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The Bayleys Wairoa Athletic Sports Club is hoping its annual club day will be a community weekend of old, with all five of its sporting wings on display.
The Wairoa Athletic Sports Club is in the early stages of plans to upgrade the facilities. Photo / Doug Laing
It will start with its 10-team mercantile squash league resuming on Friday night, followed on Saturday by four children’s JAB rugby games in the morning and senior rugby and football at its Athletic Park headquarters, and four teams playing in the continued revival of netball at the town’s Standring Park courts.
It comes at a time of considerable growth and success. That is highlighted by the senior rugby side’s continuing unbeaten run in the Poverty Bay Lew Paterson Cup rugby competition, with a 43-19 away win over Ngātapa last Saturday, and the development of four netball teams since the game was revived in Wairoa a year ago.
The rugby team play Waikohu, and the football team, third in the 12-team Eastern 2 league with five wins and two draws after beating Tatapouri Bohemians on Saturday, play Gisborne United.
Club president Mike Pickering describes the netball growth as “awesome”, saying he would have been happy if the club had managed to get only one team.
“I’m blown away,” he said.
But the progress is not restricted to the field, with the club established in 1939 now in the third year of a new sponsorship regime with Bayleys Gisborne, and in the early stages of planning to upgrade the facilities built 50 years ago.
A Wairoa Athletic team in action at the Standring Park courts. Photo / Wairoa Athletic
The club had been based at Lambton Square, but acquired its own ground, formerly Powdrell Park, in 1972, and the clubrooms opened on July 19, 1975.
Pickering said the club had a good response when it took a new approach to sponsorship. It needs $30,000-$40,000 each year and there’s a keenness for clubhouse development, which, at a ballpark guess, could cost over $2 million to achieve the possibility of creating not only the most modern of clubhouse facilities, but a quality conference centre and social functions facility for the town and district.
Bayleys Gisborne director Simon Bousfield said the club approached the company and outlined its plans, and a three-year “Titanium” sponsor’s contract was agreed. It is due for renegotiation this year with the likelihood of it continuing.
“We see it as a long-term partnership,” he said. “Clubs like Athletic are at the heart of our communities, they are hard-working volunteers.”
The sports club originated with the Wairoa Athletic Rugby Football Club, which was established after a public meeting in March 1939, with a desire to create a new team through the amalgamation of Old Boys, Pirates and Waiau — three of numerous clubs throughout the area.
It seems the most prominent and vigorous debate was about a name, a subject that has proved to be a real sticking point in similar amalgamations throughout New Zealand over the years, but up for the call were “City”, “United”, “Wairoa” and “Athletic”, which got the nod in a clear majority.
Some families have been associated throughout, including the Powdrells.
Jamie and Ewan Powdrell are keeping the family name going at Wairoa Athletic, and coaching children's rugby. The team have had four wins and a loss this season. Photo / Doug Laing
Walter Powdrell formally moved the successful motion “That a new club be formed from the three old clubs”, grandsons Jamie and Ewan now coach children’s rugby teams, Andrew Powdrell played 41 first-class rugby games for Hawke’s Bay, the Central Vikings and Poverty Bay from 1994 to 2002, and the club headquarters, Athletic Park, was once Powdrell Park.
Mergers are periodic events, and among them have been the umbrella of the sports club developed around original rugby clubs, and Athletic includes both rugby union and football, or soccer as it was known.
Wairoa played a Wairoa sub-union competition until the early-mid 1990s, when the Hawke’s Bay Rugby Football Union made its Napier-Hastings competitions Hawke’s Bay-wide.
The union encouraged the Wairoa clubs to field a combined team under the Wairoa banner to provide a Northern Hawke’s Bay team in the top grade, but struggled for the players to make the fortnightly trips to Napier, Hastings or further south, and the concept failed.
While other clubs started to play in the Poverty Bay competitions, Athletic continued playing in Hawke’s Bay, but the problems associated with distance, including the travelling opposition teams defaulting, continued.
A Wairoa sub-union competition was held again in 2010, but, while initially successful, with eight teams, it did not last, and Athletic joined the other clubs playing in Gisborne, competing well and winning in the Lewis Paterson Cup, but struggling when promoted to premier rugby.
The establishment of the squash courts was a big factor in the club’s survival, highlighted by the success of the mercantile league, this week entering the halfway stage of 12 weeks, six players a team and being played in two five-team pools, at present led by Pickering Cabinet Makers and Affco Stingers.
Pickering says the committee members are the “unsung heroes — tirelessly working behind the scenes to ensure the smooth functioning and prosperity of our beloved club”.
It can be complex stuff merging the interests of the sports codes, but more than 20 have roles on either the club committee or the committees across each of the sports.
Doug Laing is a senior reporter with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 50 years of journalism experience in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.
