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Sideline Sid Sports correspondant & historian www.sunlive.co.nz |
While it is stretching our imagination to claim Waihi Beach is part of the Western Bay of Plenty as we know it – the small beachside community is at the further reaches of the district council, which makes the following yarn nearly a local story.
On New Year's Day, Waihi Beach celebrated the start of their second century of their iconic beach sports day.
In 1913, a group of Waihi gold miners started the first community day at Waihi Beach, before the local surf club picked up the reigns soon after formation in 1935, continuing the event to the present day.
While the feature races of the annual beach sports has always been the men's and women's 100 yards sprints, the major focus has always been on family fun and entertainment.
In the early days of the 20th Century, Waihi, courtesy of gold mining, was the fastest growing town in the Auckland province with it being recorded in 1908 that Waihi was three times the size of Hamilton. Nearby Waihi Beach provided summer relief from the hard demands of recovering gold in the Waihi mines. So began, on the first day of 1913, the iconic sports day that has run without interruption for 101 years.
In earlier times, it was reported a local Golden Valley farmer gave a can of ‘cool' milk, with the owner of the local Waihi Beach store giving each children's race winner a penny ice cream. Three-legged, chariot and backwards races held centre stage, with time out being taken for the donkey rides along the beach.
While Sideline Sid bangs on about life being very different in the country a century ago – the reality is that people were just as enthusiastic about sports in the early 20th Century, albeit in a different fashion from today.
Our English forefathers brought their traditional sports to New Zealand in the 19th Century. In the 1880s and 1890s, Caledonian societies began sports days, which were usually held on Boxing or New Year's days. These events included running races, cycling, wood chopping, jumping, tug of war, wrestling; and in areas with Scottish settlers, highland dancing.
A godfather of sport in the Bay of Plenty, FJ Burt, who played both cricket and rugby for the bay at the start of the 20th Century, was also an outstanding individual athlete. At the Opouriao Sports Day in 1905, he tied with Hori Eurera, who was the Australasian champion pole jumper. And in an interesting aside, it was stated FJ had started in and won 56 sack races.
Those early sporting endeavors have brought us to today, where a few events such as the Waihi Beach sports day, remind us of earlier heroics – but have also given us the excitement and entertainments of last weekend's rugby Sevens, Twenty 20 cricket at the Bay Oval, and which Tauranga's Half Ironman, all reflect the modern face of sport in the country.