussion. I’m hoping to write more about it through the week, to get a bit deeper into some of the points I had to skim across. But today I have something related but different.
The following is an essay I wrote a couple of years ago - 2019 I think. It is about sport, place, and memory. It looks at Lancaster Park, as well as some of the other sports grounds in the city, and how quickly we just threw all those memories away when we (probably needlessly) demolished the ground. Just this month, Lancaster Park has reopened as a community sport ground, a somber but satisfying coda to the whole story.
It’s an awful August day, with the rain only stopping briefly to contemplate which direction it should come from next. 12 players are standing in a huddle, wearing as many clothes as possible until as close as possible to kick off. The pitch on Hagley Park, in the corner nearer the hospital, is a soggy, puddled mess - a far cry from the sun-soaked artificial turf out at Kaiapoi on which the Cashmere Sweaters had faced Waimakariri, running out 2-1 winners, just a week previously. As the game begins, the teams adjust to the extraordinary conditions. Balls can be lobbed out towards puddles on the wings, where they stop dead instead of rolling as expected. Turning smartly is near impossible. One of the Sweaters’ midfielders launches an audacious shot from 30 metres out, which rides a biting southerly wind into the top corner of the net. From here things get as muddy as the playing surface. We make a sub about 25 minutes into the half; within about 10 minutes, he’s got a hat-trick. It’s 7-nil at halftime, and even though the team tries to ease off in the second period, it ends up 15-nil. 3 players grab hat-tricks, and despite the appalling conditions, I manage to not just keep a clean-sheet as keeper, but get through the whole match without even getting muddy.
I’ve been playing sport for most of my life, and even though this match is one of the most recent, I know that it will be one of the most memorable I’ll ever be involved in. The scoreline gives you the result, sure, but it doesn’t tell you the way the goals went in, or the sheer misery of the playing conditions, or the thought at the back of my mind that we were only a hop skip and a jump away from the emergency department if a tackle went badly wrong. The power of sport is tied intrinsically to memory, and that memory is always grounded in a place and time.
Sport isn’t just about men and women running around, throwing balls or sticks, training for years to go harder, better, faster, and stronger. On the one level, it is just that, but if that was all it offered, then it wouldn’t take up so much space in our culture. Sport is played by people, each with their unique back story, a narrative arc that play out on and off the field. If it’s a team sport, you have a larger group of people as one, a collection of individual and team narratives. Rivalries between clubs can fester for decades, running hotter or colder as they are played out by a new set of actors. The backdrop to these contests are sports grounds, entities built by communities to show their support for the joy they get from seeing displays of athleticism. These are the scenes where the drama plays out, where physical brilliance becomes indelible memory.
The moment might be fleeting, but the memory (and its replay) can last forever. With the transience of the action, the place where it happened takes on a deeper significance. A stadium might be blessed with a great team, such as the Lionel Messi-led 2008-09 Barcelona team that I saw demolish Almeria at the Camp Nou. It might be a moment not remembered for sporting excellence, but for drama, like Brookvale Oval, where I was on the embankment to witness the infamous all-in brawl between the hosts Manly and the Melbourne Storm. They don’t have to be events on a global or even a national scale - I still smile when I pass Centennial Park, the ground where I scored my first goal for the Cashmere Sweaters, volleying a shot into the corner of the net after running on to a pass from my brother.
The memory, the story, the tall tale, is in many cases more important than the event itself. It takes on a life of its own, living on in a state of mutated exaggeration, the distance getting longer, the run faster, the defeated opponents more monstrous, with every re-telling. Grounds are constantly changing, being upgraded, more seats, better seats, adapting to changes in sports. Yet despite any redevelopments that might leave the facilities unrecognisable to someone from a previous generation, the ground still holds all those collective memories. The Eden Park where the All Blacks lifted their first Rugby World Cup trophy in 1987 was physically a different ground from the one in which the All Blacks lifted their second trophy in 2011; yet they are still both Eden Park. Christchurch’s major sports venue, had gone through many changes over its long and storied history, but after the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, more than 100 years of memories were quickly forgotten, as the city’s sporting agenda and demands changed.
