That’s Shark Park my friend and don’t you bloody forget it!

It’s a jovial drive as you hurry down the Dunedin one-way system.  The atmosphere is lively to dangerous in the club van, loaded to the rafters with over twenty code heads.  It bumps around the corner and takes another late orange/blatantly red light.  Things are boiling over.  It is in situations like this that the engrained student mindset of “I’ll do what I want, and probably get away with it” is dominant, and any concern for breaching traffic standards is thrown out the window.  Everyone laughs and cheers once more!

Soon enough though the laughter eases.  The van pulls off the main drag and into the humble suburban streets that mark the entry into residential South Dunedin.  You become sharply aware that as you near the rugby grounds, you near down-ups, you near sprints, you near winter Southerlies coming fresh off the Antarctic.  To take your mind off this sharp and annoying reality you stare out the window.  There’s no ease from reality here, the first road sign kindly glares down at you, Rugby Street.  The pavement looks cold.  The seriousness in the van increases as you pull along side the club house where bold blue letters state ‘Dunedin Rugby Football Club – Home of the Dunedin Sharks’.  You know where you are.  The coaches, waiting on the paddock know what you are.  You’re late, and you’re about to be punished!

Training on the freezing winter Dunedin nights can be a harrowing experience.  The cross winds, the sleet, the fitness training will wipe the smile off anyone foolish enough to step out wearing a Blues jumper, wearing white boots, and sometimes, unforgivably, wearing both.

Asides from the late night trainings the rugby clubs in the South are a beautiful thing. You can not help but get the feeling that things don’t change too much around here.  I think that’s the way they like it.  Southern men have never been a huge fan of sweeping changes.  Perhaps they feel it ruins the nostalgia, the tradition, the beauty of the tried and trusted natural order.  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” is a cliché that springs to mind; I think they got it right here.  Perhaps that is why the beer is always served in one flavour; Speight’s, Pride of the South for over 125 years.  It’s a great drop!  And maybe that’s why almost every man over forty is called John or Peter.  They’re fine names, tried and trusted, bread and butter, and it would be ridiculous to try branch out and call your child something else!

The clubrooms are old school.  Emblems, caps, banners and photographs of champions line the hallways. You look back on this place with a sense of great pride and fondness as you recall the coaches and managers strolling over with a tray of jugs.  As always, they are greeted with a warm applaud.  They were once like you, and they remember that.  There were the ladies in the kitchen, buttering the bread and running the food bar, weren’t all those lasses bloody champions!  Families would bring their kids here every Saturday night.  You would look over at the under 8s and see them emulating their older brothers.  As a game of coin rugby ended the whole team would jeer on in high-balled support as the loser chopped his can of Sprite.

The camaraderie, the memories, the incredible friendships, journeys and sacrifice will always make rugby clubs a special place for those that have had the pleasure of frequenting them.  It is something that needs to be treasured, kept alive and passed on to future generations.  The pride and subsequent rivalry between clubs will hopefully be maintained within flats, within friendship circles, and to a lesser extent at The Cook on Saturday nights.  I had hoped it wouldn’t fade along with the magic of Dunedin once our university generation had been replaced by the next set of BMOCs and code heads.

Returning to Otago I immediately realised that it was alive and kicking.  A younger brother, a proud Southern Magpie with dirty feathers, chirped into conversation with a casual, “Hammered Dunedin last weekend.” I replied with an equally casual, “Oh yea… were you playing them next to that disgusting rope factory?” He looked me up and down and said, “Nah mate, hammered them in the fish bowl.” It was a direct comment, an angry comment, and one intended to offend. “Is that right?” I was taken aback, “The fish bowl?”  The insult had a quick impact on this sensitive narrator, to which he responded, “That’s Shark Park my friend and don’t you bloody forget it!”

It dawned on me later that the pride for one’s rugby club is a beautiful thing.  It has not gone anywhere, and it’s a tribute to all those involved in the clubs, and to the city of Dunedin itself.  For now we are safe.  The next generations’ love and appreciation of all the things that continue to make Dunedin club rugby so special is right on track.

*The author would like to stipulate that the Speight’s Shield will spend the next twelve months looking pretty at Kettle Park, Home of the Dunedin Sharks.

** Photograph: Hayden Crowley – Club Champion.