Come on. Come on. Come on. >> Few people anticipated in 1981 that New Zealand would dissolve into a near civil war.

But times were changing. >> Smoke bombs. >> A nation divided not over land, not over money, but over a sport.

Sport and politics don’t mix. A mantra shared by many New Zealanders who opposed the idea that a tour of the South African rugby team, the Spring Box, should be cancelled in mid 1981.

The other side believed that New Zealand should stand up against oppression and racial segregation.

That Kiwi should send a message to South Africa, a message that cries, “We don’t play with racists.”

The tour of the Spring Box in 1981 was a culturally defining moment in New Zealand’s history.

It saw the old New Zealand being pitted against the new New Zealand. A clash of ideologies, a fight for civil rights, and a fight for the freedom to enjoy a game in peace on any given weekend.

Who would have thought that a simple game of rugby would turn New Zealand upside down?

>> [music] >> Look like they’re going to come. We get steady. The game will stop.

[music] SL players they now station themselves on the pitch. [music] 1981 in New Zealand saw neighbors verse neighbors, families arguing across dinner tables, streets erupting into violence, and a nation fully divided.

This is not a simple story of sporting rivalry. This is the story of how New Zealand was changed forever and how the sport helped it grow up.

Rugby, New Zealand’s national pastime, a cultural identifier for Alterero in New Zealand. Adopted by Kiwis in the 1870s, shortly after the first game ever played in New Zealand in Nelson, it quickly took off as a popular winter sport.

Soon, many regions began forming clubs and unions. 10 years after it was introduced, rugby became the dominant sport over soccer and Aussie rules football, especially in rural areas owing to its simple requirements, a ball and a paddic.

In the 1890s, New Zealand formed the New Zealand Rugby Football Union or the NZ RFU as the national governing body of the sport.

In 1905, a national icon was born. The legendary original All Blacks, New Zealand’s national team, was scheduled to tour Britain, which further cemented the game’s national popularity.

The black jersey, the silver fern, iconic emblems of New Zealand culture. The origin of the name All Blacks is often attributed to a 1905 London newspaper Daily Mail Typo, supposedly intending to call them all backs due to their speed, but printing all blacks [music] instead.

However, most historians believe the name simply described their all black playing kit. New Zealand played against many international teams during the early half of the 20th century.

Australia, Britain, even France, but their main rivalry and their strongest competition was South Africa.

New Zealand first played against South Africa on the 13th of August 1921. The match was held at Carisbrook in Deneden during South Africa’s first tour of Australia and New Zealand.

The All Blacks won this historic first encounter 135. South Africa adopted rugby in a similar fashion to New Zealand.

The game was introduced in the late 1870s and became quickly popular among Africana farmers or Bors.

After the Boore War, South Africa’s national team was also scheduled to tour Britain in 1906 with many Boore players.

It was seen almost as an act of reconciliation against their British oppressors. The team’s massive success established South Africa as a global power and earned them the nickname Spring Box.

South Africa’s formidable record, remaining unbeaten in home test series for nearly 60 years, fueled deep national pride.

It wasn’t until 1928 when the All Blacks made their first return trip to South Africa, where the four match series also ended in a two- old draw.

It was here that the rivalry was born. New Zealand has always prided itself as having the best rugby team and the best race relations in the world.

It was even noted during a 1921 match by a South African journalist. Quote, “Bad enough having to play officially designated New Zealand natives, but spectacle thousands of Europeans frantically cheering on bands of colored men to defeat members of own race was too much for Springbox, who frankly were disgusted.”

End quote. So when the 1928 tour of the All Blacks in South Africa took place, New Zealand was asked to exclude multiplayers from the touring team.

For a long time, South Africa had practiced a version of racial segregation that was to become known as apartheide or a partners in English.

This also meant that South Africa selected teams based on race. At the insistence of the South African authorities, the New Zealand Rugby Football Union, the NZ RFU, agreed to send an all-white squad in 1928.

Legendary players like George Nepia and Jimmy Mill were left out solely because of their moldy heritage.

