Christchurch submerged in sea of red

CHRISTCHURCH is a town said to be more English than England itself. Much like the Lions’ Test team really, and with just as many Irish theme pubs.

Yet aside from that there are more clichéd similarities: the city is renowned for its gardens and parks, and the river running through it, the Avon, ferries tourists along its course on punts.

A look at a road map of this city of 330,000 people is like reading a Victorian gazetteer of English towns and Imperial outposts. There are streets named for Madras, Montreal and Manchester; Durham, Hereford and Worcester; Antigua and, yes, Cashel, Tuam and Armagh.

Which is handy really, because with the number of people who have rolled into town this week, there should be a street name for everybody.

There were, of course, thousands who made their way up from Invercargill in midweek, who brought with them an Antarctic blast of cold weather that was forecast to deliver a windchill factor of minus three degrees come game time at Jade Stadium this morning.

But still thousands more have been arriving at Christchurch International Airport, including, it seems, about another couple of hundred of the world’s media.

Christchurch this week has witnessed a population explosion and it’s staggered even local hero Justin Marshall, the All Blacks’ starting scrum-half and a veteran of 78 Tests. The Leeds-bound Crusaders hero could not believe what he was seeing happening to his hometown and said he had not experienced anything like the hype surrounding this Lions tour in his 10 years as a rugby international.

But most of all he was taken aback by the sheer numbers of fans wearing red.

Fans have been filing into the city’s focal point, Cathedral Square in their thousands every day, snapping up souvenirs, listening to live music or catching a bite to eat.

And there among them yesterday were the recognisable figures of Lions players Donncha O’Callaghan, Geordan Murphy and Gordon Bulloch, mingling with the rest of the tourists, cameras at the ready.

A wise move for anybody seeking a bit of peace and quiet would have been to head off to the magnificent Christchurch Art Gallery, built in 2003 and New Zealand’s largest new art museum in 50 years.

At the moment it is home is to an exhibition of classic All Blacks v Lions photographs taken by renowned sports photographer Peter Bush. The display comprises 30 iconic images in black & white and colour covering every Lions tour to New Zealand since 1966.

There is All Blacks captain Colin ‘Pinetree’ Meads magnanimously visiting a victorious Lions dressing room at the end of the 1971 series and offering his conquerors what looks like a crate of beer.

On the 1983 tour, disconsolate Lions captain Ciaran Fitzgerald stands miserably beside his Kiwi counterpart Andy Dalton in the stands at Eden Park, Auckland, having succumbed to a 4-0 series ‘blackwash’.

Earlier on that tour, though, there is not a hint of misery as Michael Kiernan downs a famous Bluff oyster to the amazement of his awestruck team-mates before another picture reveals the gang in true tourist mode at the South Island’s most southerly point, standing under a signpost pointing to all four corners of the globe.

The action shots are also special and rather than just convey a touchline vantage point, Bush’s work seems to transport the viewer onto the pitch.

There’s Fran Cotton and Bill Beaumont at the front of a lineout covered in mud and indistinguishable from their opponents during a tour game in 1983, a youthful Clive Woodward on the same tour, concentrating hard during a training drill.

And then there is a menacing Alex ‘Grizz’ Wyllie in full flanker attack mode, stalking a Lion in the 1971 series a few weeks on from the infamous “Battle of Paaschendaale” game against Canterbury. That was when the Grizz put Irish front row Ray McLoughlin out of the tour after the Lion’s fist proved no match for the Kiwi’s skull and the prop got sent home with a broken thumb.

His noggin still looks capable of that now. On Thursday night, Wyllie was holding court in the Grizz Bar, named in his honour at the back of a hotel pub and featuring various photos of the great man in playing mode, all captioned with unprintable Grizz quotes.

“He looks as if he’s shrunk,” commented a Kiwi colleague as Wyllie stalked by, before witnessing the former All Black glug down a pint of Guinness in double quick time and seemingly grow at least a foot in stature.