'Wound up bunch of people in Invercargill': Hart leader recalls '81 Springbok tour

Friday, 6 August 2021

When John Minto visited Invercargill during the 1981 Springbok tour, he clashed with police during protest action, got a gash on his head, was arrested, and claimed the city was “deeply embedded with racism”.

And when he later returned for his court case, with a minder, he was abused on the street.

“That was Invercargill in 1981. They were a pretty wound up bunch of people,” said Minto, the leader of Hart [halt all racist tours], which was involved in nationwide protest marches and field invasions during the tour.

Minto’s memories of Invercargill 40-years-ago weren’t great.

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Hart leader John Minto [behind front banner with helmet on, at right] joined the Invercargill protest march against the Springboks tour on August 8, 1981.

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But for most Southlanders, the tour was about rugby, and they weren’t interested in the politics.

Southland player Steven Pokere is collared by Springbok first five eighth Naas Botha during the tourists game against Southland at Invercargill's Rugby Park on August 8, 1981. The Springboks won 22-6.

The Springboks vs Southland game was played in front of a packed house at Rugby Park, Invercargill, on August 8, 1981, with the tourists winning 22-6.

Leicester Rutledge, a Southland loose forward in ‘81, recalls walking out of the Rugby Park tunnel ahead of the match and being struck by the “huge” size of their South African opponents, the massive crowd and great atmosphere.

A freezing worker at the time, Rutledge said freezing work plants in Southland had closed so the workers could go to the game.

“As we drove to the ground all these people were carrying booze … because in those days you could take your own alcohol to the ground, it was just a real party atmosphere.”

Apart from the barbed wire separating the field from the spectators, and the large police presence, it was “just a normal game of rugby at Rugby Park”.

Of the match itself, Rutledge said: “I remember getting done over in a ruck or two, they were pretty keen to slow us down a bit …. it was just good hard footy.”

There were no protests at the ground.

Errol Tobias, the only coloured player in the 1981 Springboks squad, and other players are welcomed to the Grand Hotel in Invercargill ahead of the team’s tour match against Southland at Rugby Park.

“I think they would have been pretty game to turn up at Rugby Park, they would have got dealt to I think,” Rutledge said.

“There’s no way Southland people were going to put up with that sort of rubbish.”

Southland was a rugby province and most if its people didn’t want to get involved in the politics, he added.

Rutledge has visited South Africa five times since 1981 and said he could certainly understand why people were protesting against the tour.

“Looking back, I think if we could all have our time again, the tour may not have happened under the [apartheid] regime. I think you have to go there to appreciate how bad it was, and I certainly saw that side of it.”

Springboks flanker Thys Burger prepares to sample a Bluff oyster when the team visited Johnson’s Oyster factory on August 7, 1981.

Though there were no protests at the game there were protests on Invercargill streets.

At 5.30am on game day Minto and more than 30 anti-tour protestors, mostly from out of town, gathered on the street outside the Grand Hotel, where the Springboks were staying.

They made a racket with loud hailers and whistles to wake up the players and “let them know they were in New Zealand”.

A confrontation between police and protestors subsequently ensued, which was when Minto received his head gash, and, according to news reports of the day, 24 people were arrested and four were later charged, including Minto.

Minto said he was roughed up by police that morning, but Southland’s rural police boss of the day, Neville Cook, said he was disappointed the Hart protestors had tried to paint the police as violent attackers as that wasn’t the case.

Cook had little sympathy for Minto’s head gash.

“Every time he went near a policeman he ended up with a cut somewhere on his face and a new sticking plaster got applied. I think that was part of his image, I don’t really think he had all those injuries.”

Minto laughed off those comments, but said he recalled police arriving outside the hotel and one saying: ‘There’s Minto, I’ll have you’, before shoving him into a pile of milk crates and ploughing his head into the door of a police car.

Southland and Springbok players battle it out during the tourists match at Invercargill's Rugby Park on August 8, 1981. South Africa won 22-6.

“I ended up getting charged with resisting arrest which was all bizarre.”

Minto [later convicted of resisting arrest] was released from police custody later the same day and joined protestors at Queens Park ahead of their march through city streets.

He told them Invercargill was a city with “deeply embedded racism”.

“We are here today to prove we care more for the rights of 23 million blacks in Africa than for 80 minutes of rugby,” he said at the time.

The demonstrators had to contend with a rowdy group of hecklers during the march, but there were no incidents apart from a few eggs, stones and clods of dirt thrown, news reports said.

Strong lines of police walking beside the marchers prevented any physical confrontations.

Minto stood by his racism claim, when asked about it this week, but said he had returned to Invercargill several times since ‘81 and it was a “lovely place with lovely people. Things do move on”.

Anti tour protesters and police square off in Invercargill, on the corner of Tay and Ness streets, on August 8, 1981.

Reports in ‘81 said more than 70 per cent of people in Invercargill supported the tour, he said.

Neil Boniface, an Invercargill city councillor in 1981, said he didn’t think racism in the city was any worse than other areas of New Zealand at that time.

