From flour power to the Cake Tin

Saturday, 13 September 2014

Tonight's test between the All Blacks and Springboks shows just how far New Zealand and South Africa have come since Eden Park 33 years ago.

Grant Cole was 19. Armed with political ideals, three banana boxes, flour, a plane, and a like-minded pilot, he would shape history.

It was 1981 and the Springbok rugby team were touring New Zealand.

Half the country was out to see two top sporting sides in action. The other half was horrified that New Zealand would host a team from a country living under racist apartheid laws.

The protests were orchestrated, massive and violent.

In July that year, 2000 protesters fought police in Molesworth St in Wellington. The same month, a tour match was cancelled in Hamilton when protesters stormed the pitch and rumours got out that a plane had been stolen and was headed for the ground.

Wherever rugby went in New Zealand between July and September 1981, so did the protesters.

The scene was set for a dramatic showdown when the All Blacks met the Springboks at Eden Park on September 12 - 33 years ago yesterday.

Cole had travelled New Zealand protesting. On the rounds he met fellow protester Marx Jones.

On September 12 the pair chartered a plane from Dairy Flat on Auckland's North Shore. Just after 2.10pm, Jones radioed ground control: 'This is radio anti-apartheid. Please inform the police and the rugby union they've got just 10 minutes to stop the third test.'

Scroll down to see the video of flour bombs the 1981 Springboks v All Black match at Eden Park

Inside the small plane they had loaded three banana boxes, each filled with hand-sized flour bombs and flew south towards Eden Park, Cole recalled this week.

The scene below was like a battleground. Crowds of protesters were surging forward with military and police pushing them back.

'The place was surrounded by shipping containers and barbed wire and little military outposts . . . It was a bit of a fortress.'

Already - and despite the warning not being enough to cancel the game - there was some small victory, Cole said. 'The movement was so powerful they did have to protect them with all their might.'

The small plane passed over the ground a couple of times to check the wind. Small riots could be seen in the crowd below.

But inside the plane, concerns were logistical. The first couple of flour bombs Cole dropped sailed clear past the stadium and into neighbouring streets.

'I thought I would drop it and it would go straight down.'

He discovered that he needed to drop the bombs as the plane flew over the Kingsland shops, somewhere near the railway lines, and they would sail the 300-odd metres towards Eden Park.

'I didn't know what to expect. It was a really exciting and dynamic sight.'

Flying back and forth over Eden Park, skimming just over the packed stadium, he unloaded the bombs - flour wrapped in paper that would split before causing serious injury - and anti-apartheid leaflets.

Jones and Cole flew back to Dairy Flat to return their charter plane, followed by two planes and a helicopter.

They left behind a scene of chaos - a field scarred with flour and leaflets. Flares were being fired by protesters on the ground.

All Black Gary Knight was felled by one flour bomb, but soon got up again. The game went on, and the All Blacks won 25-22.

Trevor Richards - in many ways the founder of New Zealand's anti-apartheid movement - well remembers the impact Jones and Cole had.

Auckland that day 'resembled a civil war zone'. 'Barbed wire, roadblocks and half the country's police force confronted 7000 committed anti-apartheid supporters. The battle raged for much of the day.

'Internationally, however, what is remembered most, especially amongst anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, was not the street protests, but the daring act of two men, Marx Jones and Grant Cole.'

Whenever Richards discussed the 1981 protest with friends in the African National Congress, it was never long before the airborne protest came up.

'Its impact on them was clearly very deeply felt. Some became Cabinet ministers in Nelson Mandela's government, and 15 years later they were still talking about it.'

On the ground on September 12, 1981, Jones and Cole were arrested. Cole ended up getting six months' periodic detention on flying and assault charges. Jones was jailed for six months.

During the court process, Cole met Knight, the All Black and 'really nice guy' he had knocked to the ground. 'He came across like that was just the way it was.'

Jones and Cole still protest against political injustice. The last time they saw one another was at a rally on Gaza.