‘Rugby League Bill’ had total passion
‘Rugby League Bill’’ Whitehead always had a whipsmart rejoinder whenever anyone asked about the QSM letters following his name: ‘‘Queen Supports Marist,’’ quipped one of the great characters of Canterbury sport, who devoted seven decades of a colourful life to the rugby league cause.
Marist Western Suburbs’ theme song – When the Saints Go Marching In – was aired at Whitehead’s funeral this week, not long after Canterbury rugby league identity Justin Wallace had told the gathering: ‘‘We will never see another Rugby League Bill.’’
Whitehead’s daughter, Lisa Wilson, claimed she didn’t need to list her dad’s rugby league achievements, saying: ‘‘Dad wrote his own eulogy years ago, and it was the bottom of his email signature’’, which proudly itemised Whitehead’s nine league life memberships (and one in lawn bowls).
Whitehead’s death notice in The Press stated: ‘‘The fulltime whistle blew on January 15, 2021; in his 90th year, which in league terms is a full period of overtime.’’
In many respects, William Albert Whitehead served as the conscience of rugby league. As New Zealand Rugby League chairman Reon Edwards said at the funeral: ‘‘Bill was never frightened to share an opinion – he liked to tell it like it was.’’ Many an official, or media member, received forthright reminders from the New Zealand and Canterbury Rugby League life member that ‘‘the left winger wears the No 5 jersey, not No 2’’, or the correct term was ‘‘18 years’’, not ‘‘under18s’’. Even the tersest of conversations generally ended with Whitehead’s trademark, ‘‘Cheers, cobber’’.
Whitehead became a gatekeeper of rugby league’s rich tradition, regularly producing a tattered programme from the mid-20th century, or a newspaper clipping, from a blazer pocket, behind a couch cushion, or from a hiding place in his work van.
He was also a regular caller to talkback radio programmes, always introducing himself as ‘‘Rugby League Bill’’.
Whitehead was an indefatigable rugby league recruiter. Rugby league historian John Coffey – a pal of Whitehead’s for almost 60 years – told a tale of how a young Morrie Molloy popped into Tattersall’s pub for a cleansing ale, only for barman Bill to thrust ‘‘a pair of well-worn size 9 boots with a sprig missing’’ at him, with an order: ‘‘Marist senior reserves are short – you’re playing at Sydenham Park at half past 2.’’ Molloy had never met Whitehead, or played league, but went on to become a Marist reserves stalwart player, club captain, president and life member – and best man at Whitehead’s wedding.
There was more to Bill Whitehead than rugby league. He became infamous for bellowing ‘‘Happy birthday, Howard’’ at Sir Howard Morrison’s Return of the Legend concert in Christchurch in 1975. Bill’s son, James Whitehead, said ‘‘Mum was mortified’’, but Sir Howard ‘‘credited Dad for getting the crowd rocking’’.
Coffey told the funeral gathering the great crooner wasn’t as impressed on another occasion when ‘‘Bill persuaded two members of the Howard Morrison Quartet staying at the Embassy Hotel to play for Marist because they were short. Had they been injured, they might have been a bit short on stage that night.’’
At various times, Whitehead was a Newman’s coach driver, and head storeman at Kempthorne and Prosser, but his 20 years working in Christchurch pubs owned by former Kiwis captain Pat Smith led to many of his best tales.
Mourners heard how Whitehead successfully defended himself three times on charges of selling alcohol after-hours and how, for years after, offered free legal advice to any lawyer visiting the hostelry.
However, Coffey and Peter Smith both recalled the night the normally loquacious Whitehead was rendered speechless when he answered a suspicious knock at the Cashel St door of Tattersalls Hotel. Donning a Marist mate’s police helmet and dark tunic, he flung open the door to be greeted by stony stares of three bona fide police officers, resulting in a short visit to the cells before senior police officer and former Kiwi Frank Mulcare could secure his release.
Whitehead was, for many years, a newspaper rugby league ‘‘stringer’’, doing all he could to publicise his beloved sport. A keen bowler and official at the Papanui Bowls Club in later life, he also served as weightlifting media liaison officer at the
1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games. Whitehead told The Christchurch Mail in
2014 that he ‘‘hid behind three judges’’ when superheavyweight Graham May dropped a
187.5kg barbell, which rolled off the stage. Whitehead also claimed credit for ‘‘providing the news headlines’’ with a quip after England’s gold medal hurdler Alan Pascoe tripped while running a reverse lap. ‘‘It went something like, ‘Broke a record, broke a hurdle and nearly broke his bloody back. The Star used a variation on this.’’
