GOALPOST SAWN AT PARK

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32312, 2 June 1970, Page 1

GOALPOST SAWN AT PARK

A Canterbury Rugby Union working party was summoned to Lancaster Park at short notice yesterday morning after persons opposed to the All Black tour of South Africa had used a saw and several tar brushes during the night.

Only a few hours before the annual Town-Country matches at the park, an Oregon goal-post on the oval was sawn down and the words “No Tour” were daubed crudely on seats and the concrete frontages of the No. 3 stand. The words, “blacks” and “whites” were painted on public conveniences. Officials won a race against time by erecting a temporary 25ft upright to replace the stricken post, which was sawn through above the padding. The slogans, six in all, were painted over, but the words were showing faintly through the coating at the end of a sunny afternoon. The tarred seats were roped off for yesterday’s games, but

one member of the Town squad who sat in front of No. 3 stand had an ugly black smudge about the size of a football on the back of his jersey at the end of the game. Only one member of the All Black team to tour South Africa, A. J. Wyllie, played in the Town-Country match, but another tourist, A. E. Hopkinson, watched the game from the stands.

The president of the Canterbury Ruby ■ Union (Mr C. H. McPhail) referred to the persons responsible for the damage as “these courageous people who operate under cover of darkness.” The cost of restoring the goal-post will be between SlOO and $l2O.