In the wake of a disaster like the Christchurch earthquakes, recreational actives, such as sports and music, are necessarily well down the agenda. Yet it is these sporting and cultural activities that are one of the main drivers for people living in cities, and almost a decade on from the first quake, the city is still a long way from being able to host these activities to the degree it could pre-quake. This inability, combined with the loss of Lancaster Park, where so many great sporting moments happened, has left a gaping hole in the city’s collective memory.
Lancaster Park, just to the south-east of the central city, was Christchurch’s home for major sporting events - and some larger concerts and other cultural events, from the late 19th century until the earthquakes in the early 21st. It was the venue many memorable sporting moments and records, of which the following are just a choice selection. It played host to the first New Zealand cricket and rugby matches on home soil, including the first official cricket test against England in 1930. It was where Peter Snell broke the world 800m and 880 yard records, and where Richard Hadlee became the first player to take 400 test wickets. The ground also hosted non-sporting events, such as the visits of Queen Elizabeth in 1963, Pope John Paul II in 1986, and evangelist Billy Graham in 1956. It also became a place for larger touring musical acts, with the likes of Tina Turner, U2, Meatloaf, Dire Straits, Billy Joel, BB King, and Pearl Jam amongst those who performed shows there.
In the early days of the colony, sports were played in a number of places, including in Hagley Park. A large factor driving the formation of Lancaster Park was the inability to charge entrance fees. As Hagley Park was a public space, it could not be enclosed, and therefore sporting associations were unable to control the entry of spectators, denying them their primary source of income. A company - the Canterbury Cricket and Athletic Sports Company - was formed in 1880, with the aim of creating a sports ground for the city where entrance fees could be collected. Shares were issued, and suitable land was purchased from Benjamin Lancaster, who the ground was named after. On October the 15, 1881, Lancaster Park was opened.
Though most well known for cricket and rugby matches, Lancaster Park hosted a wide range of events, especially in its earlier years. These included cycle races, trotting, football, tennis, and athletics. As well as sports, the ground played host to special events, such as a “Wild West Show” in 1890, and the last, fatal flight of celebrity hot-air balloonist Captain Charles Lorraine. After taking off from the park on November the 2nd, 1899, the parachute attached to the balloon broke free, and Lorraine was blown out to sea, never to be seen again. During the Great War, Lancaster Park was the country’s most famous potato patch, and in the years following the conflict, an act of parliament created the Victory Park Board, which placed the ground in the hands of the Crown, “to be reserved for amateur sport”.
One of the most famous families associated with Lancaster Park are the Hadlees. Richard Hadlee was New Zealand’s greatest ever cricketer, but his father and brother also had important links, as both players and administrators. Walter Hadlee, Richard’s father, said that January the 1st, 1937 was the “most important day of his life”. It was on this day that he scored 194 for Canterbury, a performance that led to his selection for the New Zealand team’s tour to England. Apart from kick-starting his international career, it was on the boat over to the UK that he met his wife, who was the mother to four sons, including international cricketers Richard, Barry, and Dayle. The contribution of the Hadlees was commemorated with the construction of the Hadlee Stand at Lancaster Park, which was opened in 1995. Walter Hadlee spoke of the significance of the ground, not just to Cantebarty and New Zealand, but to the sporting world, when he said: “it is Lancaster Park, with its cricket pitches and rugby fields, that has New Zealand and world sports history woven into it’s fabric. That will be so forever.” Or at least, so he thought.
The best source for the facts and figures on this subject is Lancaster Park - an Illustrated History by Don Neely and Joseph Romanos. It covers the story from the formation of the ground, up until 2005. As no contests were held at the ground following the February 2011 quake, it contains almost all of the park’s timeline. Some of my own favourite memories from the ground happened in the years not covered by the book. On a truly miserable afternoon I watched as Kevin Locke slid in to score a match-winning last minute try for the Warriors - dislocating his leg in the process. I was there to see Brendon McCullum bring up his first T20 hundred, and when Sachin Tendulkar scored 163, the highest score recorded at the ground. I even performed at a music festival, Southern Amp, that was held at the ground in 2007.
