1995: Professional Rugby
August 10, 2024
By AHNZ
Today in New Zealand history, 10 August, 1995, cultural and rugby history was made. Josh Kronfeld and Jeff Wilson signed professional contracts with the NZ Rugby Union. The first All Blacks to do so.
The Australian-based World Rugby Corporation had big plans but they were defeated….By the All Blacks teaming up instead with Rupert Murdoch (also Australia-based!)
New Zealand sport had not been bifurcated between professional and amateur. Our sporting heroes had been like General Cincinnatus who, after battle, would lay down power and celebrity and go back to the farm. All that changed.
“The game now responds not to the nationalistic fervour of an adoring public but to the television programme schedulers and the corporate sponsors. The culture has changed. The All Blacks no longer play for the rest of us.
Indeed, the transformation of rugby in may ways mirrors the transformation of New Zealand society itself…Today there are three classes of participans: those at the top who get paid a lot, those who are on the way up who get paid a little, and all the rest whose only return is the buzz they get from playing.” – Chris Laidlaw (1999)
“It was called a rugby war. And our boys helped win the day. New Zealand’s national game was in turmoil in 1995,…” – ODT (2019)
“From our point of view it’s unfortunate that the 15-year success has ended in that way but we accept that we have to go with the flow. From our point of view we just have to move on and find someone else for the properties that Philips had.” – Philips ends All Blacks sponsorship, NZH (2008)
The national team became an organism in its own right rather than part of the nation. A brand.
I remember in the 90s when I bought my first electric shaver. It was from Harvey Norman on Moorhouse Avenue. I kept the box for years, maybe I still have it. It was an “All Blacks” branded Phillips device which I only finally threw out in mid-2024 because I was moving house. When I purchased it, in my naivety, I believed what it said on the box. I had a vision that a labcoat boffin from Phillips electronics lab had popped into the All Blacks locker rooms at half time with my shaver’s prototype. The All Blacks checked out the machine and roundly voted in favor of it as approved! And from there it was mass produced and shipped off to Harvey Norman to sell!
What else was I supposed to believe? That the All Black’s approval was for sale and that Phillips had purchased it? And, that it wasn’t the team’s approval at all but rather their commercial manager? There was nobody around to teach me that but I did feel that way about this and just about everything around me as a Gen Xer growing up. A deep sense of alienation and mistrust that was made worse by being suppressed. Not my fault. We had the likes of the All Blacks themselves promoting such ‘truths’ and nobody to say otherwise. Certainly not the mainstream media who made their money propagating such lies. It wasn’t until later that I learned the strong sense of preservation that relies on healthy cynicism. The ability to look behind appearances and survive the disappointment; Something Generation X are characterised by.
And, of course, what is the Anarchist History of New Zealand except an expanded version of dealing with the betrayal of my Phillips ‘All Blacks’ shaver?
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Image ref. Greatest moments in Otago sport, ODT (2011)
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