Millionaires tread in All Blacks’ shadow
Rodney Parade has New Zealand connections, but it’s not in Wellsford nor Rodney County in Northland. No, it is further north than that, in Wales, and it piqued my interest when the billionaires of Manchester City were drawn to play there in the FA Cup fifth round on Sunday.
They play Newport County AFC, essentially a fourth-division club, and will need GPS tracking to find Rodney Parade’s 11,600-capacity hideaway in Welsh rugby’s southeast heartland.
On that very ground, Wilson Whineray’s 1963-64 All Blacks suffered the only loss of their 36-game tour, hammered 3-0 by Newport.
Only on four occasions have our All Blacks lost to Welsh clubs – to Swansea in 1935, Cardiff in 1953 and Llanelli in 1972.
Until recently Rodney Parade had also been the home ground for Manawatu¯ ’s longest-serving Turbos player, Nick Crosswell, during his 21⁄2 with Newport-gwent Dragons.
Crosswell can testify that Newport’s all blackand-amber boyos still bang on about that 3-0 triumph 56 years ago. Centre Dick Uzzell, with a sore hamstring, banged over a scratchy dropped goal in the 17th minute and didn’t see it wobble over because he was flattened by our guys in his follow through.
Newport so shut down the All Blacks that day that Don Clarke didn’t get one shot at goal, which is what Newport AFC will have to do against the Manchester imports, the world’s richest soccer team worth $6.1 billion.
Soccer being what it is, they might kick a few Mancunian ankles and eke out a draw against City.
Rodney Parade is shared by the Dragons and Newport Rugby Club and the soccer lot who are usually the weakest of the Welsh clubs in the Football League.
In 1989, the Newport rugby players got all uppity when they faced Wayne Shelford’s All Blacks. Before kickoff they huddled on their 22 line rather than face the haka. Shelford, not to be denied, shepherded the All Blacks downfield and belted out Te Rauparaha’s finest ka mate ka mate, bang in their Welsh ears.
The All Blacks won 54-9 and en route Shelford socked a Newport flanker who went home minus three fangs. Shelford received a mere reprimand from the ref whereas today he would have copped a long stretch of porridge.
Meanwhile, Crosswell fondly remembers Rodney Parade as a small, cool ground with an old stand whose roof stretches over the field and where there is even old-school standing room. It once had a rough pitch because it didn’t get time to recover between rugby and soccer games and the previous training ground out the back was known as the ‘‘cabbage patch’’.
The Welsh Rugby Union then bought Rodney Parade and installed a hybrid grass pitch, so the only veggies there now are cauliflower ears.
Crosswell loved it there and the chanting fans. With nowhere far away in Wales – nor in Manawatu¯ for that matter – he commuted from Cardiff a half hour away
He will be fronting for his Feilding Yellows again this year and perhaps for Manawatu¯ , the only original Turbo from 2006 still kicking on – a remarkable reign.
Meanwhile, 2010 Turbo Hadleigh Parkes has outgrown us as a star midfielder for the Scarlets, out west in Llanelli, and for Wales. So much so he is a new columnist for BBC Wales – Google it. He has been swanning about in Nice and Rome and relating how his father Bill whistles during every game, using one of the sheep dog whistles from their Ohingaiti farm.
Also still trucking in his fourth season in Wales is Manawatu¯ ’s Maa´ fu Fia, just entering maturity as a 29-year-old prop. Late last year he played his first two tests for Tonga.
He is with the Ospreys, who play in the allseater Liberty Stadium in Swansea, which they share with Swansea City AFC, who until last year were in the Premier League. So go Newport.
Dhoni’s a keeper
Bolly good show it was – that put on by the Indian cricket fans during the New Zealand tour.
But for them our stadiums might have been sparsely attended, either that or the Indian fans have sharp booking trigger fingers.
They enjoyed whoever was clouting sixes and fours and of course anything their wizard wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni did. His lightning stumping reflexes made our New Zealand keepers appear part-timers, which they mostly are.
We didn’t see this on our Sky TV coverage, but they did in India. An Indian fan at Hamilton ran out to Dhoni to touch the great man’s feet and as he genuflected, Dhoni quietly took his Indian national flag before it could touch the ground. It was seen as a gesture of great patriotism in India.
Not for nothing is one of his nicknames Captain Cool. However, he carries the Indian army honorary rank of lieutenant colonel.
Our grounds became Indian stadiums, festooned with Indian adverts such as Hero (motorbikes) and India Cement, where Dhoni is vice-president (marketing).