Rudolf Boelee "Whaddarya?"

"WHADDARYA?" RUDOLF BOELEE ALL BLACK RUGBY

Dedicated to the memory of my mentor, the late Edward (Ted) Bullmore, artist and rugby player.

ALL BLACKS

"WHADDARYA?" RUDOLF BOELEE A PICTORIAL STORY ABOUT ALL BLACK RUGBY ISBN 978-0-20758-8

"Whaddarya?"

Art works, texts & design: Rudolf Boelee

*Publisher: Crown Lynn New Zealand Limited P O Box 32092 Christchurch 8147 New Zealand

*In association with Germinal Press, PO Box 330, Sydney NSW 2042

Essay: Andrew Paul Wood

Poem: Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

Š Rudolf Boelee, 2013

I started working on material for "Whaddarya?" during 2011. My wife Robyne Voyce and I were displaced from our house in Christchurch, due to the February 22nd earthquake, and my only way to make any work at all was with a little old Dell laptop. New Zealand was in the midst of Rugby World Cup media hysteria, with the 'weight of history' hanging heavily over the team and their coaches. This made me think of all these players who came before and how they would have reacted to this situation (in the professional era). In first instance "Whaddarya?" was a Facebook project, because we were continuously travelling and the only way I could gauge if there was any interest in what I was trying to do, was through regular posts from virtually every public library in the South Island. I like to thank Andrew Paul Wood, Tony Carr, Eugene Huston, Johnny Lardner, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, Jim Wilson, David Boyce for their very useful comments, Tony Carr for giving me the script of Greg McGee's "Foreskin's Lament" and most of all Michael Williams who gave me the idea for this project in the first place.

Rudolf Boelee

ALL BLACKS

RODCHENKO - STEPANOVA – DELAUNAY – FEININGER – GROSZ DELAUNAY

SPORT MODERNISM

SOME BACKGROUND The Roaring Twenties is a phrase used to describe the 1920s, principally in North America, but also in London, Berlin and Paris for a period of sustained economic prosperity.

The phrase was meant to emphasize the period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism.

'Normalcy' returned to politics in the wake of World War I, jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood, Art Deco peaked, and finally the Wall Street Crash of 1929 served to punctuate the end of that era, as The Great Depression set in. The era was further distinguished by several realities of far-reaching importance, unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle and culture.

SPORTS The Roaring Twenties was the breakout decade for sports across the modern world.

Citizens from all parts of the country flocked to see the top athletes of the day compete in arenas and stadiums. Their exploits were loudly and highly praised in the new "gee whiz" style of sports journalism that was emerging; champions of this style of writing included the legendary writers Grantland Rice and Damon Runyon in the U.S. Sports literature presented a new form of heroism departing from the traditional models of masculinity. High school and junior high schools were offered to play sports that they hadn’t been able to play in the past. Several sports, such as golf, that had previously been unavailable to the middleclass finally became available. Also, a notable motor sports feat was accomplished in Roaring Twenties as driver Henry Seagrave, driving his car the Golden Arrow, reaches at the time in 1929 a record speed of 231.44 mph.

BERTOLT BRECHT

German poet, playwright, theatre director and the Brecht Collective with their attitude of 'Neue Sachlichkeit' (or New Matter-ofFactness), their stressing of the collectivity and downplaying of the individual, and their new cult of Anglo-Saxon imagery and sport.

Together the "collective" would go to fights, not only absorbing their terminology and ethos (which permeates Man Equals Man) but also drawing those conclusions for the theatre as a whole which Brecht set down in his theoretical essay "Emphasis on Sport" and tried to realize by means of the harsh lighting, the boxing-ring stage and other anti-illusionistic devices that henceforward appeared in his own productions.

START

For a whole generation god was only twice as high as the posts. We who know our history by itineraries – the cold war of the ‘50s you say? Oh yes, we remember it well, those front-row problems, Skinner and Bekker. ’59? A mélange of O’Reilly’s creamy thighs, Jackson’s jinks, DB’s size 13s, and a sheep-dog retrieving the ball in a cow-paddock in Morrinsville. Froggies in ’61, Poms again in ’66 –bloody awful!