“It was certainly there, and it was certainly in New Zealand, but we have moved on a long way since then.”

Southland's strong support for the tour showed out in spades during the Springboks time in the deep south.

They were met at Invercargill Airport on August 6 with a heavy police presence, but no protestors, and soon realised they were in friendly territory as smiling faces welcomed them.

“This was something new to us [in New Zealand]. Something quite new,” manager Johannes Claassen said at the time.

Peter TeTai, right, was a liaison officer and bus driver for the 1981 Springboks during their stay in Invercargill, where they played Southland at Rugby Park on August 8 of that year. He is photographed with South African lock Hennie Bekker at the city’s Grand Hotel in 1981.

Peter TeTai, a Rugby Southland liaison officer who drove the Springboks team bus during their Invercargill stay, said the players felt safe in the city compared to the larger centres where more protest action took place.

The players were able to “mingle a bit more” in Invercargill, they walked down Dee Street, played golf and visited Bluff.

Indeed, they felt so safe, they later returned to the city for a couple of days to prepare for the first test match in Christchurch.

TeTai, of Ngapuhi descent, said he was a rugby man and felt honoured to help look after the Springboks.

He didn’t know much about the apartheid regime in their country at the time which was “probably lucky otherwise I many not have accepted the job”.

He got on well with the Springbok players who were a good bunch of men, he said.

In the Springboks squad was Hennie Bekker, and when his son Andries later represented the Springboks in New Zealand he gave TeTai his South African tie, in part for helping look after his father in ‘81.

Peter TeTai today. He was a liaison officer and bus driver for the 1981 Springboks during their stay in Invercargill.

Not everyone was so enamoured by the South African visit to Invercargill.

Owen Jones, The Southland Times chief photographer of the time, recalls the hatred protestors directed towards police during the street march in the city on game day.

A Times reporter on the day, Michael Fallow, recalls some nasty comments directed at the protestors from onlookers. They were told they needed a job, were scruffy, communists and one male called them “black lovers”.

Southland was “far more pro-tour” than urban centres in New Zealand, but there were also lots of anti-tour people in the province, Fallow said.

Cook was on police duty for the protest march in Invercargill, to ensure they didn’t get out of hand and to ensure the rugby people didn’t interfere with them.

“There were a few words exchanged but the rugby people were very controlled, and so were the marchers.

“We didn't see the riots we had in other places. They made the point they were opposed to the tour, they had their signs and chants … but were well behaved.”

Cook said it was disappointing to see Rugby Park with barbed wire around the field and police everywhere during the game.

“Southlanders liked their rugby and that’s all they were interested in. They weren’t interested in the politics.”

Lynn McConnell, the Southland Times sports editor in 1981, said the warm welcome the Springboks received in the deep south was typical for the region.

“It wasn’t so much about protest or support for the Springboks, it was about giving them a fair go and treating them as visitors to our community.”

South African high commissioner to New Zealand, Vuyiswa Tulelo said she believed the nationwide protests against the tour in ‘81 made a difference to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

“The apartheid regime had managed to hide the truth about its atrocities to the world. The protests showed them the world had seen, and it did not approve.”

The protests gave South Africans back home a “visible sign from a corner of the world” that they could do better.

She believed the decision by New Zealanders to not accept a Springbok side that was not representative of its nation’s people was a watershed moment for both countries.

South Africa’s first democratic elections were held in 1994 and the changes in that country between 1981 and 2021 were as clear as night and day. However, the creation of an equal, free and just society was still a work in progress, Tulelo said.

South Africa’s only coloured player on the ‘81 tour, Errol Tobias, now in his early 70s, declined to be interviewed by Stuff, saying he would only do so if he received payment, as that was how he made his living nowadays.

The Game:

Teams: Southland v South Africa

Date: August 8, 1981

Venue: Rugby Park, Invercargill

Crowd: 20,000

Score: Springboks 22, Southland 6.

Scorers for South Africa: Edrich Krantz, Rob Louw and Johan Marais tries; Naas Botha two penalty goals and two conversions.

Scorers for Southland: Brian McKechnie a penalty goal and a dropped goal.

The players:

Southland

Jeff Gardiner [fullback]

Wayne Boynton [winger]

Kelvin Farrington [winger]

Steve Pokere [centre]

Paul Laidlaw [second five]

Brian McKechnie [first five]

Chris Hiini [halfback]

Bruce Robertson [No 8]

Ken Stewart [openside flanker and captain]

Leicester Rutledge [blindside flanker]

David Orr [lock]

Allan Byrne [lock]

Bruce Lewis [prop]

Lex Chisholm [hooker]

Doug Murcott [prop]

Springboks

G Pienaar [fullback]

D Botha [winger]

W du Plessis [winger]

D Gerber [centre]

E Krantz [second five]

N Botha [first five]

D Serfontein [halfback]

J Marais [No 8]

R Louw [openside flanker]

B Geldenhuys [blindside flanker]

L Moolman [lock]

T Stofberg [lock and captain]

H van Aswegen [prop]

W Kahts [hooker]

P du Toit [prop]