Time to say goodbye
The time has come, dear reader, to say goodbye. After 15 years in the chair I’m leaving journalism for a new role with Sport Southland. There are some exciting, challenging times ahead and I’m looking forward to it, but this column is about looking back, and so I shall.
December 27, 1999 (last century!), I walked into The Southland Times for the first time as a reporter after an interview with editor Fred Tulett and chief reporter Steve Mason.
Both men would play major roles in my career, but at the time I got a grunt from the editor advising me that I better not mess up – or words to that effect – because he was only taking me on Mason’s recommendation.
I started as a general reporter and genuinely loathed almost every day of it.
Thankfully, six months or so later, and after asking her every day when she was leaving, my fairy godmother Kate Buchanan headed to Australia and I assumed my rightful position in The Southland Times sports department, and I’ve been there ever since.
Over the years, I’ve worked with and against a lot of very good journalists. Some were just passing through to greater or lesser things, others had a genuine love for this fine institution and the work that has been produced by it.
I count among them Logan Savory and Jamie Searle – two more dependable and hardworking lieutenants you wouldn’t find.
Some of the very best ones aren’t with us any more, men like John Morrison and Jim Valli, legends (in my opinion) for ever more at 67 Esk St.
There have been a few who have attained ‘‘Friends of the Sports Dept’’ status; Jim Dixon, Robyn Edie, Mark Hotton – along with super-sub Chris Chilton and our very talented (although unknown to many Invercargill taxi drivers) graphic artist Shaun Yeo, who both worked with me on the Ranfurly Shield book in 2009.
And then there was Barry Harcourt.
I began my tenure at the Times in genuine fear of the chief photographer, but by the time he exited we were getting along all right.
I’ve encountered no better journalist and it was his assignment to the Sydney Olympics in 2000 that inspired me to try to achieve the same heights. I didn’t quite make it, but gee I gave it a good shot.
I’ll depart the Times proud of the fact I never wrote a malicious word during my time here.
Those words weren’t always kind, but they were always honest. I didn’t always get it right (boy, oh boy), but I got it as right as I could at the time.
I grew up reading The Southland Times, and I grew up more writing for it, and that was always the buzz – writing stories about Southlanders for Southlanders.
I’ve been lucky to cover some of the great eras of Southland sport – most of the Sting dynasty and both of the province’s most recent Ranfurly Shield eras.
The 2005 British and Irish Lions tour was special for lots of reasons, Invercargill’s hosting of the junior world track cycling championships was memorable, as was the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The games at Forsyth Barr Stadium, in particular, were amazing.
I’ve loved flying around in a helicopter covering the Kepler Challenge, and reporting on 15 editions of the Tour of Southland.
Losing the stadium in 2010 was a massive blow, and it was hard reporting on Rugby Southland’s spectacular financial implosion a few months later.
Athletes I’ve written about since they were kids have gone on to succeed on the international stage, playing for the All Blacks, the Silver Ferns, winning Olympic medals and world championship gold.
I get a lump in my throat just thinking about it.
To all those sportspeople, coaches and administrators who gave their time, willingly or otherwise, to speak to me, thank you.
Through this job, I’ve travelled around New Zealand, and the world. Seen amazing things and met amazing people.
Perhaps my proudest achievement at the paper doesn’t directly involve sport – helping to create the Southlander of the Year award, which has seen us honour Nathan Cohen, Meri Leask and Richard Hayes since its inception.
I hope the award develops into a legacy.
You might think writing about sport is a dream occupation. It is.
But there are some hard yards to be done. When you cover a lot of Southland sport, you have to accept you’ll be writing about more losses than wins.
Late nights, lots of weekends. Lonely hours on the periphery of other people’s lives.
I’ve missed weddings, funerals and birthdays. The past two opening weekends. More family dinners than you could count.
The Log of Wood
It’s been incredibly selfish, and I have a wife and family who I owe an enormous debt of gratitude.
But most of all, my sincerest thanks to you, the reader. Without you it would all be a bit pointless. October 22, 2009, was my 34th birthday, but it also marked the day the Stags broke a 50-year Ranfurly Shield drought with a 9-3 win over Canterbury at the former AMI Stadium. The scenes in the changing room afterwards were like nothing I’d ever experienced and the buzz continued for days and weeks and months. Many rugby writers will go their entire career without covering a Shield tenure. I was blessed to get two of them. Two games stand out from the 2010 Shield season – the win over Otago, and beating Auckland after a tough week when the province had been battered by snow storms and Stadium Southland collapsed. There was no shortage of character revealed when the snow receded, on all sorts of levels.
Any win over Otago
In any sport.
A quiet afternoon in Glasgow
The day before the 2014 Commonwealth Games started I was sitting in the middle of Sir Chris Hoy velodrome pondering just how I’d managed to wind up there. As the New Zealand track cycling team finished their training session, several riders came over for a quick chat. There was Eddie Dawkins and Matt Archibald, Pieter Bulling, Tom Scully and Steph McKenzie – cyclists who I’d written about as they developed their craft at the Invercargill velodrome. They probably didn’t realise it at the time, but I was incredibly touched that on the eve of one of their biggest events they would come over and share some time. It’s rare in this business, where the media is often considered (at best) a necessary evil. I’ll never forget it.