– those artistes of ’68, Villepreux and Jo Maso, a Pinetree bestriding the ‘60s with a sheep under each arm, the Bokkies in ’73 – the ones that didn’t come, that nevermore will come . . . there was one thing we knew with certainty: come winter, we’d be there, on the terrace, answering the only call that mattered – c’mon black! . . . While the nectar flowed till you could almost see the reflection of your youth in its dregs . . passing . . . passing. I know the lore, I know the catechism.

- Greg McGee, Foreskin’s Lament, 1981

START

The whistle blew, there was a glare of sunlight, and we were outside going out onto the field, right out in the open. A roar from the crowd rolled around us enveloping us. A cold easterly breeze blew through our jerseys as we lined up for the photographers, squinting into the low sun. The Southern players looked broad and compact in their black and white jerseys. We gave three cheers and trotted out in the middle.

The turf felt fine and springy. We spaced ourselves out. I took some deep breaths to get charged out up with oxygen for the first ten minutes. A Southern player dug a hole with his heel and placed the ball.

'All right Southern? All right Varsity?' called the referee.

Both captains nodded. He blew the whistle. The Southern man ran up to kick.

'Thank Christ,' I thought. 'The game at last.'

- A. P. Gaskell, “The Big Game�, 1947

THE BIG GAME

START ONE

TWO

THREE

and the claret flowed without abatement‌

What the tango is to Argentina, rugby is to New Zealand, with all of

its attendant national mythology, strict rules of masculinity, and nostalgia for an amateur past when men were gladiators who trained with the sheep in the paddock (although the backbone of New Zealand rugby has always really been urban, not rural), and the claret flowed without abatement. Our image of it is mostly mythological, first as a myth of nationalism, second as a myth of corporate marketing. It is a religion with all of the dogma, catechisms, gospels, creeds, cultus and schismatic heresies of a religion. Its language is martial‌ Rugby football is a game I can't claim absolutely to understand in all its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general principles, of course. I mean to say, I know that the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line at the other end and that, in order to squelch this programme, each side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow man which, if done elsewhere, would result in 14 days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench.

- P. G. Wodehouse Very Good, Jeeves (1930) Rugby football was introduced to New Zealand from England by Charles Monro in the late 1860s; first recorded game in New Zealand took place in May 1870 in Nelson. Canterbury was the first union, formed in 1879. In 1882, New Zealand's first internationals were played when the New South Wales team toured the Dominion.

Two years later the first New Zealand team to go overseas toured New South Wales; New Zealand played and won eight games. The first tour by a British team took place in 1888 when a team toured Australia and New Zealand.

Rugby is a beastly game played by gentlemen; soccer is a gentleman's game played by beasts; football is a beastly game played by beasts. - Henry Blaha

Only in New Zealand and Wales did rugby evolve from a public school elite game to a mass sport. It came to reflect an intensely passive-aggressive,

conformist,

patriarchal

and colonial society influenced by the ideals of Victorian upper and middle classes. Rugby has

been

a

means

of

promoting

male

exclusivity, but also been a means of cultural integration and patriotic nationalism. Rugby emerged as a democratic space of social mixing, mutual respect and common purpose at the same time as the Industrial Revolution.

This tribal physical combat of controlled violence translated into character, manhood, mateship, and other assorted stoic frontier martial virtues, complete with epic battles, transcendent

victories,

crushing

defeats,

heroes, villains, and operatic drama.

RUGBY IS A BEASTLY GAME PLAYED BY GENTLEMEN

Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the centre of the city.

- Oscar Wilde From the first 1905 tour until the anti-Apartheid riots sparked by the Springbok tour of 1981, rugby promoted Empire and Commonwealth solidarity, and projected an image of New Zealand manhood that was virile, naturally dextrous and athletic, adaptable and sharp. From the 1970s, however, the loyalty within the amateur game began to crumble as the players increasingly were unable to finance their rugby careers in the face of high inflation and the increasing pettiness of the NZRFU over finances (nothing new there). The professionalization of rugby in 1995 brought the belle ĂŠpoque to an end.