This decision sparked New Zealand’s first significant public protest against racial discrimination in sport. The NZ RFU argued at the time that it was protecting MAI players from potential insults in a segregated society.

Before the All Blacks tooured the Republic in 1960, there were calls for no MAIs, no tour, and 150,000 New Zealanders signed a petition against sending a race-based team.

But the tour went ahead. Prime Minister Keith Holio’s statement that in this country we are one people was translated into practice when a proposed 1967 tour to South Africa was cancelled.

However, New Zealand would not send any Maldi players to tour South Africa until 1970 and this was only because South Africa accepted them as honorary whites.

Soon after, another rivalry was forming. Slowly but surely, not in the grandstands, not even on the pitch, but in the homes, on the streets, and in the airwaves.

In 1968, the United Nations called for a sporting boycott as one way of putting pressure on the South African government.

As rugby and cricket were the two main sports for white South Africans, the spotlight was bound to fall on New Zealand.

When the All Blacks finally toured with a multi-racial team in 1970, it was seen as the catalyst for many New Zealanders, many who felt this was the final straw.

Those opposed to contact with South Africa attacked the NZ RFU for allowing multiplayers to be demeaned and they argued that by continuing contact, New Zealand was condoning apartheid.

Moreover, by allowing multiplayers to be treated in this way, we were allowing South African racial attitudes to infect our own society.

Others, including many players, stress that sport and politics should remain separate. Some, perhaps naively, argued that rugby contact with a multi-racial country like New Zealand could promote change for the better in South Africa.

But tensions were rising in South Africa and New Zealand had some pretty tough decisions to make throughout the decade.

In 1974, South Africa passed a decree that mandated that Africans, the language of the white minority and the apartheite government, be used as a medium of instruction on a 50/50 basis with English in black schools.

Many black students were not fluent in Africants and schools lacked the skills necessary to teach the complex subjects like mathematics and science in the language leading to fears of widespread academic failure.

Black students and teachers also viewed Africans as the language of the oppressor. On the 16th of June 1976, [music] a studentled protest march took place in the township of Suetto.

What began as a peaceful march by an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 students towards Orlando stadium turned into a massacre when police intervened.

This was to become known as the Sutoto uprising. The Suto uprising, sometimes known as the Suedto riots, were a tragic event that gained international attention after images of police officers using armed force against children were widespread.

Officers used tear gas and then live ammunition against the unarmed children. And 12-year-old Hector [music] Peterson became the global face of the uprising after a photograph by Sammon Zema showing the dying boy being carried by a fellow student while his sister ran alongside was published worldwide.

Official government figures initially cited 23 deaths, but the Silier Commission later estimated 575 deaths across South Africa, though many historians believe that the actual number was closer to 700.

The event gave the entire world a visual description of the horrors of apartheid. This led to increased international [music] condemnation, United Nations sanctions, and a surge in global anti-aparttheide activism.

It was also during 1976 that the All Blacks accepted an invitation to [music] tour South Africa.

The tour was scheduled to take place just two weeks after the SATA riots. The 1976 All Blacks tour of South Africa, 30th of June to the 18th of September, was one of the most politically explosive [music] events in rugby history, occurring just as the Suto uprising began to tear through South Africa.

An all blacks tour under such conditions was not only intolerable to many New Zealanders, but also attracted international condemnation.

The tour ignored a United Nations call for a sporting embargo against South Africa. Once again, MAI and Pacifica players were allowed to tour South Africa, but only as honorary whites.

Players like Bill Bush later spoke about the surreal and offensive nature of this status, noting they were often racially targeted by both opposing players and local referees.

As a result of this tour, 29 black African nations boycotted the 1976 Montreal Olympics in protest, firmly putting sport and politics back on the same stage.

New Zealand’s international reputation had been damaged. Prime Minister Robert Maldun though maintained that a free and democratic country could not restrict the rights of its citizens to travel overseas.

He reiterated his belief that sport and politics should be kept separate. A Commonwealth heads of government meeting in 1977 discussed the South African question and unanimously adopted the Glenn Eagles agreement promising to discourage contact and competition between their sports people and sporting organizations, teams or individuals from South Africa.

