One Week in Auckland

By DOK
July 18 2005

My trip to Auckland to see the Lion’s was most unexpected. A surprise present from the family to enable me to make the trip of a lifetime.

Everyone tells you how horrible the flight times to New Zealand must be, but going out there seemed OK. 12 Hours to Bangkok, a three hour change over then another 13 to Auckland, but that included a 2 hour stop in Sydney.

They call New Zealand the land of the long white cloud, and that was certainly my experience. I saw the sun at around midday on Monday 4^th and didn’t see it again until late on Thursday! Auckland in winter is like an Easter holiday in Wales. If the weather’s good then it can be very nice, if it’s raining then the best you can say is the grass is green!

Luckily enough I had friends to see in Auckland who coincidentally live close to Eden Park stadium. My friend Peter managed to get a ticket for the Auckland game on Tuesday night so we went to the stadium together. Eden Park has a set of floodlights well above the top of the stadium, so when these are lit it’s like a beacon of light in the surrounding area (Twickenham residents don’t know how well off they are). We were dropped right outside the stadium (local knowledge is so useful!) and went inside. Eden Park holds around 47,500 these days. It’s two tiers with seats along the side of the pitch in the North and South stands, seats behind the goal in the East stand, but terracing along the West Stand.

The game against Auckland was good without ever really catching fire. The Lions deservedly won but still firing on only four out of six cylinders I felt. Matt Dawson was good and Cueto excellent, but everybody fronted up. Will Greenwood put in some big tackles and some deft passing. What more does Simon Shaw have to do to get a starting place? Anyway, after the game caught the train back to Auckland and got to bed around three in the morning.

Then with time to kill Wednesday, Thursday, Friday I explored the delights of Auckland. Auckland’s equivalent of Oxford Street is Queens Street. On a gentle rise up from the waterfront for about a mile or so, it’s lined with shops of all kinds. Above the street huge banners encouraged the All Blacks. I should say 80% of shops had an All Black theme to their front windows. Although its not as rugby mad as other locations, it was still very impressive. Everywhere you walked you bumped into other Lions fans. I think Gulliver’s and Mike Burton’s Tours had outfitted their customers in Lions kit from rucksacks and anoraks down to underpants! I had just the one Lions replica shirt and so felt distinctly unrepresentative!

On Thursday two things happened: one nice, one nasty. I was sat outside the Maritime Museum (well worth seeing) just watching the rain fall when a bus pulls up full of people in red and blue. I just wrote it off as another coach load of fans, but when they get out the bus I notice they’re all big fit looking lads – by God, it’s the Lions team! They were having a press conference in a room just above where I was sitting.

Of course they’d all gone up the time I’d fumbled a camera out the bag, but I managed to catch some pictures as they came out the conference in dribs and drabs. Clive Woodward gave me the filthiest look imaginable for trying to take his picture, but the rest of the players were nice as anything. Gareth Thomas especially, considering he must have had other things on his mind, was endlessly patient and cheerful with the fans.

If you’re alone and far away from home, its nice to have a meeting place where you can meet other fans, where entertainment is laid on, where there’s advice where to go and what to do and where you can just hang out, have a drink, email home or just chill. Step forward The Barmy Army organizers for providing just this. I know some people didn’t like them for “muscling in” on rugby territory, but frankly the Barmy Army HQ in Auckland was a great place to go day or night.

Anyway, the less nice part of Thursday found me at the Barmy Army HQ listening to a very good band knocking off covers of a number of well-known songs. Then we began a charity auction of various rugby related stuff for charities in New Zealand and back home. While this was going on a big screen was silently showing “Last Man Standing” – a series of boxing matches between ex-Lions and ex-All Blacks. We were barely into the auction when of course the screen changed to breaking news from London. First they stopped the auction to put the sound up, and then when the full impact of the news was obvious they just packed up the auction. Of course no one could get through to England on their mobiles, so everyone went out to try and find a land line/internet café or whatever. I went back to my B&B where they were happy for me to use email, and just checked the family was OK.

(I don’t know if it was reported over here, but the NZ equivalent of BT announced that all landline calls to a UK landline would be free for the next three days – wasn’t that nice?)

Friday I went up the Sky Tower in Auckland. This is the equivalent of the BT tower in London; it has a revolving restaurant and a viewing gallery. I went up to the viewing gallery once the cloud had cleared. The viewing gallery has these big bits of glass embedded in the floor. If you look through them you can see straight down to the street below. A sign explains the glass is actually stronger than the concrete floor you’re currently standing on and invites you to walk over the glass.

Well, you have to, don’t you? Although I have a fear of heights, I crossed the first piece by just walking and not looking down. The second piece I held on to the rail at the side and risked a quick glimpse down. By the time I’d done all eight bits of glass (2 to a quadrant), I was standing in the middle of the glass and jumping up and down and giving little old ladies heart attacks!

Saturday was the Third Test. I rocked up to Eden Park around 5:30 (doors open at 4 pm, but as I had hospitality tickets I thought free beer from 4 onwards might mean I never remembered the match). Found my way to the hospitality tent, which had snacks and free beer. It was about 80% Lions to 20% Kiwis in there, but of course a hugely good-humoured crowd. They had singers, comedians, and whatever you call a man dressed up as Austin Powers to entertain us. It was very amusing. Then we had a speech from Gavin Hastings to motivate all us Lions fans. It finished with a bunch of Maoris doing the Haka. I’m afraid we drowned it out in the chant of “Lions, Lions, Lions” which they looked a little upset about.

Then it was on to the match. Had seats behind the goal posts at the very front of the top tier, so excellent view. It was nice to see a referee not afraid to sin bin All Blacks but we knew early on it wasn’t going to be enough. We still didn’t look like a unit, still 15 men playing together for the first time. There was a brief glimmer of hope when we were 6-0 up and Umaga was sent off, but that was as long as it lasted. While he’s off the All Blacks score 14 points! We weren’t clinical, didn’t play with heads up, and didn’t deserve to win. The score shows a wider gulf than I felt actually existed, but fair play to the All Blacks they were always a class or two above us.

Went down to the pitch to cheer the team, but understandably they came past at a canter and weren’t in the mood. The All Blacks were of course much happier to do a lap of honour, but surprisingly a lot of the Kiwi fans had pushed off already. So we cheered them instead!

Then back in the hospitality tent until it shut, the Barmy Army HQ until that shut and back to bed around 4 a.m. While its true the New Zealand media certainly can’t win gracefully, the fans were absolutely great.

Every one I met wanted to be reassured I’d had a good time and that I’d enjoyed my time in New Zealand. Very touchy feely lot too once in their cups, can’t count the number of manly hugs I got off various male fans (or was there another reason?). Oh yes, they all appreciated the trousers!

Sunday not surprisingly was a quiet day, then Monday I left at a very civilised 12:30 flight back to Bangkok then an 01:30 flight back to Heathrow arriving around 07:00.

Was it worth it? Absolutely! It didn’t reach the highs that the 1997 Lions tour of South Africa must have, but that’s not the point. I went to New Zealand, still the top of the tree as far as rugby is concerned. I saw the Lions twice in a week. I met some great people, a lot of them Kiwi rugby fans. I saw some great rugby; I saw a great rugby team (unfortunately this part of it was all the All Blacks). You don’t go see the Lions play to see them win tests, that’s just a bonus if it happens!