Crusaders could have been the Plainsmen
The Crusaders could have been known as the Plainsmen. When rugby turned professional after the 1995 World Cup, NZ Rugby, in conjunction with its counterparts from South Africa and Australia, agreed to launch a competition called the Super 12.
A few months later the Canterbury Crusaders club was formed, and the following year its team was one of 12 to contest the title against the best players in the southern hemisphere.
It proved a disaster. The team finished last.
Later, to keep the peace among smaller provinces within the club’s catchment, the Canterbury part of the title was dropped.
The new competition was a major step into the unknown for administrators, players and coaches. While money might have been traded under the table in the past, this was the first time it had to be declared on tax returns.
The Crusaders eventually unveiled a logo sporting a knight brandishing a sword in his right hand. Graphic design company Clark and Associates is understood to have created the logos for all five New Zealand teams.
The newly formed Crusaders organisation was headed by Steve Tew as the chief executive. Tew, now the boss of NZ Rugby, was already entrenched as the Canterbury Rugby Football Union’s CEO and it made sense to include the Crusaders job in his portfolio.
Donald Stewart, then managing director at Skellerup, chaired the new Crusaders board.
One of the board’s first tasks was to approve a name for a team that would represent the upper South Island provinces of Canterbury, Nelson, Marlborough, Buller, West Coast, Mid Canterbury and South Canterbury. Suggestions were made, ideas swapped.
The Plainsmen, a reference to the vast Canterbury plains that start at the base of the Southern Alps and stretch towards the Pacific Ocean, was among the names forwarded for consideration.
The board settled on the Crusaders, a reference to the ‘‘crusading spirit of Canterbury rugby’’.
Knights brandishing swords while riding horses around the home grounds before kick-off – while the song Conquest of Paradise boomed over the PA system – was part of the pre-game entertainment.
The Crusaders won the first of their nine titles in 1998 and are considered a true juggernaut of the competition. After each of those victories they stood in a circle and watched one of their number plunge a sword into the turf.
Since Friday, the Crusaders’ name, logo, horses and knights are viewed in a more sinister light. The team is linked to a darker time in history about 1000 years ago, when Christians and Muslims were involved in bloody conflicts.
No longer are the Crusaders viewed as a rugby factory that pumps out quality All Blacks and Super Rugby representatives. They have been caught up in something much bigger.
Through no fault of their own, everything has changed.