Known as ‘Chub’ to all his friends, Brian Hays is a legend within teaching and rugby circles in our city. His long teaching career at Burnside, Cashmere and Rangiora High Schools (where he was Deputy Principal) matched an equally impressive playing and coaching career in rugby. In the code his pinnacle as player came with selection in the NZ Universities team and then as an assistant coach of the NZ Women’s Rugby team (Black Ferns) which won the Barcelona World Cup in 2002. Brian is also a Life Member of the University of Canterbury Rugby Football Club (UCRFC). For this article he has interviewed the former Rangiora High School Principal, 94 year old Colin Macintosh, a very highly respected educationalist in New Zealand in his time.
Colin Macintosh is the oldest living Tiger and remembers well the early days. The iconic Timpson’s Tigers team at UCRFC was the very first social rugby team in NZ. It was formed by its namesake, the late Tony Timpson (Life Member UCRFC) in 1952. Colin was on the steps of the UC Geography Dept (town site campus, Arts Centre today) the day Tony put the team together and both played in the first game. The team played in the famous jersey with the upturned tiger as its logo and was mainly made up of second and third year students who were “studious” and therefore didn’t have the time to commit to a team that trained regularly.
Original Tigers “Rules”
- Had to be in the back bar of the Clarendon Hotel – closest bar to UC—at 5.30pm on a Friday to be selected.
- The team did NOT train … but did have two basketball teams in a YMCA competition (opposite UC).
- There is NO washing of your playing gear.
- The first time the team entered the opposition 25-yard line (today’s 22) you had to try to drop a goal.
The unofficial team game plan “if all fails, put up an up and under”. They played quite a “zany” style of rugby in the schools’ 1st XV grade (v CBHS, St Andrew’s, Christ’s et al). In one game they were up 18-0 at halftime v CBHS and got beaten 21-18. Some Fridays Tony Timpson would stand up in lectures and ask “do you play rugby?” – if a positive reply the student would get the message to “be at the Clarendon at 5.30pm”. One game in North Hagley by Nancy’s hotel the team only had 11 players. Some hostel students were biking on the adjacent cycle path, Tony stopped them, “do you have boots?”, and by halftime the team had 15.
Zane (Zombie) Dalzell (Christ’s College Biology master) and long serving Canterbury lock played many games for the Tigers when he had a free Saturday but was eventually disqualified as rep players were not permitted to play down the grades.
Naturally the social side was high on the agenda of the young men. Colin recalls one particular party in Swanns Rd at Tony Timpson’s hall, the players had to attend in dress suits and then Tony made everyone swim in suits in the nearby Avon River (on a very cold June night). Another night they went to the Sumner RSA dance (as you did in the ’50s). There was no seawall in those days and the RSA flooded at high tide. The lads had to roll up their trousers and carry the girls out in their dresses – all in a day’s work.
The team had a real sense of identity (as it does today) with a blazer pocket and tie (narrow) with the upturned Tiger on both. Colin recalls his mate Tony Timpson ONZM, who died in 2013, as a “larger than life” person. Tony trained as an accountant and then went on to co-found the highly successful business of Cavalier Bremworth. As well, he was a more than useful senior cricket player who played for Canterbury B and NZ Universities. In a senior career from 1956 to 1965 with West Christchurch University Cricket Club (as it was called then) Tony took 250 wickets at 16.7 as a left-arm spin bowler. Names like Graham Dowling and Brian Hastings, even John Wright much later, have donned the jersey. At a Tigers reunion in the ’90s at UCRFC you could almost field a NZ Cricket XI from the attendees on that Friday night.
It is great that the TIMPSON’S TIGERS live on at UCRFC. Long may it continue.