25 July, 2024

Jumpers for joy! Rare jerseys discovered 40 years on

Lost and found… Kevin Smith was the unwitting guardian of these prized jerseys for more than 40 years. Inset: (from top) An All Blacks jersey worn by Don McKay, and the “Combined Dominions” and New Zealand Expeditionary Force jerseys from the ‘lost’ collection.

A remarkable treasure trove of rare rugby jerseys has been returned to the North Shore Rugby Club, more than 40 years after going missing.
The collection – including All Blacks jerseys and others dating back to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and New Zealand Services sides of the 1940s – has sat hidden in a cardboard box in a supporter’s garage since being taken away for safe-keeping in 1981.
Removal of the jerseys coincided with the Springbok tour that year, when rugby clubs feared attacks from anti-tour protesters. Renovations around that time might also have played a part in them being taken down from display.
Lots of other memorabilia was removed and eventually returned. But the boxful of jerseys didn’t make it back.
A club official from those days, Kevin Smith, had no idea it remained deep in a corner of his garage, first at his home in Cassino St, Bayswater, before being gathered up and taken in a move to Bayswater Ave.
Only in a recent clear-out did he investigate what was inside the box buried amid 30 years of National Geographic magazines and the minutes for long-forgotten club AGMs.
Smith confesses that he didn’t immediately go public with his discovery. “I didn’t do anything straight away, because I was so embarrassed,” he says. He wondered how he could slip the box back into the club “without anyone noticing”, but then fessed up to some clubmates and to the delighted wider club.
Among the dozen jumpers is an All Blacks jersey lent to the club by the late North Shore and Auckland rugby luminary Don McKay, who died in February, aged 86. McKay played 12 matches for the All Blacks, including five tests, between 1961 and 1963. Club stalwarts have wondered for many years where his jersey had gone.
A second All Blacks jersey among those returned is a rare white example, possibly worn by rugby great Sir Bryan ‘BeeGee’ Williams in the famously saturated test against Scotland at Eden Park in 1975 – when Williams scored two tries.
Another rarity is a red “Combined Dominions” jersey, adorned with a crest including a springbok, wallaby and silver fern.
It’s unclear when the Combined Dominions played, but New Zealand Services sides played between 1941-46 and a New Zealand Expeditionary Force team toured in Europe in 1945-46.
The inclusion of national Colts, Juniors, Maori and Universities jerseys in the Shore collection amounts to a virtual clean sweep of teams who wore black in the second half of the 20th century.
Back in club hands, the jerseys have been receiving plenty of care and attention. They have been hand-washed and –
after a brief outing on the club deck for a Flagstaff photograph – will be guarded closely until a cabinet is built for their display.