KEY POINTS:
It's a little-known fact that it was a group of New Zealanders rebelling against the New Zealand Rugby Union's refusal to pay wages for players on tour who first took league to the West Island.
On May 13 1907, the New Zealand Herald broke the news that a
squad led by Albert Baskiville and including eight All Blacks who had toured the United Kingdom were headed back to England to play against northern clubs in the new 13-man game, on promise of pay from gate takings.
Baskiville had heard the Northern Union had offered the NZRU a substantial financial guarantee if the All Blacks came to play the new game.
And the All Blacks winger George Smith had sounded out Australian friends, including the cricket administrator J.J. Giltinan on the opportunities there.
Smith is arguably New Zealand's greatest athlete, early on a jockey who won the New Zealand Cup, he won the New Zealand 100 yards sprint championship five times, and won four hurdles titles. He set a world record for the 440 hurdles in 1904.
On August 17, 1907, the would-be pro team played New South Wales at rugby union and won 12-8, 19-5 and 5-3 in a series of games played as a fundraiser for the ship to England.
Afterwards, NSW halfback Dally Messenger joined the tour party. They made £600 but the 27 players still had to front £50 each to make the fare and other costs at a time when £2 a week was the average wage.
A Sydney headline writer used the moniker "All Golds" and it stuck.
They played 37 games in England and Wales between October 1907 and April 1908 and seven more against Queensland and NSW plus three tests against Australia on the way home.
The tour made close to £10,000 and the players each got around £300, disproving the NZRUs claim there was no profit in international tours.
Tragically, Baskiville caught pneumonia and died in Brisbane. The first game of rugby league was played at Athletic Park in Wellington on June 13, 1908 with the gate from the 8000 who attended going to his widow.
Both the New Zealand and Australia Rugby League organisations grew from the roots planted by the team. Players including Lance Todd, who gives his name to the medal for the man of the match in the Challenge Cup, while Giltinan's name adorns the shield awarded to the NRLs minor premiers. Messenger gives his to the annual NRL player awards list.
