Founding US Football in NZ

Twenty years ago I set up the first American football team in my home city Wellington, New Zealand.
I was 23-years-old then and knew nothing about the game. But I wanted to play it.
I advertised for players in the local paper and waited until I got someone capable of coaching before I brought everyone together.
We got between a dozen and two dozen players along to our Sunday afternoon practise sessions. This was in the summer, as most of us were winter-time rugby players. The coach seldom made it along, however.
National league basketball coach Jeff Green challenged us to a game against his crowd in the suburb of Wainuiomata. They included some members of his basketball team, among them two or three American imports. We lost 8-2 in a game played without equipment.
They visited us at our Rongotai College base a month later and again we lost.
The following season we moved to Porirua Hospital, where we were offered use of a rugby pitch with, oddly, Y-shaped goal posts such as those used in the American game. We played Jeff's team three times that summer, losing away then winning twice at home.
At the end of the season we set up a committee, became an incorporated society, and named our team the Harbour City Hurricanes.
We were still just a bunch of guys in T-shirts and track pants, without a real coach.
It was during our third season that we began to obtain some equipment. This was largely due to a loan from player and committee member Ken Turner. We also acquired a couple of non-playing expat North American coaches. Jeff's team were no more, so we turned our eyes to Auckland, the nation's biggest city, where a league was well-established with about 10 teams.
We made the 400 mile (650km) journey north in January 1990 for our first 'real' game of American football. We hired a mini-bus for the purpose, which broke down just short of our destination, and were billeted by the local team.
The Manukau Stallions had finished last in the Auckland league. They beat us 26-0.
We had precisely 11 helmets, so the players had to exchange them as they came on and off the field. About half the players had shoulder pads. I personally played linebacker and was totally confounded by the blockers, a concept I had not encountered before.
The Stallions visited us a month later and won 8-0 with a touchdown and a safety. This game was attended by Horst Maczuga, education officer at Porirua Police College, who had coached high school football in his native Ohio. He joined our committee and was appointed head-coach for the following season.
During the off-season I busied myself setting up Wellington's second team, the Hutt Valley Chargers, which included a few veterans of Jeff's old crowd. This resulted in some heated arguments between Horst and myself. I had already lost the confidence of some members of the committee due to the club's financial problems. These had resulted from an embezzlement of club funds by the original treasurer; something I had personally failed to detect. Needless to say, Ken's loan had yet to be repaid.
Horst's hand was greatly strengthened when, acting independently of the committee, he managed to secure funding sufficient to clear all debts and fit the entire squad out with equipment and new uniforms. It was indeed a giant leap forward for American football in Wellington.
I left the Hurricanes three years after setting them up and devoted myself to the Chargers. This time things fell into place a lot quicker. We got a big squad together in the spring of 1990, including non-playing coaches. Following Horst's lead, I managed to arrange pub charity funding to kit 22 players out. We played the Hurricanes at the end of the season, for a Capital Bowl trophy which I personally presented for competition, and were defeated 20-16. We also hosted Auckland's Bulldogs, losing 8-6. The Hurricanes, meanwhile, had hosted a team from the city of Hamilton (who played in the Auckland league), losing narrowly, then visited Auckland to take on the third-placed Rangers - who trounced them 97-0!
At the end of the season I set up a Chargers committee. Murray Sullivan, father of our quarterback, was elected president. I wished only to serve in the capacity of publicity officer, as I already had my sights set on establishing a third team. The Chargers did not elect me, however, uncomfortable with my intentions.
The new team would be established in urban Wellington and be known as the Capital City Giants. The Hurricanes had started there but moved east to Porirua. I obtained pub charity funding for the equipment and found a home base at the Teachers Training College in the suburb of Karori.
I then approached the Hurricanes and Chargers about setting up a league and a regional organisation. Surprisingly this met with resistance. The Chargers were for a league but against a regional organisation. The Hurricanes opposed both ideas, but eventually came around to the idea of a league.
All games were played at a venue in the Hutt Valley, which suited the Giants, as our training pitch was barely half-size. We caused a shock in our opening game by defeating the Hurricanes. Next up we tied the Chargers 26-26. It went downhill from there and we lost the rest of our games. Difficult to say why, but the Giants were not a harmonious bunch during my season in charge. There was a clash of personalities within the coaching staff, and a certain amount of immaturity among the players, I felt.
Something else I had organised during the off-season was a visit by a small college team from Nebraska, the Doane Tigers. This was a major undertaking, given our scant resources, and only made possible by further assistance from our pub charity sponsor. The Hurricanes and Chargers had declined to assist us.
Arriving in January 1992, the Tigers blitzed a Wellington Capitals team 82-6 in front of 1000 paying spectators at the Hutt Recreation Ground. The Capitals comprised the best players from our three teams, and included two guests: international rugby star Simon Mannix as kicker/punter, and former Utah State runningback Timo Tagaloa - who bolted half the length of the field for the home-side's only score. Jeff Green came on board as head coach.
A week later the Tigers played the Giants at the same venue, running out 89-0 winners in front of just a few hundred paying spectators. Curiously the Giants' jerseys disappeared on the morning of this game. Murray Sullivan came to the rescue with his Chargers' jerseys. Some of these were not returned by my players and team funds had to be used to replace them.
In another unsavoury incident that summer I was personally attacked by a Chargers lineman while helping umpire a game between the Hutt Valley and the Hurricanes. The assailant was forced to sit out the final, but no further action was taken against him.
By this time a new team was being organised in the town of Levin, some 60 miles (100km) north of Wellington. The individual who attacked me was one of a number of players who left the Chargers to join the new team.
Meetings were being held between delegates of the clubs on a regular basis. However, there was no league committee proper and the Levin delegation argued fiercely in defence of their player when the subject of the attack was raised.
The final, Capital Bowl II, was won by the Chargers, 12-6, over a much-improved Hurricanes.
At the end of the season I set up a Giants committee, then left the club to its own devices. I was not involved in the competition the following season, as I had accepted an invitation to go and train with the Tigers at Doane College (where I was also permitted to study literature, social-psychology and journalism and extend my stay the next year).
The Levin Tigers entered the league in my absence and won the competition in their debut season. They beat the Giants 21-7 in Capital Bowl III, Fijian rugby star Philip Reyasi running in three touchdowns.
A journalist by profession, I resumed writing newspaper articles on the league when I returned from Nebraska. But my services were not welcome at administrative level, apparently, which left me with no appetite for coaching, despite being approached by the Chargers. At 30 years of age, I had also decided to give up playing.
Doane College made a second visit to New Zealand in 1996, blitzing the Hurricanes 93-0 and defeating the Wellington representative team 42-6. By this time a regional committee was in place, and an annual inter-city encounter between Auckland and Wellington was underway, the former winning the first such clash, 17-10, at Wellington's biggest sports venue, Athletic Park.
I continued to write game reports for the newspapers right up until my departure from New Zealand in 1999. I have been teaching English in Europe since. From the internet I am able to ascertain that there are four teams in Wellington today, and that they continue to contest the Capital Bowl, which has been named in honour of Horst Maczuga - first commissioner of the regional committee and head coach of the Wellington team which upset Auckland 10-0 in 1999. A five-team high school league is also in place http://www.leaguelineup.com/welcome.asp?url=afsc .