Following the September 4th, 2010 Greendale earthquake, Lancaster Park was deemed safe for use. On September the 25th, Canterbury played Wellington in the provincial rugby competition. In an act of goodwill to the people of the region, entry was made free for this match. A combination of the free entry, the afternoon kick off, and the presence of high-profile league convert Sonny Bill Williams on the bench, resulted in a near-capacity crowd of almost 38,000 at the match. Though no-one in attendance that day was to know, this was the last great match held at the park. Canterbury played a couple more matches at the ground, including hosting the 2010 final, which they won. The final match played at the ground was a One Day International cricket match between New Zealand and Pakistan on January the 29th, 2011.
The February 22nd, 2011 earthquakes damaged both the stands at Lancaster Park, and the playing surface. After much deliberation, a decision was made to demolish the stadium, in what is thought to be the largest demolition project undertaken in New Zealand. As of 2019, it is still ongoing. As the land is protected by an act of parliament, it may only be used for recreation and sporting purposes. The memorial gates, built after World War I, will be integrated into any new facility built on the ground. The future of Lancaster Park is yet to be determined, but it is clear that for the foreseeable future, it will not be able to hold the scale and range of events that it saw before the quakes.
One frequently hears that we need to keep politics out of sport, which speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding about how both sport and politics work. From the time of the Ancient Olympics through to the modern Olympic Games in the 20th century, sport has been a peaceful way to flex civic and nationalistic muscles. The 1936 Berlin Games were an opportunity to project fascist domination for the Nazis, and the tit-for-tat boycotts of Moscow ’80 and Los Angeles ’84 were nothing but empty ideological chest-beating. While the modern games might no longer have the undercurrent of duelling superpowers, since the fall of socialism in the east, the Olympic games have become a hyper capitalist victory lap of ideology, with billions of dollars spent on selling every imaginable advertising space.
It may be far from the Olympic heights of the Cold War, but sport in Christchurch has often been an ideological battlefield. As sport is by definition a leisure activity, before it became a profession it was solely the domain of those who could afford to spend their time at leisure. In the early days of the colony, this meant that it was largely a preserve of the upper classes. As mentioned previously, part of the drive to establish Lancaster Park was the desire to be able to charge spectators and entry fee, something that wasn’t possible in the public space of Hagley Park. Though many of the sports people, especially touring teams, were paid for their appearances, the ground maintained that it was for amateur sports only. This allowed cricket and rugby union to be held at the ground, but deliberately excluded rugby league. The split between rugby union and rugby league happened at the end of the 19th century in the north of England. The northern clubs split to form their own competition, as they wanted to be able to charge for entry into their matches, and to pay their players for their time. This was especially important for the northern teams, as their players came from working class backgrounds, and being able to receive compensation for the time they spent away from work was critical for them to be able to support themselves and their families. A similar schism happened in Australasia, and while league was never as important in Christchurch as it was in parts of Australia, notably New South Wales and Queensland, it was still a divide that existed along class lines.
Two league matches were played at Lancaster Park against a touring English side in August of 1920; the 13-man code wasn’t seen again at the ground until the Auckland Warriors hosted an NRL game there in 1996. In the interim, league had made a new home, at Rugby League Park in Addington. Next to the racetrack and show grounds in this historically working class suburb, the ground was largely overlooked until the earthquakes. Once Lancaster Park had been rendered useless, Rugby League Park became AMI Stadium, the semi-permanent home for the Canterbury Crusaders. League once again was shunted to the west, finding a home a couple of years later at the combined sports facility Nga Puni Wai. As well as a class divide, there is also a racial divide between union and league. The latter has a stronger presence in the Maori and Pacific Island communities in the city, demographics that also skew towards working class and lower socio-economic indicators.
Race was also the driving factor behind one of the most significant clashes between sport and politics in New Zealand history, the 1981 Springbok tour. Appalled by the racist segregation policies of apartheid South Africa, tensions repeatedly boiled over as the Springbok team toured the country. After a couple of matches between the tourists and provincial teams - including one against Waikato in Hamilton that was cancelled - Lancaster Park was the venue for the first test against the All Blacks. Hundreds of baton-carrying police face-off against thousands of protestors in the streets around the ground. A smaller group of protestors were inside the ground, and attempted to stop the game by charging the field. They were pelted by the spectators in the ground. Many protestors were taken away by the authorities, either in an ambulance or the back of a paddy wagon.