Prime Minister Robert Moldun like many others believed in no politics in sport. He made it clear that the government would not allow political interference in sport in any [music] form.

The NZ RFU took this as a green light and in September 1980 invited the South Africans to tour the following year.

New Zealand, a country that holds its peaceful reputation near and dear, was about to become a war zone.

Moldun’s sentiment on the tour was one that was shared by many others in New Zealand, mainly from provincial or rural areas, home to six crucial marginal electorates.

Mulun made the tour of South Africa one of his campaign issues in 1975, knowing that many of his voters coming from middle New Zealand loved the sport and would favor a game played between the two best teams in the rugby world.

The values of men of Moldun’s generation that had grown up in depression and war believed strongly in the British Commonwealth and the role of New Zealand men in the armed conflict and rugby was central to this culture.

Its emphasis on physical strength and teamwork made it perfect training for war. Mulun was himself a war veteran as were seven members of his first cabinet.

The so-called Rob’s mob, older male, bluecollar, often provincial New Zealanders supported this outlook. Tour supporters were determined that the first Springbox visit to New Zealand since 1965 would not be spoiled.

Equally strong in their opinions of the proposed tour was the anti-our movement, also known as HART.

Although Hart committed itself to nonviolent disruption, Prime Minister Robert Mulddon condemned the organization for having spread lies about New Zealand overseas.

People involved in the anti-our movement were described as stirrers and troublemakers. New Zealand’s Heartland saw the tour as their right to watch rugby while cities saw it as a moral stand against apartheid.

Battle lines were drawn, families sat on opposite sides of the dinner table. Arguments erupted in public places and as a whole the country became divided.

John Mento, the national organizer for Hart in 1981, became one of the public faces of the anti-our movement and attracted special criticism from Mulun and pro tour supporters.

Many of the protesters had grown up in the relatively prosperous 1950s and 1960s. Many were also rugby fans.

Prosperity and peace had given them the freedom to challenge the old order. This generation had come to political consciousness marching against the Vietnam War, French nuclear testing, and nuclear ships visits in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The anti-our protest movement included many urban educated professionals, but also enjoyed strong union support.

Historian Jock Phillips sees the tour as a clash between the old and the new New Zealand, which revealed itself in five main ways.

The struggle between baby boomers and war veterans, city versus country, men versus women, black versus white, Britain of the South versus independent [music] Pacific nation.

Despite all the pre- rhetoric and debate of the tour, very few people anticipated that New Zealand would break out into a near civil war.

By the time the tour started, a war played out twice a week following the games throughout the country.

The Spring Box were officially welcomed to New Zealand at Toro Orai Marai in Gisbon on the 19th of July 1981.

3 days later on the 22nd of July, the Spring Box played their first game of the tour in Gisbon.

This was the first time that the anti and pro tour supporters came face to face.

1981. And like the rest of the country, conservative rural Grisbane was divided over the tour.

>> As protesters marched across the golf course and up to the gates of the venue, violence would ensue, but the protesters pushed forward.

The anti-our movement did not succeed in their goal of cancing the game that day.

But it would be the next game in Hamilton that would prove their first victory.

On the 25th of July, the proposed game at Rugby Park in Hamilton would be the first ever international game televised of the spring box to be broadcast back in their own country.

But South Africa would not expect to see that game being cancelled. The anti-our movement was thoroughly prepared this time.

Because of the game taking place on a Saturday, more people were able to join, ensuring there would be enough people to occupy the pitch and protesters organized and bought 200 tickets [music] to ensure they would be visible inside the grounds.

Around 5,000 protesters gathered at Garden Place to march on Rugby Park. Plans had been made to tear down perimeter fencing and flood the field with protesters.

Shortly before kickoff, about 350 protesters invaded the ground. Police formed a cordon around this group which had linked arms to form a solid block.

Police arrested about 50 of them over a period of an hour, but they were becoming increasingly concerned that they could not control the rugby crowd.

