Bye Phil, we’ll miss you
After 25 years of informing, amusing – and occasionally stirring up – New Zealanders, Phil Gifford is finishing up at the SundayStar Times. His columns have been a feature of the newspaper since its first edition and behind the keyboard is a man with a true love of Kiwis and storytelling, writes Paul Cully.
Stories? Phil Gifford has a few. ‘‘[Wife] Jan says, ‘Try telling a story with less detail’,’’ Phil tells me from his home in Auckland this week. Impossible. It would be like asking a camel not to drink water. Great storytelling is in Phil’s blood, either in the written form or having a five-minute chat over the phone that somehow lasts 45.
After 25 years of Sunday Star-Times columns, though, this chapter is closing. Phil is off to hit the radio airwaves again with his old mate Simon Barnett, starting on July 1.
We will miss him.
But he isn’t getting out the door without telling us some of his best tales from his years at the Sunday Star-Times and the Auckland Star before that: such as how he thought he was dying in the press box in Cardiff in 2007 as he realised there would be no All Blacks’ recovery; or the greatest scoop he never had; or the story he is proudest of; or how his fictional ‘Loosehead Len’ character broke the ice with Colin Meads.
In fact, Loosehead Len had a role to play in Phil’s role with the Sunday Star-Times.
‘‘The first edition was March 13, 1994. That’s not a date I have tattooed on my arse, I actually looked it up,’’ Phil says, explaining how Auckland’s Sunday Star and Wellington’s Sunday Times amalgamated.
‘‘Somebody from the new paper came to me and said, ‘this is a bit embarrassing but Loosehead is a bit downmarket for the new paper but we’d like you to write a column under your own name’,’’ Phil laughs.
And so began a his SST columns, telling sports stories to New Zealanders – which of course is part of the country’s history in itself.
Phil has seen the highs and lows, chronicling the endeavours of New Zealand’s heroes and heroines with a unique voice. He has captured a part of this country’s essence.
There may have been the occasional editorial malfunction too, Phil says.
Like the time Earle Kirton virtually handed him the news of John Kirwan’s All Blacks axing on a silver platter, but only wife Jan realised it.
The story goes that Phil and Jan had spotted Kirton outside Lancaster Park after a Canterbury v Auckland game in 1993 and offered him a lift to the airport for his flight back to Wellington.
‘‘All the way out to the airport Earle’s going, ‘I don’t think JK’s got the gas any more’, and I’m just nodding my head,’’ Phil says.
‘‘So we wave goodbye and Jan says to me, ‘so what does Earle do again?’ and I say, ‘Well he’s a dentist by trade but he’s also an All Blacks selector’.
‘‘And she went, ‘They’re going to drop John Kirwan’.’’
‘‘And I went ‘no, no Earle floats theories all the time I wouldn’t take it seriously’.
When the All Blacks announced their next squad Kirwan wasn’t in it. And Jan’s reaction? ‘‘She just nodded and smiled,’’ Phil says.
That Phil can laugh about it now reflects how lucky he feels to have been on the sidelines of history.
He still calls journalism ‘‘an excuse to meet interesting people’’ and has no time for those who grumble about the modern industry.
‘‘I enjoy reading the comments below the stories now,’’ Phil says, with typically black humour. ‘‘Especially the ones that say ‘he’s a moron and wouldn’t have a clue’.’’
Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. Phil’s been there and done it – even though he didn’t think he would actually live through the All Blacks Rugby World Cup loss to France in 2007.
With the clock ticking away Phil realised the All Blacks wouldn’t run down France and he would have to rewrite his column in 10 minutes, with the SST presses ready to roll. Paralysed by what he now thinks was a panic attack he thought he was dying. ‘‘I couldn’t even lift my arms,’’ he says.
True to form, though, he regained his composure and filed the column. On time. There have been moments of real pride, too. In early 2018 All Blacks coaching legend Wayne Smith courageously revealed to Phil that he had had his prostate removed after cancer tumours had been discovered.
‘‘That was a story where when I first talked with Wayne about it, and we talked about at some length, he was basically prepared to do it largely because as private as the details were, it was to encourage New Zealand males to make sure they had regular prostate checks after a certain age,’’ Phil says.
‘‘That’s why it is my most important story. That is why I was grateful to have played a small part of it.’’
Phil is underselling himself here. Everyone knows that story would never have been written without Phil Gifford, and the trust Smith had in him.
Perhaps it’s his humour that wins people over.
Certainly it’s a trait Phil admires in others.
That’s why he loves All Blacks coach Steve Hansen. ‘‘I think there is a line of humour in this country that runs from Fred Dagg to the Flight of the Conchords, and Steve’s got that,’’ Phil says.
‘‘It’s so dry that people don’t know if he’s being serious or not. But of course Kiwis get it.’’
And that sums the man up. He’s interested in people, their quirks and their kindness.
It’s why he counts Dame Valerie Adams, Smokin’ Joe Stanley and Todd Blackadder as ‘‘dear friends’’ (Phil still marvels at Dame Valerie’s ability to switch from intense preparation mode to a mother with endless generosity of spirit).
It’s why Fred Allen and Meads gave him plenty of their time, hours and hours of stories and insight.
(Upon nervously first introducing himself to Meads in Wellington motel in 1983 he told ‘Pinetree’ that he wrote Loosehead Len. ‘‘Do you? We like that down our way. Sit down,’’ came the reply).
So, when asked how he survived decades in a notoriously fickle industry, Phil replies: ‘‘In my dealings with the editorial people and the rugby people I just tried not to be a prick.’’
Mission accomplished, Phil – and then some.
In my dealings with the editorial people and the rugby people I just tried not to be a prick.