Though it was one of the most significant cultural moments in the post-war history of the country, former Prime Minister John Key, who was a university student at Canterbury at the time, couldn’t recall his own position on the tour. This is a barely believable position for a man who more likely didn’t want to admit that he was pro-tour, a position seen as on the wrong side of history by an increasing number of New Zealanders. There was no such problem for his colleague Gerry Brownlee, who was on the side of the police. Following the quakes, Brownlee become the Minister for Greater Christchurch recovery, who was sometimes referred to as the “earthquake tsar” due to his extraordinary powers. One of his most significant legacies was the Blueprint plan for the rebuild, which amongst other big-ticket items, placed a brand new, covered stadium at the centre of the city. Lancaster Park and all of its history - some of it proud, some of it not so much - would be erased from the map. Christchurch’s sporting slate, like the slate of the central city, would be wiped clean, and we could all start again.
Due to the quakes, Lancaster Park and Christchurch missed out on hosting games during the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Even if the stadium had been declared safe to hold matches, it is unlikely that the city would have been able to accomodate the visiting teams and supporters - there were massive, ongoing issues in finding housing for the tens of thousands of people who had been displaced by the disaster. New Zealand had been awarded the hosting rights to the 2015 Cricket World Cup, along with Australia, and efforts were made to ensure that Christchurch wouldn’t miss out on this event. Cricket administrators had long been hoping to carve off a piece of Hagley Park for a ground, but knew they were unlikely to be able to get the required consents. Hagley Park was also protected by an act of Parliament, and so any ground would require a change to the law. It was a surprise to many when a cricket oval was included in the Blueprint plan - it hadn’t featured in the Christchurch City Council’s draft plan that pre-dated the Blueprint, nor did it appear in any of the many pieces about what the citizens wanted from their future city. After some canny lobbying from Canterbury Cricket, it was there on the Blueprint, which then enabled it to be expedited through the consenting process as it was now a key project for the recovery of the city.
More than 130 years after they had left Hagley Park for Lancaster Park so they could charge spectators admission to the ground, cricket had returned to Hagley Oval. The government used the extraordinary powers they were granted to hasten the recovery of Christchurch to bypass the act of parliament that prevented people from charging entry at this historic public park. The first match of the 2015 World Cup was held at Hagley Oval, with the ground being used to showcase the new Christchurch, rebuilt so quickly after disaster. Of course, the city hadn’t been rebuilt, with vast tracts of the CBD still no more than gravel pits, and thousands of homeowners in continued litigation with their insurers or EQC. But as the drone shot lifted up, looking across Hagley Park towards the Port Hills, it gave the impression that the rebuild was finished. With a TV audience in the millions, this was precisely what the National government had intended when they placed the oval into the Blueprint; to showcase the city, through sport, to a global audience, and for an audience in New Zealand, but outside of Christchurch itself, to send a message: job done. They would have been less happy when the camera panned around from the hills towards the sea, and in the centre of the picture was the carcass of Lancaster Park, standing where it had always stood, like bumping into an ex when you’re out with your new mates, a reminder of a past that you’ve tried but ultimately failed to forget.
The modern sports machine is as much about marketing as it is physical excellence, but the way most people interact with “the product” is not by making a trip to a sports ground to watch it, but catching a live broadcast on TV or the web. For an increasingly large number of sports fans, the stadium in Addington is just a backdrop, one that could be interchanged with the MCG, the Azteca, or St James’s Park. Memories aren’t formed at grounds, they’re formed on couches, or in sports bars with special licenses to open at 7am. With the quality of sports broadcasting coverage only set to improve, attracting decent crowds to increasingly expensive sporting events will prove ever more difficult. As administrators try desperately to make their product the target of the fleeting entertainment dollar, they could do worse than looking back to the decades of history that they’ve carelessly discarded. Sporting memories aren’t just a case of looking back nostalgically at a better time and place; it is a way to ground the achievements of the present in a wider context - one that isn’t just about physical excellence, but also the tiny details that linger on long after the game has been won or lost.