“Today's All Blacks pale in comparison to the "tree” November 2002

The Guardian, 4

Each photograph has that classic look, those telltale aesthetics and semiotics familiar from many a Rugby Annual.

COACHES

It is slightly unexpected to see All Blacks depicted in art this colourfully – black, after all, is nearly synonymous with New Zealand art through the auspices of Colin McCahon and Ralph Hotere.

CAPTAINS

Sir Graham William Henry KNZM (born 8 June 1946 in Christchurch) is a New Zealand Rugby Union coach, and former head coach of the country's national team, the All Blacks. He played rugby union for Canterbury and cricket for Otago in the Plunket Shield. Henry was heavily criticized following the All Blacks quarterfinal exit at the 2007 Rugby World Cup and was controversially reappointed. He was vindicated, however, when the All Blacks won the 2011 Rugby World Cup final and is one of the most successful coaches to have ever coached the All Blacks. On 1 November 2011, Henry announced he would be stepping down as All Blacks coach of 140 matches in a career that included a series victory over the touring British and Irish Lions in 2005, five Tri Nations, three Grand Slams and one Rugby World Cup title.

Rudolf Boelee’s "Whaddarya?"

(the

In a style ultimately deriving from Andy Warhol’s stereographic treatment of the mass image,

title taken from the Greg McGee’s

many a legendary moustache or

seminal 1981 play Foreskin’s

cauliflower ear is immortalised in

Lament) is a series of prints

mud brown, dried blood puce,

celebrating that glorious age of

grass green, half-time orange,

rugby when All Blacks played for

lager amber, nicotine yellow, and

pride, glory, and camaraderie, and

a palette of other assorted

counterpoints it with the modern

colours that would not be out of

equivalents that don’t quite fit the

place in any pub up until the

spokes model or biological tank

gentrification of the 1980s. The

moulds. They were roughest of

effect is rather like Byzantine

gentlemen, or the most genteel of

saints against the gold ground of

ruffians. At Eden Park in 1956,

icons. Each photograph has that

Peter Jones scored an

classic look, those tell-tale

extraordinary try in the pivotal

aesthetics and semiotics familiar

fourth test against the

from many a Rugby Annual. It is

Springboks, the All Blacks’ first

slightly unexpected to see All

series win over the Springboks.

Blacks depicted in art this

When asked for comment, he

colourfully – black, after all, is

responded “Ladies and

nearly synonymous with New

gentlemen, I hope I never have to

Zealand art through the auspices

play another game like that in my

of Colin McCahon and Ralph

life. I’m absolutely buggered”. The

Hotere. How nice to see All

New Zealand Herald refused to

Blacks depicted in art which is

print it and the recording spent

not a grotesque pseudo-

the next 30 years buried in the

fascist/pseudo-Socialist Realist

radio archives.

Weta Studio-regurgitation, or the

black, after all, is nearly synonymous with New Zealand art

Volkswagen-like buttocks of a nude and callipygian Anton Oliver as immortalised in oils by Simon Richardson.

FORWARDS

FORWARDS

BACKS

BACKS

Haunted For Ken Gray, the Ghost, All Black Praying karanga call Haunted

of Haere mai!

by these wild men who tower up in black,

circling the cruel earth

hunted

will make me cry.

by the land's power calling me back.

Stood here with tupuna

Buried

in a foreign grave,

In the stone drive of a dead mine,

stooping at my father's father's

banished

buried face.

from a coal town shut down.

Divided by double blessing

Cut off

clean in two,

from syllables of sea speech,

divining with a trembling fork

enough

myself askew.

to make a mountain smooth on the quartz beach

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

FORWARDS

FORWARDS

BACKS

BACKS

Colin Meads on assessing 'Tiny' Hill: "He was a ruthless player and no doubt his attitude rubbed off on me. He was a player who hurt you when he brushed against you. But he was not a dirty player. He was one the greatest rakers of them all, but I never knew him to kick a man. He would tread over men to get to the ball, but that's rugby and I have never seen a man badly hurt by sprigs."