Skirmishes broke out and objects were hurled at the protesters. Reports were also coming in that Pat McQuary had stolen a light plane from Toppo and was heading for the stadium.

While there was confusion as to his intentions, the police decided that the situation was getting out of hand and cancelled the match for security reasons.

The ground announcement of this decision was greeted with hows of protests and chants of we want rugby, we want rugby.

This was also the cue for a number of spectators to attack protesters with fists, boots, cans, and bottles.

The police eventually ushered the protesters from the ground with enraged spectators lashing out at them as they ran the gauntlet.

All of this drama was captured live on TV and the images were beamed around the world including to South Africa where the fans had got up early in the morning to watch the match.

>> [music] >> The police’s code name for the 1981 spring rugby tour was operation rugby.

Once the tour was announced to go ahead the year before, security became a paramount issue for police who were to escort the spring box.

Police were secounded from existing positions into what would be known as the red escorts.

However, they were more commonly known as the red squad. Although the Red Squad gets more notice in history, they were actually three squads of highly trained officers.

The Red Squad, their sister unit, the Blue Squad, and the often less talked about Green Squad.

They were created as specialist high readiness units to provide constant security for the Springbox team and to handle the large-scale civil unrest predicted by the anti-our movement.

It was led by Chief Inspector Richard Dick Trap with Ross Morant serving as a second in command.

Morant later became a prominent public figure and national party MP. Training began in early 1981 as fears about escalating violence during the tour surfaced.

The squads were comprised of approximately 50 to 51 personnel each. Before the tour began, the squads underwent intensive preparation designed to modernize New Zealand’s right control capabilities.

Training was undertaken in an SAS base in Papakura, Oakland. New tactics, including the flying wedge, a formation used to aggressively split crowds.

Not only that, but they were the first police officers in New Zealand, to be issued specific riot gear that became symbols of the tour’s violence, such as riot visored helmets and the now infamous PR24 batton, also called Mento bars, after Hart’s founder, John Mento.

However, the first violent faceoff between police and protesters didn’t take place on any pitch or at any game.

It occurred on the 29th of July outside Parliament in Wellington. A day remembered by boots, battens, riot squads, and bloodshed.

A day remembered as the Battle of Molsworth. Around 5:00 p.m., nearly 2,000 anti-our protesters gathered near parliamentary grounds, intending to march up to Molsworth Street on their way to the home of the South Africa consul to New Zealand.

The police had established a position in Molsworth Street and declared that protesters were not to proceed up the street.

The protesters started marching and were stopped by police using short batt. While some of those marching later argued that the momentum of numbers forced them forward, the police viewed this as a blatant refusal to obey the order and stop.

What follows is the first time New Zealand saw brutal police force used during the tour.

Stunned protesters, some covered in blood, wheeled away in horror and confusion. Chance of shame, shame, shame broke out and a group of protesters swung back into the city heading for the central police station to lay assault charges.

The nature of the protest and the policing of the tour had taken an irrevocable turn for the worst.

Critics argued that Molsworth Street was about the police reasserting their authority in the aftermath of the canceled game in Hamilton just a few days earlier.

Police stated that Batton had been used as a last resort and talked of the fears they had for their own safety when confronted by lines of protesters.

The rule of law and public safety had to be maintained and at some point no had to mean no.

After this incident, the police made greater use of long battens which could be thrust at protesters to force them back.

In response to the violence, protesters began wearing motorcycle or bicycle helmets and homemade cardboard chest protectors for future demonstrations.

The event occurred on the same day as the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.

Many New Zealanders switched between watching the fairy tale wedding and the horror of the violence in their own capital on the six o’clock news.

Some were even blissfully unaware that the violence had taken place just an hour earlier.

Similar violent incidents would follow, such as the clown incident. During the final test in Oakland, Red Squad members were accused of an unprovoked attack on three peaceful protesters dressed as clowns.

Red Squad second in command Ross Morant later admitted to protecting the officers involved by emitting them from an identification parade.

