Manawatū women’s hockey trailblazers uncovered
Manawatū might be known for producing New Zealand women’s hockey players, but mostly from the mid-1990s onwards. After writing about them last year, it’s time to uncover the four pioneers who wore black.
In total, Manawatū has boasted 20 women internationals, starting with Henrietta ‘‘Etta’’ Gertrude Birchley in 1914, a fullback who was the sole Manawatū player when New Zealand played the touring AllEngland side. Birchley was praised for her defensive work as New Zealand had a win, draw and loss, and the crowds averaged about 3500.
It threw up a trivial pursuiter: the first time a national women’s team played a test match in any sport.
However, World War I broke out three days before the first tour match, and after the conflict New Zealand hockey had to be rebuilt. It was 21 years before the next New Zealand team played, in 1935 in Melbourne.
To digress, at the time there was a nutty claim that hockey in girls’ secondary schools was injurious to their health and that reverse-stick shots were an example of laziness leading to fouls. That was from Seasons of Honour, the New Zealand hockey history cowritten by hockey enthusiast and Massey University lecturer Geoff Watson. Meanwhile, Birchley died in 1977 at the age of 79 after having lived most of her married life as Etta Brown in Epsom, Auckland.
On Manawatū ’s honours board is Erica Cowdell, a fullback who played for New Zealand in 1967 in Germany. It turns out she represented New Zealand when she was in Whangā rei. ‘‘No, I didn’t play for New Zealand from Manawatū ,’’ she told me.
She had arrived at Massey University from Tauranga as Erica Johnson and played for Massey where she was coached by renowned botanist Dame Ella Campbell.
I tracked her through the Tauranga Orchid Society where one of her specimens was the national 2013 Orchid of the Year. At 78 and still active, she lives in Whangā rei and with husband Tom runs a cut-flower orchid business. So, the gap between New Zealand reps was 67 years before Brigid Conaglen wore black in 1981.
Conaglen was also a Massey student and came to Manawatū hockey with Megan Clements, who represented Manawatū . Both were from Taranaki dairy farming stock.
Conaglen was a fullback in the national team on an internal tour and won all 13 matches, including three in Palmerston North, one of them a 4-0 win over Manawatū . Born in 1960 into a family of nine, she attended Sacred Heart Girls’ College in
New Plymouth and became a wellregarded school teacher.
She was part of the New Zealand Educational Institute area council that fought for fair conditions for all in education. She was co-principal of
Clifton Terrace Model School in innercity Wellington and was remembered as a teacher, unionist, activist and feminist.
Conaglen died in 2017 at the age of 57 and is buried with her family at Pihama in rural Taranaki.
Leanne Rogers was a tall, brilliant goalkeeper out of Palmerston North Girls’ High School before studying at Massey University. She played for Massey and High School Old Girls.
She works as an intensive care paramedic tutor in Taupō and has had 30 years in the profession. She played more than 35 games for New Zealand, also representing her country at indoor cricket and outdoors for Central Districts. In hockey she was a non-travelling reserve for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics when she was playing for a London club. After a ranking mix-up, the NZ team was withdrawn on the eve of the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Between 1986 and 1989 she played in international tournaments, at home and all around Australia and Europe including two world tournaments in Amsterdam. It was in London, ironically armed with an agriculture degree, that she spent 10 years in the ambulance service before returning home and spending eight years in Kaitaia with St John Ambulance.
Lynley Print also emerged from Girls’ High as a quick centre-forward. In 1991 she played in two series but was given only two tests, against the United States and South Korea in Auckland.
She returned from Auckland after having been given only 10 minutes of one game against the United States, which was only a leadup to an Olympic qualifying series and was intended to give players an introduction to international hockey.
She married long-serving Manawatū rep Simon Willocks. They both still play for the High School Hockey Club. In 2019 she posted this: ‘‘One week off 53 years and got sent off in hockey for the first time. I apologise for all the times I should have been sent off over the years – but today?’’
One of the couple’s three daughters, New Zealand under-18 rep Anna, attended St Joseph’s University in Philadelphia on a hockey scholarship.