It is always great to catch up with characters who live in our coastal area and recently I talked to ‘Bluey’ Arnold.
You would be 70 plus to know of Bluey.
Interesting to know how men in particular get nicknames and sometimes you forget the original first name.
Derek Austin Arnold was born 10 January 1941 in Balclutha and currently residing down South Brighton. In those days a person with red hair was called ‘Blue’ by his mates, and seems to have originated from Australia “Ow ya goin Blue ?”
Bluey was a rugby player and between 1959 – 1971 he played 87 times for Canterbury and 15 matches for the All Blacks including 4 tests.
One of the New Zealand Players of the Year in 1964 and at 173cm and 67 kg would at a distinct disadvantage marking current All Black Jordie Barrett who at 196 and 95kg often plays in the same second five position.
Bluey says there is daylight between rugby of his day and the modern game, not just rules (now far too complicated and suffocating the sport) but the challenges facing the All Blacks before professionalism took over.
Being one of 30 players on the 1963 /64 tour of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and France, and would you believe 36 games beginning 23 October and finishing 24th February the following year (with just one loss 0-3 and one draw 0-0).
Nearly five months away from a job, meaning some of the team had to resign to go on tour, a couple got leave without pay, while Arnold as a stock and station agent continued to get his salary courtesy of a rugby mad boss.
These amateurs were paid ten bob (shillings) a day by the NZRFU in the sixties.
Top current All Blacks earn more than a million dollars a year.
Arnold says the rugby fraternity in those days looked after the family at home particularly the local clubs who we rally around making sure the lawns were done, spare food donated, and outings arranged and presents organised for Christmas.
He says when a whole bunch of young, spirited guys between 19 and early 20s go overseas for such an extended length of time, it is an overwhelming new experience discovering the big lights coming from little rural districts around NZ.
The 1963/64 tour reality was a good example of down time curbed by the weekly routine of rugby… rugby and rugby. From breakfast it was training then lunch, training then tea and evenings reserved for tactical discussions for mid-weekers and Saturday games. Public or private functions and travel fitted inbetween, and only time off was mainly Sundays,
This might be an afternoon at the bar or bus tour but certainly in most cases featured women, and many of the All Blacks found girlfriends on tour.
Arnold says wearing the All Black blazer brought a lot of clout and admirers, and many of these were of the fairer sex. Not talked about in books written about All Black tours in those days but the reality all the same and of course there were lots of hijinks one sort or another, but we had the rule what happened on tour stayed on tour.
He says social behaviour and attitudes have changed since those times.
While you didn’t have anywhere near the conditioning of the modern player, we still had to manage our way through injuries because coming off the paddock was not really an option. There were no replacements, the fifteen (where possible) stayed on till end of the game and we often had players limping from one on field action to another.
There were players who got though a match with the aid of pain killers but due to damage incurred a few players never played again.
Another five years were to pass before the rules allowed up to two players be substituted for injury, and now we have tactical replacements at any time.
Bluey Arnold’s All Black career really ended with getting on the wrong side of the new coach Fred ‘the needle’ Allen. “I was no shrinking violet, and we exchanged a few words a few times and that was it.”
Derek Bluey Arnold says while rugby was a different game in his time sixty years ago, and the demands on body and finances quite hard, he would not change the experience of pulling on the Black jersey for anything. “One of the proudest moments of my life.”
It was a time in New Zealand where newspapers and radio dominated and with the All Blacks dominating these mediums, they were the hero’s people most admired.
Derek ‘Blue’ Arnold was All Black 639, sort of halfway between the first to wear the jersey in 1884, and of 2022 there have been more than 1200 in black.
While the All Blacks remain one of the iconic teams in world sports, some of the old individual players remain around the country and in many cases living almost anonymously next door.