After protesters successfully invaded the pitch in Hamilton, cancelling the match, the Red Squad’s tactics hardened significantly.

Morant later stated he felt humiliated by the defeat and wanted revenge to restore police pride.

Instead, acts such as these forced the police’s image to be distorted in the public, who saw them as a paramilitary force that used excessive violence against their own citizens.

It wasn’t only the police who had their units, either. The protest movement also formed its own squads.

Protesters began to mirror the police by forming their own named units, though their primary goal was protection rather than aggression.

The Pu Squad, the Brown Squad, and the Clowns and Rabbits. The latter was dressed in costumes, including clowns, rabbits, and a bumblebee, to try and diffuse tension through surreal peaceful protests.

After the Battle of Molsworth, the activists began mass- prodducing rudimentary protective armor. Body armor consisted of sturdy cardboard tubes and corrugated cardboard.

Protective headgear was often motorcycle or scooter helmets. These would help withstand blows from the police squad’s brutal mento bars.

The war began and the forces of opposing sides had clashed. But things were about [music] to escalate.

As the Red Squad and the anti-our movement followed the spring box from game to game throughout the country, tensions only got worse and the violence had escalated.

At Lancaster Park, Christ Church on the 15th of August 1981, the All Blacks faced off against their fiercest rivals for the first time during the tour.

Although the All Blacks won 149, it was the crowds of spectators that would be dishing out the [music] violence this time.

The day was one of massive protest action around the country. In Christ Church, the thrust of the protest was to spread police cordon around the venue by coming at Lancaster Park from all angles.

The goal was to occupy the pitch. Rugby supporters pelted protesters with blocks of concrete and full bottles of beer.

Carrington maintained that the police saved the protesters from serious injuries and they were not the enemy on that day.

>> This is the view from high above the number three stand at Lancaster Park.

And at 2:20 today, about 5 minutes ago, about 50 demonstrators ran onto the center of the Lancaster Park pitch.

In a matter of 3 minutes, the riot squad had completely taken the those demonstrators from the field.

The games went ahead and as the second test took place in Wellington, protesters were again the victims of civilian violence.

Action began early that morning when 7,000 protesters gathered in central Wellington. Groups blocked the motorway exits into the city as well as road and pedestrian access to Athletic Park.

Police responded by forming human wedges to allow rugby spectators through. There were many scuffles as protesters were dragged away.

Some rugby fans lashed out at them with fists and boots, and once more, police battens were used on suburban New Zealand streets.

But it was at the third test in Oakland when all hell broke loose. On the 12th of September at Eden Park in Oakland, the Spring Box and the All Blacks were once again ready to verse each other.

The third and final test would decide the series. However, it was the off-field events that overshadowed the game itself.

Although police security for this game was the tightest it had ever been during the tour, all hell definitely broke loose.

Fighting erupted in the streets surrounding Eden Park and police were pelted with rocks and missiles.

Some commentators argued that the hardcore protesters were joined by opportunists who just wanted to fight police.

The All Blacks won 25 to 22 thanks to an injury time penalty by Alan Houston.

However, it was what was happening in the skies above that are probably more memorable.

>> First half and down on the left hand end of the ground, there is a stoppage.

Smoke bombs have been thrown onto Eden Park at the left hand end of the field.

Smoke bombs, flares being an attempt to come onto the field. The game will stop.

File bombs dropping onto the park. Flares dropping as well from Are they coming from the sky or coming out of the crowd?

>> Well, I think it’s six of one and a half dozen the other. Some of these flares have come from the number three stand while others have been dropped from Pilots Marx Jones and Grant Cole flew a higher Zestnner 172 light aircraft repeatedly over the stadium.

They made approximately 58 low-flying passes, dropping roughly 60 flower bombs, flares, and anti-aparttheide pamphlets onto the field in an attempt to stop the game.

Despite the chaos from above, the game continued in a surreal atmosphere. Peter Burke, the All Blacks manager at the time, later described it as a magnificent game and felt that the All Blacks had a job to do for New Zealand rugby and the rugby loving people of New Zealand.

