The story of the final Lions Test in Auckland

By Waldo
July 18 2005

The final instalment of Waldo's tour of New Zealand, accompanied by hundreds of campervans and about the same number of players and officials representing the British and Irish Lions. Thanks loads to Waldo for writing all of these articles!

Saturday, the day of the final test. We were on route back to Auckland. Once back at imigration at Auckland airport the officer actually welcomed me back! That never happens when I come back to the UK from anywhere. Favourable timing of the various travel elements back from Sydney got us to our hotel in Auckland in time for the tour bus to Eden Park. We had planned to make our own way there. There were some new faces, the various tours had obviously now all converged in Auckland. We got to the ground around 5pm which gave us plenty of time for some refreshment and cordial banter with the locals and our fellow Lions supporters before the game. The ground was filling up fast but it was still easy to get a beer, mostly because they sell it in bottles rather than draught thus making turn around quicker and they have plenty of hawkers wandering dispensing it. Twickenham could learn a lot from them! Eden Park is a comparatively big stadium and many of the "Saracens contingent" had gathered together for pre match aperitifs in the concourse of the main stand. Someone else had also decided to gather there as well. Not more than 2 feet away from us was Buck Shelford! Of all the places he could stand in the whole stadium it was next to us. It was also fairly obvious we were Sarries supporters because I had my Fez on and we had a big flag with "Saracens" written on it! There wasn't too much cordial banter to be honest but we did manage to to get a picture even though said "oh no.....Saracens....bad memories".

The atmosphere was not as electric as the 2nd test in Wellington to be honest. Whether this was because we had already lost the series or because of the events in London, or both, I'm not sure. There were a lot of Lions Supporters wearing black ribbons and armbands. All the flags in the stadium were at half mast and the one minutes silence was so very quiet. In the crowd there was a Lions and an All Blacks supporter holding a George Cross with the words "London - 1, Terrorists - 0" written on it.

Time for the pre match singing. The Lions song was sung with gusto once again, until the words dissappeared off the screen briefly. Then pretty much the singing stopped until they came on again. Could it be we don't actually know the words! Anthems over with and the Haka started. Not that you could hear it mind,the chorus of "Lions,Lions,Lions" soon drowned that out. The game commenced and it soon began to look like the tests would finish where they started and big defeat in the pouring rain! Thankfully the rain did not turn to hail, it was fairly sporadic and it wasn't as cold as in Christchurch and we didn't lose by as much! The All Blacks just out played us simple as that. Local knowledge proved handy after the game. Auckland was full of Lions but as it is a bigger city than Christchurch or Wellington everyone is much more spread out, but that doesn't stop all the bars being busy. We retired to the "Shakespeare" micro brewery for our post match refreshment. This has the benefit of an upstairs bar that is not well known and whilst the ground floor was packed the upstairs bar wasn't. It also has a balcony so we could watch the world go by. There, streets were much more full of red shirts than black ones. No surprise there! This has been a recurring theme of the tour.

It's fair to say that Sir Clive and Alasdair Campbell have not gone down a storm over here with the locals or the media. But one area that has been constantly praised without fail is the Lions Supporters. Everywhere, the media, the police, the locals, the bar owners, the bouncers, the shopkeepeers, the team, even the All Blacks. We are viewed as well behaved, passionate, friendly and out to have a good time. Oh, and good losers. New Zealand has been glad to have us and we have been glad to be here. It has been said that in our short time here we have become part of the culture and we will be missed when we are gone. My personal view is that wherever we have been we have bought the town alive and the locals have appreciated us being there. We have had an awesome time and it is an awesome country. I for one will be sad to leave. Still I may well be back the next time the Lions tour in 2017. In the meantime I'd better start saving for South Africa!

Oh PS. The return leg home through LA was more farcical than the journey over. This time not only did we have to queue to go through imigration, get photographed and fingerprinted once more we actually had to clear customs. Bearing in mind that our luggage was still aboard the plane and all we had was hand baggage. We were then herded out onto the street up an escalator to the 2nd floor, back through security and back onto the plane!! God Bless America.