Extra! All Black history in headlines

Karen Ronson with a billboard from her father's collection about one of rugby's great mysteries - the disappearance of Keith Murdoch. Photo / Nick Reed

Old newspaper billboards tell some of the sport’s greatest yarns.

Some of the greatest All Black stories have turned up in a swag of rolled-up newspaper billboards stumbled across by Epsom collector Brian Ronson and his daughter, Karen.

They found 250 poster billboards from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, many recording turbulent rugby events of the time.

The collection includes division over rugby tours to and from South Africa in the apartheid era, and All Black prop Keith Murdoch being sent home after a test in Wales in 1972.

After punching a security guard as he attempted to enter a famous rugby pub in Cardiff, the Angel Hotel, Murdoch left Wales but never reached Auckland. Some years later he was found living a quiet life in the Australian Outback.

A billboard from Auckland's 8 O'Clock weekly reads "Murdoch: Lay off my boy, says mum".

Mr Ronson, who came across the billboards in his study, can't remember where he got them but suspects it was at a garage sale years ago.

The collection must have been put together by a rugby fan, he said, although there were a few bill-boards when Australia won the America's Cup from the New York Yacht Club in 1983 and from the 1972 Olympics.

Judging by the newspapers - including the New Zealand Herald, Auckland Star, Dominion, Sunday Times and Rugby News - the collection was probably put together by someone in Auckland.

Other billboards in the collection read: "Bryan Williams: Why I'll play Boks" ( Star, June 21, 1976), "Hart Tour Battle Plan (Herald, undated) and "Colin Meads' Gigantic Bluff" (Rugby News, undated), possibly a reference to a try the All Black legend scored on the 1970 tour of South Africa.

One Auckland Star billboard, "Surprise Change in NZ Test Side", is signed by All Blacks Grahame Thorne, Pat Walsh, George Skudder and Ivan Vodanovich, who coached the national side from 1969 to 1971.

Mr Ronson plans to sell the collection on Trade Me.

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