President’s efforts earn blazer of glory
Te Awamutu Rugby Football Sub-Union president Andrew Young was presented his life member blazer on Saturday. The sub-union is made up of the Otorohanga, ¯ Te Awamutu Sports, Te Awamutu Marist, Pirongia, O¯ haupo¯ and Kihikihi rugby clubs.
Young started playing rugby in the Waikato competition for the O¯ haupo¯ Rugby Sports Club under-17 side in 1993, going up through the grades to under-19, under-21, senior B and reserving for the senior reserves and senior A team.
He stopped playing about eight years ago due to a knee injury.
He first put on the sub-union jersey in 1994 for the under-19 reps who won the Cucksey Cup, and he also played one game for the under-21 side.
In 1999, he won the O¯ haupo¯ sportsperson of the year award before joining the O¯ haupo¯ Rugby Club committee in 2000, where he got appointed to the Te Awamutu subunion committee.
His first job on the sub-union was to put the rugby draw into the newspaper each week.
The first motion he put on the table when he started was for each rugby club to nominate someone in their club to run the touchline to free up Waikato referees because they were getting shorter on officials each year.
Young himself picked up the whistle and started refereeing the junior boys in the morning before playing for the senior B side and running touchline at O¯ haupo¯ for the A games.
In the early 2000s, he was also the bar manager and cleaner at O¯ haupo¯ Rugby Club for three years.
Young’s weekends were pretty full with rugby, running the bar and running a dairy farm, too.
He then took up coaching his son and daughter’s rugby teams for about 12 years, coaching sides from primary school to high school.
In 2016, Young became the president of the Te Awamutu sub-union and a year later he became a member of the Stan Meads committee running the Peace Cup, originally known as the Peace Memorial Cup, which was inaugurated in 1919 to mark the formal end of World War I.
It was donated by Richard English for the furtherance of rugby football at sub-union level as a challenge trophy.
In 2018, Young got an under-21 team running for two years and they played for the Cucksey Cup.
The same year, Young started to organise the 100-year reunion for the Peace Cup with a match to be played in Te Awamutu.
He took the trophy around the subunions to advertise the occasion and also went to the New Zealand Rugby Museum in Palmerston North with the cup for a Rugby Jamboree.
He started up the Peace Cup Jubilee 2020 Facebook page to share old photos and stories about the honour.
Young wanted to include a family member of Peace Cup donor English and after more than a year of searching, he found a grandson who lived in Hamilton and who also joined the Te Awamutu sub-union Facebook page.
In 2018, Young created a new Te Awamutu sub-union logo that represents the areas within the organisation.
Young had invited the New Zealand Army to play a charity game and the New Zealand Harlequins as well but with Covid-19 they were unable to hold the Peace Cup reunion.
Last year was the Te Awamutu sub-union’s centenary and Young had organised the New Zealand Army to play the Te Awamutu sub-union, but Covid-19 put that on hold too.
There are still plans for the Army v Te Awamutu sub-union game to go ahead at some stage.
Young is the second equal longestserving president of the sub-union with R Douglas at seven years of service.
Guru Singh holds the longest time as president with 17 years in the role for the sub-union.
Young is now in his 22nd year as a member of the Te Awamutu Rugby Referees’ Association and his third year as president, the same amount of time he has spent on the O¯ haupo¯ Rugby Sport Club committee.
He says he has enjoyed his time on all the committees he’s been on and has enjoyed meeting new people far and wide.
Now he’s taking a step back, but he’s still got a few more ideas to throw around.