THE YEAR WE WON THE CUP BY KATE SHAW

Te Ao Hou, December 1957, Page 61

THE YEAR WE WON THE CUP BY KATE SHAW When the Maori girl first learned of hockey she took to the game like a duck to water and she played very well. Our town of Rotorua was no exception and all our best players were Maori girls or girls of Maori extraction. Our game suffered however, from lack of competition and it was a good day when we decided to enter for the Auckland Country Week Tournament as from then on our game improved. For two years we tried unsuccessfully for the Provincial Cup (the main trophy at the Country Week Tournament) and the third year we were successful. Among the strong opponents of that year were Auckland A and Waikato. We played Auckland A in the semi-final and the game ended in a draw—I all, with no provision in the rules for a draw in a semi-final. A hurried meeting was held and a decision made to play another two spells of ten minutes each. During this time we scored twice more, the game ending Rotorua 3, Auckland A 1. The final was played against Waikato who were the holders of the Cup. Our opponents seemed nervous but our team went on the field full of confidence. With two teams almost equally good this confident approach was all to our advantage and we beat Waikato 2 goals to 1. And so we took home to Rotorua for the first time the Auckland Provincial Cup. We were met at the station in triumphant fashion by the Mayor and Councillors and the Municipal Band and it was all very exciting indeed. I have happy memories of my hockey days, memories of a laughter-loving, singing, friendly, pleasant, sympathetic lot of girls. I will never forget them and the fun we had together. I discovered when looking up old records to verify my facts that we won the Cup in the year 1925 and that makes it 32 years ago. Inevitably one or two of the old team have passed on, among them the singing bird Ana Hato, Putu Manahi and Rua Hatu, together with our chaper-one Mrs Ngaroma Steele. Rua was so wrapped up in her hockey that when she died she left the Hockey Association her four beautiful piu pius and a small sum of money.