Bill Whitehead was born at Inangahua in 1931 to parents Stanley and Frances. The burgeoning family later moved to a small shack at New Creek, where young Bill’s single-minded character soon emerged. Aged five or six, he set off back for Inangahua, 14km away, to live with his grandparents.
Whitehead’s family imbued him with the values of dedication to his community and a strong sense of service.
He became besotted with rugby league, his father’s sport, with an early highlight being his attendance at the West Coast’s historic 17-8 win over England in Greymouth in 1946.
The family moved to Nelson – where Whitehead’s father (later Sir Stanley) became a trade union official and then a Labour MP for Nelson and parliamentary Speaker.
A teenage Bill played two years for the Nelson rugby union club. ‘‘I ran a professional mile in 1949, and I got given [the equivalent of] two dollars and a ribbon,’’ he told Will Evans of the Canterbury Rugby League in 2005. ‘‘That made me a ‘professional’, so I couldn’t play rugby union anymore. I had to wait until I moved to Christchurch in 1951, and the following year I played rugby league for Papanui reserves.’’
Whitehead shifted to Marist in 1953 and never left, performing almost every role for the club.
While Whitehead never went to university, he managed to play fullback for the first University of Canterbury rugby league team in 1956 in the last game ever played at Linwood’s Monica Park. Peter Smith, a Marist colleague, said at the funeral that Bill was ‘‘a good player’’, but recalled how he had simply stepped aside and waved a hulking University of Otago opponent onto the try-line rather than risk life and limb.
Whitehead quipped in a 2015 video interview with NZ Universities and Tertiary Students Rugby League secretary Carey Clements that ‘‘I saw most of Otago’s
[41 points] go past’’ in a 41-5 defeat. Whitehead revealed in the same interview that he played his first – and last – game of premier league in Marist’s green and gold in 1965 as a 34-year-old rookie. ‘‘The coach, Father Pearce, was going to put his gear on that day, but I said, ‘No, I’m ahead of you . . . I was the manager. That was against Hornby, and we got beaten
20-nil. I used to say I got all Marist’s points.’’ Legend had it Whitehead went into the Hornby dressing room before kickoff and told the Panthers’ Kiwis wing Brian Langton: ‘‘You won’t get any points today . . . because I’m marking ya.’’
It was off the field where Whitehead made his rugby league mark. His nine life memberships included the Canterbury and New Zealand schoolboys and senior boards, he managed close to 300 teams, including two New Zealand Universities teams. He was local manager for every overseas national team visiting Christchurch, as well as his beloved West Coast. He became a long-serving secretary of the South Island Ex-Kiwis Association, organising convivial functions at former Kiwi Gary Clarke’s rugby league museum and lounge.
Sir Peter Leitch – the Mad Butcher and Warriors’ number one fan – once hailed Whitehead as ‘‘the most decorated man in New Zealand rugby league.’’
Leitch presented Whitehead with a Canterbury Sport Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, 32 years after his Christchurch cobber received a Queen’s Service Medal in the 1987 New Year’s Honours List.
Whitehead devised and ran the highly popular Rugby League Night At The Trots event at Addington Raceway, whereby every club in Canterbury put forward their fastest runner for a 200m sprint on the hallowed track between harness races. Canterbury Rugby League chief executive Duane Fyfe said Whitehead’s stewardship made it ‘‘a great night for rugby league to come together, as a community’’.
Community was important to Bill Whitehead. He and wife Cath – who he met while working at the same hotel – had five children, and were ‘‘Mama Cath and Papa Bill’’ to the kids of Bishopdale’s Ian Place, who Bill taught to play cards, while encouraging their sundry sporting endeavours.
‘‘League was Dad’s passion, but he didn’t care what sports the kids played,’’ daughter Lisa said, recalling how when the parents of one Ian Place lad weren’t sure how they would afford the boots and bats he needed to play cricket for Canterbury, ‘‘Dad went out arranged sponsorship with a sports shop’’.
The family used to joke that ‘‘Dad was a walking fire hazard’’ because his blazer had ‘‘programmes in all his pockets’’, Lisa Wilson said. ‘‘He was a living rugby league encyclopaedia. He was a remarkable historian, he had a fantastic memory, and he was a great storyteller.’’
Whitehead was predeceased by wife Cath, and is survived by sons Tony and James, and daughters Sharon, Lisa and Angela, and their families.
Sir Peter Leitch – the Mad Butcher and Warriors’ number one fan – once hailed Whitehead as ‘‘the most decorated man in New Zealand rugby league’’.