FORWARDS

FORWARDS

Richard 'Tiny' White played for Poverty Bay. He debuted for the All Blacks in 1949 by playing two tests against Australia and he immediately became an important player for them. He never missed a test match during his career and was only subbed off once in his career. White also played in thirty of the 36 games during the All Blacks 1953–54 New Zealand rugby union tour of Britain, Ireland, France and North America, this number was the most of any player. White was regarded as being excellent in the lineout. He was also very quick and had "incredible stamina." Terry McLean once remarked that he was "a wonderful player" who "played with matchless vigour, especially in the lineout." White was forced to retire from rugby at age thirty-two after he received a kick in the back. This along with his farming injuries and an almost paralyzed left hand was too much for him to continue playing.

His final game was during the 1956 tour by South Africa. The All Blacks won the series 3-1 which was their first ever victory against South Africa in a test series.

There is, indeed, something timeless and classical about the images in

Whaddarya – not the idealized “pretty boys” of the Classical canon

The Greek poet Pindar is perhaps most famous for his odes celebrating the athletes of his day. A frequent leitmotif in his poetry is the notion that fame survives not in deeds, but in what is written about them. The same can be achieved in the visual arts, though Leni Riefenstahl would have found little appealing here.

There is, indeed, something timeless and classical about the images in Whaddarya – not the idealised “pretty boys” of the Classical canon (also a feature foisted on the professional game by the marketing machine – Dan Carter and Sonny Bill Williams come to mind), but the thickened cartilage and broken noses of the statues of Olympic boxers and pancratists roughly contemporary with Pindar with their sagging paunches, cauliflower ears and tree trunk legs that took the massive body punches and keep on taking them is a much more brutal age – the mainstays of Hellenistic verism. They wear with pride their battle scars of one bout too many, and prepare for yet another. They wonder if they will win, or whether this will be the last their martyred bodies can take. We wonder also.

but the thickened cartilage and broken noses of the statues of Olympic boxers

1987

New Zealand won the final against France at Eden Park in

Auckland 29–9. The New Zealand team was captained by David Kirk, substituting for the injured Andy Dalton, and included such rugby greats as Sean Fitzpatrick, John Kirwan, Grant Fox and Michael Jones. The tournament was seen as a major success and proved that the event was here to stay and also led to many countries joining the International Rugby Football Board which in turn led the IRFB to become the true authority for the running of international rugby union.

I had 17 or 18 stitches. Fred Allen reckoned my backside twitched every time the needle went in... that night we all went to the after-match dinner. I had a towel around my neck because the wound was weeping, so that made me look a sight. Benoit Dauga came over. I'd cut my hand on his teeth and broken his nose. My hand had turned septic. Hygiene in those days was... well, it didn't really exist. Dauga was stammering, trying to find the words to ask me a question. He wanted to know why I'd belted him. I was astonished and pointed to my head. The dirty so-andso...

- Colin Meads, cited Donald McRae, “Today's All Blacks pale in comparison to the 'tree�, The Guardian, 4 November 2002

For 56 days in July, August and September 1981, New Zealanders were divided against each other in the largest civil disturbance seen since the 1951 waterfront dispute. More than 150,000 people took part in over 200 demonstrations in 28 centres, and 1500 were charged with offences stemming from these protests. To some observers it might seem inconceivable that the cause of this unrest was the visit to New Zealand of the South African rugby team (the Springboks). Although not a major sport on a global scale, rugby has established itself not only as New Zealand’s number one sport but as a vital component in this country’s national identity.

In many ways the playing of rugby took a back seat in 1981, and the sport suffered in the following years as players and supporters came to terms with the fallout from the tour.

Some commentators have described this event as the moment when New Zealand lost its innocence as a country and as being a watershed in our view of ourselves as a country and people.

The rest of the world realised there was rugby gold in the Pacific.

