Reflections on the effect of the 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour on the mentality of the Kiwi

Michael O'Leary wrote this poem at the time of the tour, now 30 years ago today!!! The Kiwi refers both to New Zealanders and the Kiwi Hotel that used to be in Auckland at the top of Wellesley Street.

Reflections on the effect of the 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour on the mentality of the Kiwi

(by Michael O'Leary)

After work the other night

I was feeling alright

It was pay day so I went down for a drink

To a pub I know right well

And I know the clientele

I thought “I’ll be welcome here tonight I think”

When I first walked in the door

My mate said “Have one more”

Even before a drink had passed my lips.

Another fellow, already frisky

Said, “I’ll get you a whiskey”

And came back with a brandy and some chips.

And so before too long

Conversation and song

Mixed together, with alcohol to lubricate the voice

Have a gin, and have a rum,

Have a beer, a wine, come, come,

It’s my turn now boys what’s your choice?

Soon I was better at talkin’

Than I’d ever been at walkin’

My legs were like my mind, that is not straight.

By now my head was swimmin’

And I was looking at all the women

Thinking, that one, no that one, no that one would be great.

I went out for a wee wee

And I thought, ‘I’m at the Kiwi’

No wonder everything here is so friendly and bright.

And I thought about the past

How often I’d spent my last

Penny here, long ago, every single night.

For when I was a student,

Ernest, right and prudent,

It was coming to this pub that turned  me on my head

For I could have been a teacher,

Doctor, lawyer, even a preacher,

But I went to the Kiwi, so I’m a drunken poet and labourer instead

Memories are sad, enough of this!

I thought and finished off my piss.

Having done what’s done I must do what I must do.

As I stumbled to the bar

Which seemed five times as far

I bumped into ten or twenty boys in blue.

I thought, I’ve seen them before

Was it Gisborne, Hamilton or

No, it was just down the road at Eden Park.

And it’s not that long ago

Or is my memory just slow

To forget that cloud that hung over our country long and dark?

Well I tried to have a talk,

And I watched the blues baulk

When they said ‘The manager has asked you to leave.’

The ones who wielded batons

Are the same ones that we spat on

Aotearoa is such an easy place to grieve.

I think I shall not deign

To enter this hotel again

I was so drunk I didn’t want to cause a fuss

When I got outside it cleared my head

I forgot all that had been said

My main preoccupation was to catch a bus.