Opinion: Sport's ideal to bury Zombie Town image

Jared Smith

Up until a week ago, I always thought the best way to survive in a Zombie Town was having access to a decent supply of canned food and proficient use of a shotgun.

But as we know, I watch way too many movies.

The flint certainly struck the steel after the Sunday TV programme about Wanganui being in a decline that is unrecoverable and whether or not it would be best to "shut up shop" and put what amounts to wasted resources back into our major centres.

Ironically, the use of the zombie imagery by economist Shamubeel Eaqub to describe this plight, I guess to 'sexy' it up so everyone can understand it, reminded me of another logical yet cold-hearted ideal from World War Z - the Max Brooks book, not the 2012 Brad Pitt action movie.

This 'what if' novel showed South Africa overcoming their zombies by using the controversial 'Redeker Plan' - pulling all remaining resources along with the best people into key 'safe' areas and leaving smaller zones to fend for themselves, but still using them as a frontline to keep the undead hordes distracted.

In other words, keep producing for us but there's no hope for you.

Well, if reinforcements are needed for our town by the river, then we should get a 'sexy' image ourselves, and while I'm obviously biased, I don't think there's too many things sexier than sport.

The other knee-jerk reaction from Sunday's programme was to attack the polarising messenger in former mayor Michael Laws.

While many simply wish to pull their hair out at the blunt viewpoints he expressed, it is always possible to look through the rhetoric to the kernels of truth.

Laws said towns like ours can survive if centralised organisations like the Government are willing to spread their department offices around the regions, not a problem in this modern telecommunication age where everything doesn't need to be in Wellington.

I agree, but to 'sexy' it up a little further, I would push the viewpoint that we remain ideally placed for sporting organisations to take advantage of us as a well-stocked yet not overcrowded base of operations.

Nascar racing, we know I'm a fan, didn't abandon Daytona in Florida when it grew nationwide in the 1970s, instead setting up satellite offices throughout the American south.

Wanganui knows how good having a sporting hub could be.

The 2011 Wanganui District Council lobbied hard for this town to become the headquarters of the NZ National Cycling Centre, now so highly lauded after the Kiwi track success at the Commonwealth Games under local boy Dayle Cheatley.

When Cheatley stopped home for a visit two months ago, we talked about that time, as well as how the supermarket checkout staff in Cambridge no longer get star struck when world champion rowers and cyclists stop in to pick up the bread and milk on their way home from training.

You would have seen a very different Wanganui Chronicle back in July as well if those athletes were all our "locals" winning medals, front page after front page.

Yet, alas, Sparc in Wellington looked over the proposal and figured there was not enough infrastructure in place already.

Seeing it for how it was. Blind to how it could be.

Fortunately, we've still got some people with vision here.

Mates Paul Berridge and KJ Allen have spent four years growing HoopNation into arguably New Zealand's biggest basketball tournament outside of the NBL and national secondary school events.

They didn't find it easy - Berridge told me this week one funding application plan was sent back to them because they included 'H' in Wanganui.

Nonetheless, after taking their roadshow around the country and across to Asia, HoopNation has seen growth every year since 2011, in turn providing advantages for other local entities like the Splash Centre servicing player physiotherapy and Stella bar hosting the after-parties.

February will also see thousands return for the Wanganui Masters Games, but before that we have to service all the petrol heads visiting on Boxing Day for the Cemetery Circuit.

Also held here every second year, the Aon Billy Webb Challenge will bring back champion rowers to draw the crowds.

It makes me grimace in a good way to remember that hectic November weekend of 2012 when the town was packed to the gunnels with Olympians rubbing shoulders on the waterfront with the national hydroplane racers, alongside our own locals puffing around on the Three Bridges Marathon.

There were so many stories to cover you couldn't even keep up, dashing through the throngs from one organiser's tent to another.

But I guess that's the good kind of nightmare to have, rather than me running around with my shotgun, looting boarded-up stores as I desperately try to survive in Zombie Town.