Auckland really will be the world's biggest Pacific Island city today when Eden Park welcomes 60,000 to see Samoa play Fiji. For the Samoans, the hype and interest this game has generated will be confirmation they have been world rugby's most compelling story for the past two decades. It is almost 20 years to the day since Western Samoa as they were known in 1991 pulled off the unthinkable and beat Wales at the old Cardiff Arms Park. It was a day clocks stopped in the Principality and a day the rest of the world realised there was

rugby gold in the Pacific.

Keith Murdoch, a prop,

Kevin

played for Otago from 1964 to

(born Thursday, 24 November

1972, except for one season

1927), a prop, who played in 20

each for Hawke's Bay (1965)

international

and Auckland (1966). He

Zealand, 2 of them as captain.

represented New Zealand from

He was also a heavy weight

1970–1972, playing in 27

boxer,

matches for the All Blacks,

Zealand championship in 1947.

including three test matches.

Skinner was selected for the

He toured with the All Blacks

1949 All Black tour of South

to South Africa in 1970 and to

Africa. He continued playing

Great Britain and Ireland in

for the All Blacks and was

1972, but was troubled by

captain

injury throughout both series.

against South Africa. Skinner

Murdoch's career ended controversially and mysteriously. He scored the All Blacks' only try in their 1972 win against Wales in Cardiff, but later the same night was involved in a fracas in which he punched security guard Peter Grant, knocking him to the ground, as he attempted to enter into the famous rugby watering hole, The Angel Hotel which was closed at the time.

He was later sent home from the tour by All Black management, reputedly after pressure was brought to bear by the home rugby unions.

Lawrence

tests

winning

in

the

Skinner

for

the

1952

New

New

series

also went on the tour to Great Brittan and played in 27 games including all five tests. He was one of the key players. Skinner retired at the end of the 1954 season but he played again for the All Blacks for the final two tests against South Africa in 1956. Both those tests were won by New Zealand. "Six foot tall (1.83m) and weighing 15st 4lb (97kg) Kevin Skinner, a skilled rush

lineout

No.2,

stopper,

scrummager

and

expert strong

extremely

mobile, remains one of the very best props New Zealand has produced."

Skinner remains one of the very best props New Zealand has produced.

At Eden Park in 1956, Peter Jones scored an extraordinary try in the pivotal fourth test against the Springboks, the All Blacks’ first series win over the Springboks. When asked for comment, he responded “Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I never have to play another game like that in my life. I’m absolutely buggered”. The New Zealand

Herald refused to print it and the recording spent the next 30 years buried in the radio archives.

Jonah Tali Lomu, is a New Zealand rugby union player. He had sixty-three caps as an All Black after debuting in 1994. He is generally regarded as the first true global superstar of rugby union. He has had a huge impact on the game. He was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame on 9 October 2007,[2] and the IRB Hall of Fame on 24 October 2011. Lomu burst onto the international rugby scene during the 1994 Hong Kong Sevens tournament and was widely acknowledged to be the top player at the 1995 World Cup in South Africa even though New Zealand lost the championship game to the host Springboks. At one time Lomu was considered 'rugby union's biggest draw card, swelling attendances at any match where he appeared. He is officially the Rugby World Cup all-time top try scorer with 15 tries.

Bryan Williams, MBE (born 3 October 1950 in Auckland, New Zealand) is a former New Zealand rugby union footballer and coach of the Samoan national rugby team. His father was Samoan, and his mother a Rarotongan of Samoan descent and Williams went to school in Mt Albert Grammar School, where he started his rugby career. He became an All Black in 1970 as a wing and distinguished himself in the 1970 South African Rugby Tour where he was a sensation, scoring 14 tries in his 13 appearances and in the international series he scored in each of the first and fourth Tests. This was during apartheid, so with his parentage he was only able to tour after honorary white status was granted. Williams international rugby career lasted from 1970 to 1978 in which he played 113 matches (including 38 international Tests) and scored 66 tries in all matches as an All Black (ten tries in Tests) which was a record until beaten by John Kirwan. After he retired from rugby, he coached a number of club sides in New Zealand. During the 1990s onwards, he has been the national rugby coach for Samoa.