All black prop Gary Axel Knight was famously struck in the head and knocked to the ground by one of the flower bombs.

He shrugged it off and continued playing after the game was briefly paused for 2 minutes >> and it knocked him over.

He’s just got to his feet again and you can see Gary Knight was struck by a flower bomb.

Dropped from the plane. >> The strange events, unlike anything anyone had seen during a rugby match, prompted South African captain Winand Classen to famously ask All Black halfback Dave Lridge, “Does New Zealand actually have an air force?”

The All Blacks won the series with 2 to1. The tour had ended. The war had ended.

The spring box left the country the very next day. Those who were in favor of the tour had won.

The tour went ahead. Apartheid remained intact and provincial New Zealand secured the National Party a narrow victory in the November general election.

But these outcomes masked major changes that were just around the corner. When the game had been cancelled in Hamilton on the 25th of July, an imprisoned Nelson Mandela heard of the news from his cell on Robin Island.

He later famously quoted that it was as if the sun had come out. [music] In Hamilton, the protesters occupying the pitch had chanted, “The whole world is watching.”

The same applied to New Zealand as a nation. Some believed the tour was an opportunity to address the issue of racism in New Zealand while showing solidarity [music] with the oppressed black majority in South Africa.

The spring box tour of 1981 would see the last time New Zealand play against South Africa under the apartheid regime.

After the battens were put away and the smoke cleared from the pit, New Zealand began to look at itself very differently.

A radical shift from complacency to upholders of moral ethics, environmentalism, and civil rights took place.

But it didn’t happen overnight. Many rural and provincial towns where rugby was extremely popular, the tour was supported aggressively.

They viewed the protesters as perennial protesters and rent mob demonstrators interested only in fighting the police.

Mulun was successful in securing his 81 election in November, primarily due to his popularity in provincial towns like Gisbane and Fungare.

One survey at the time found that over half of the anti- tour protesters had a university degree and another third had university entrance.

In 1981, there were over 50,000 students enrolled in tertiary institutions. The educated middle class was critical to the anti-our movement.

Exposed to the international world of learning, they were articulate in their promotion of the issues.

While the protest targeted South African apartheid, they prompted a critique of New Zealand society.

Maldi activists through groups like the Patu Squad challenged Pakiha protesters with a powerful question.

If you campaign about race in South Africa, what about at home? The old New Zealand ideology of little Britain in the South Pacific was being challenged by a new and modern culture within New Zealand.

Playing rugby against South Africa was consistent [music] with New Zealand’s traditional identity as a loyal member of the British Commonwealth.

The anti-our movement had a very different [music] vision. New Zealand could be seen as an example of an independent, racially tolerant society, a moral exampler.

Some even argued that with the tour going ahead, New Zealand could perhaps change the minds of the South Africans.

Sports and politics don’t mix. The message that was central to the pro tour movement.

Doug Rollers, the All Black first five in 1981, was adamant [music] that the tour should have gone ahead.

Reflecting on the tour in 2006, he believed it was important to get the spring box over here and show them a multi-racial society living in relative harmony.

Above all, it was important to beat them almost as a way of confirming a part was wrong.

In his own way, he was confirming that sport and politics really did mix whether he liked it or not.

In the end, for 56 days in 1981, the tour divided families, friends, and workplaces.

But it did shape a newer and modern New Zealand. The violence, particularly the battening at Molsworth Street and the Red Squad’s tactics shattered the belief for many that the police were there solely to protect them.

Prime Minister Robert Mulddon got drunk, called a snap election, and lost in 1984 by a landslide victory to the newer and more envisioned Labor Party of the time and David Longi.

Some could argue that New Zealand’s Commonwealth bloke attitude went with him. New Zealand became nuclear free.

New constitutions were forged in parliament and this helped move the nation towards an independent likeness and image.

>> [singing] >> 150,000 protesters, 3,600 police officers, 1,500 convictions, 200 demonstrations, 56 days, 14 games, two cancelled, and one memory.

New Zealand, Altereroa, 1981. [singing]