Te Awamutu Old Boys coach Collin Moore (middle) and his team during a 1965 trip. Photo / Chris Bayley
Te Awamutu Old Boys coach Collin Moore (middle) and his team during a 1965 trip. Photo / Chris Bayley
Chris Bayley, in his 80s, still works for Pikiroa Organic Farm often and flies planes.
Bayley’s rugby journey included playing for Wairarapa and Waikato, with highlights in the 1960s.
Bayley values family and heritage, with four generations of Bayleys on the Owairaka Valley Rd farm.
The Waikato Rugby Union has a long history of producing standout players. Waikato Herald reporter Jesse Wood is looking at this talent of the past and what they have been up to. This week, he caught up with Chris Bayley.
The Bayley name has been in the wider Te Awamutu area for over a century and Chris’ son Russell is a fourth-generation Bayley on their Owairaka Valley Rd farm – now known as Pikiroa Organic Farm.
Chris’ grandfather George immigrated from Edinburgh, Scotland in 1886 and purchased the land in 1915 but it wasn’t until 1930 that Pikiroa Farm was founded.
“We’re yet to have the 100-year party,” Chris said with a chuckle.
The generations of Bayleys built the foundations and developed the land to what it is today – a fully-fledged organic farming operation that the public can experience.
Other members of Chris’ wider family have also made an impression on the local community, with Bayley Rd in nearby Wharepuhanga named after an uncle.
The 1964 Waikato XV contained several players from the Te Awamutu region. Chris Bayley is back row, first on the left.
One of four siblings, Chris was born in Te Awamutu in 1942 to Orme and Audrey Bayley.
In the 1950s, the family sold part of the farm to the Stevensons and another 500 acres went to Wallace Wellington as a rehab block after World War II.
This left Pikiroa at 1000 acres, which it still is today.
Chris grew up at Pikiroa and first attended Wharepapa South School before heading to Mount Maunganui for a few years from 1949.
He then boarded at Hamilton’s Southwell School under longtime headmaster Paul Sergel.
“At Southwell, we were very well disciplined. We were very good rugby teams and very good cricket teams too,” he said.
“We either had to play a sport or music.”
Hurdler John “Dutch” Holland and his 1950 British Empire Games teammate Maurice “Moss” Marshall – the one-mile runner – were among Chris’ educators at Southwell.
Chris said as young athletes, the students benefitted immensely from their experience and knowledge.
In 1956, he headed south to board at Whanganui Collegiate School.
“I played often for the Whanganui Collegiate School first XV, but I never got capped because I was in the era where only 15 players could be capped,” Chris, who was a first five-eighth, said.
Post-high school, Chris started his farming cadetship at the Tatham family’s Homewood Station on the remote east coast of the Wairarapa region.
Bob Tatham was a mentor to Chris and insisted he took his vehicle to rugby trainings.
“In my second year there, I played rugby and I managed to make it into the Wairarapa provincial side. That’s where I met up with the Lochore family,” Chris said.
“Brian’s parents were great people. I used to stay there for the weekend and indulge in picking up stones in my free time on Brian Lochore’s farm [because of Homewood Station being a 65km trek home].”
Out of the East Coast club, Chris represented Wairarapa on two occasions in September 1961.
Firstly, he faced West Coast and then a Manawatū side containing Footrot Flats author Ball and future maiden Te Awamutu Sub-Union Peace Cup winning captain, Bob O’Neill.
Wairarapa v Manawatū at the Palmerston North Showgrounds on September 23, 1961. Chris Bayley and Brian Lochore are in the Wairarapa side. Murray Ball and Bob O'Neill donned the Manawatū jersey.
He then moved south to Moa Flat, where he played rugby for West Otago in 1962.
Then he transferred to a Gore stud farm owned by Battle of Britain pilot Flight Lieutenant Leslie “Chalky” White DFC.
Chalky was the first pilot to escape occupied France and even had a book written about him – Pilot on the Run.
His enthusiasm for Chris to play rugby was 100%. Chris represented Eastern Southland in 1963 alongside the likes of Southland players “Spud” Tait, Robin Archer and Wattie Archer.
“That’s where playing for Waikato came into being. My father used to call me Jim, He wrote to me and said, ‘Jim time to come home’. I came home because he was not that well, and so began another chapter,” Chris said.
“I lined up with Te Awamutu Old Boys Rugby Football Club in 1964, played for Te Awamutu Sub-Union and then I was lucky enough to get a few games with the Waikato Rugby team at the end of the season.”
Chris said that local dentist Collin Moore was a great coach for Old Boys.
With two appearances for his home province in 1964, Chris became Waikato Rugby No 571.
“It wasn’t really what I was aiming for, I sort of just moved up. But every game I played, I really played the best I could,” Chris said.
“That was basically it for rugby. I met some great people and real characters.”
His highlight was playing for the Te Awamutu Sub-Union against the reputable Piako Peace Cup side scattered with Clarke brothers.
The Te Awamutu team “gelled well and had a very good win”.
“I came off that paddock and I thought ‘yes, we got it right’. I always remember that. We had Graham Dewdney and the likes of Andy Bell. It’s a shame we didn’t have a photograph that year,” Chris said.
“It was the engagement of different players that you’d all played with, and we got a team that was formulated. We trained together and bonded together.”
Te Awamutu Old Boys team during a 1965 trip. Photo / Chris Bayley
After 1964, his farming journey began.
From there, the generational Pikiroa Farm became his life as well as several hobbies which have included flying planes, fly fishing and being a motorbike enthusiast.
Chris said he was fortunate to have had the three people who greatly assisted him in achieving success and allowed him to diversify in his career.
In 1968, Chris married Marcia Hain from Gisborne.
She later became an international dressage rider and in 2021, was inducted into the New Zealand Equestrian Hall of Fame.
Their two sons Angus and Russell live locally. Angus has a joinery business and is a property manager, while Russell keeps Pikiroa running.
Rugby was just a side dish in Chris’ full, active, outdoor life but his family and heritage are his proudest highlights with many chapters still to come.
Jesse Wood is a multimedia journalist based in Te Awamutu. He joined the Te Awamutu Courier and NZME in 2020.