CLARET

VIOLENCE ON THE FIELD Tension was high in the second Bledisloe Cup test of 1992, with the Wallabies having sneaked the first test 1615 in Sydney. And then it all got too much for All Black prop and Herald on Sunday columnist Richard Loe. Australian wing Paul Carozza slid in for his first of two tries that day and before he even had time to think about cracking a smile he was wondering how come his nose was spread across his face. The answer was that it had been hit by the forearm of Loe, who had dropped on Carozza just after the wing had scored. The incident left Loe the most reviled man in Australia and Carozza famous not for being a half-useful Wallaby, but for being king-hit.

1992 was a year of penitence for Mr. Loe. Shortly after smacking Carozza, he was back in front of the judiciary, this time for eye-gouging All Black team-mate Greg Cooper. It's hard to imagine what Cooper, possibly the world's nicest human, could have done to deserve such treatment. Loe was banned for six months but as we at the Herald on Sunday have discovered, Loe is probably the second-nicest human on the planet. He just needed to get that anger out of his system.

Boelee, born in the Netherlands in 1940, is uniquely placed as an outside

observer

some

of

the

to

highlight

more

völkisch

obsessions of New Zealand-ness.

His father was a socialist and an atheist, and had been a member of the utopian idealists known as the

AJC

Centrale

(Arbeiders or

“Young

Jeugd Workers

Organisation”) and his childhood began with the German’s bombing of Rotterdam and continued under the Nazi occupation. Boelee is thus attuned to the effects of capitalism and social ideology on communities.

He

also

played

rugby himself, mainly as a prop, starting

while

working

at

the

Whakatane Board Mills, Eastern Bay of Plenty, in 1969 in tough so called 'shift games'. He was then in

his

late

twenties

with

no

technique to speak of, playing against veterans. From there he was

asked

Football

to

Club,

join

Poroporo

associated

with

one of the local marae. “I was one of the few pakehas there and I suppose being Dutch did not make me like 'them'. I kept playing there

on

and

off

for

a

few

seasons, until I left the district, played a bit in Tokoroa, trained with a French club in the South of France and a team in Holland. By 1976 it was enough already…”

He also played rugby himself, starting while working at the Whakatane Board Mills, Eastern Bay of Plenty, in 1969, in tough so called 'shift games'.

The football match at Carisbrook was over. Dusk was already falling, and during the last part of the game the flight of the ball and even the movements of the players had been hard to follow in the failing light. Now, looking across the field, I could see the crowd dimly massing around the gates. Here and there a small yellow flame flickered where a smoker was lighting up, and the whole crows moved under a thin blue haze of tobacco-smoke. After all the cheering the place seemed very quiet, and from the street outside came the noise of cars starting up and whining off in low gear, and a tram screeching round the corner under the railway bridge.

Overhead the sky was clear with a promise of frost. A few small boys ran with shrill cries under the goalposts; the rest of the field lay empty in the grey light, and the smell of mud came through the damp air. I shivered and glanced down at my steaming jersey.

- A. P. Gaskell, “The Big Game�, 1947

END ALL BLACKS

Rudolf Boelee’s

"Whaddarya?" (The title taken from the Greg McGee’s

seminal 1981 play Foreskin’s Lament) is a series of prints celebrating that glorious age of rugby when All Blacks played for pride, glory, and camaraderie, and counterpoints it with the modern equivalents that don’t quite fit the spokes model or biological tank moulds. In a style ultimately deriving from Andy Warhol’s stereographic treatment of the mass image, many a legendary moustache or cauliflower ear is immortalized in mud brown, dried blood puce, grass green, half-time orange, lager amber, nicotine yellow, and a palette of other assorted colours that would not be out of place in any pub up until the gentrification of the 1980s. The effect is rather like Byzantine saints against the gold ground of icons. Each photograph has that classic look, those tell-tale aesthetics and semiotics familiar from many a Rugby Annual.

Andrew Paul Wood ISBN 978-0-473-20758-8