Bloke

Oh well the Real World Cup starts next month and that will make them look good. There was $35M bet on the last World Cup on the NZ TAB with 136Billion Euro Worldwide.

Sorry but I cannot accept your reasoning. We are talking about an area with a 100k population having just two senior teams in what is supposed to be our National Sport. A couple of years ago I was watching a football game in Stokes Valley which you mention, and Stokes Valley is a social club for Football. Well, they had 9 senior football teams and from memory Stokes Valley had two senior Rugby Teams. There are many Football clubs in Wellington in places that Rugby does not exist ie. Island Bay, Brooklyn. Eastbourne etc. Things are so bad for Rugby in Wellington they are now playing some NPC Wellington games at Porirua Park. I guess a crowd of 200 can look a lot larger there.

Oh come on. They cover a massive area which includes Wellington City's largest suburb and they can only come up with two senior teams? Look at other suburbs such as Tawa, Johnsonville etc. only a handful of senior Rugby teams. Then look at the Football clubs, North Wellington which covers Johnsonville has 21 senior teams, Tawa has 12 senior teams. The powers that be in Rugby are in denial and dismiss Football as "soccer poofters".

Mate there is no longer any such thing as "Shield Fever". Rugby is stuffed. In Wellington Football would be at least 3 times more popular in participation. I have mentioned this before, but I will repeat for you as you are an expat. Karori Waterside Football on their website states that they have 1,000 players and 100 teams. Wests Rugby which covers from Karori to Khandallah / Ngaio only has two senior teams. If it were not for the polynesian community in Wellington the game would be dead. Racing as we know is a sunset industry. The land has been sold so once the funds are blown then it will most likely be "Game Over" I have decided to go to Riccarton for The Cup Day as I want to pay honour to one of the greats, Show Gate ( she has been laid to rest there) who I witnessed completing an amazing treble during Cup Week in 1974

You must not remember Rob (The Socialist) Muldoon. The debt he ran up was massive in real terms compared with the Key Government and the current Government and we did not have earthquakes , GFC or pandemics. Also chuck in Think Big which was a massive failure and cost the country a fortune and the wage / price freeze. He introduced National Super (a socialist scheme) after scraping the private scheme. My father took out shares in a private Airline which was to be in competition with Air NZ but he blocked them by not issuing a license to fly. To cap it off he was an autocrat, he overrode his Ministers and his own government colleagues were scared to challenge him. No following Government comes close to this guy. After he was voted out I declared that I would accept any Government (except maybe the Greens) as none could be as bad as Muldoon.

If Otaki is getting into property development than that will be a disaster as I doubt whether they have any expertise in this field. They should look up the road at Awapuni and note how they stuffed up a simple residential land development. I used to love The Bayer Classic at Levin it was a real season highlight. Unfortunately that was 40 odd years ago. If Levin is going through a building boom then hopefully it may lead to the retail area of the town getting a face lift. Last time I was there I went to the Mall to meet an old racing buddy for a coffee and it was a shit hole.

It wasn't Wembley but from memory the field was in good condition. Some of the fields they play on in country areas are true "cow paddocks" but that is why I watch as it is grass roots Rugby . I am a football man and I recall playing at Newmarket Park in Auckland which was supposed to be one of the top Football grounds and hosted overseas teams. That was a true shit hole and I think it was in the 1990s half of the ground slid down the bank and it is no more.

Yes Reefton were playing at home. The Rugby Fraternity being in denial is common through out the country. The Officials still wear the blazers with the badges, have big beer guts and the comb overs .

I only watch grassroot rugby and the odd All Black game. I love watching because Grass Roots Rugby reminds me of the 60s & 70s with the old grandstands, clubrooms, Floodlights around the playing fields which are trained on and the interviews with players. Last year they showed the Reefton club play a game and it was their first season for quite some time because the Club has been in recess for many years. This brought the number of teams in the Buller Union to four and from this they pick a Buller Team for the Heartland Championship. East Coast has a similar amount of teams in their competition and other small provinces are not much better with some Club teams having to call on payers in their 40s and 50s just to make up a team. You also have Clubs merging to make a team and there are additional clubs going into recess. In the larger cities Auckland and Wellington the only thing keeping the game going is the polynessian community. Once proud Rugby Clubs like Petone are down to a hand full of teams Last year in The Dom Post there was a story about Naenae College with a roll of 700 odd only having 4 boys wanting to play Rugby. These Boys joined up with Hutt Valley High which has a roll of 2,000 and they could only muster 3 teams. Wests Rugby which takes in from Karori to Ngaio only has two senior social teams whilst Waterside Karori Football website states that they have 1,000 members and 100 teams. Rugby has much bigger problems than the All Blacks

Wow, if Levin joined Race that would be like jumping onto the Titanic.

Given Race's perilous financial position it does not appear prudent that they should be spending what could be significant amount on legal fees when they at least could seek to resolve this by discussion with Gary Vile. Also I have not heard of any party that is taking over the stables that Gary is being forced to vacate so that would be a loss of income. As they are singling out Gary Vile it would be interesting to know what they did about "crooked John Fokerd" who was struck off by The Accountants' Society for Stealing several hundred thousand from a client. Also given that Fokerd was Treasurer of The Wellington Racing Club when they went "belly up" did they go back to see whether Fokerd contributed to this by helping himself? I would say that this would have been highly unlikely because he is one of "The Old Boys Network" and of he ever turned up at Trentham he would be welcomed with open arms and a few Gin & Tonics.

You do seem seem to have a problem with Maoris Centaur.

All Board Members are appointed by the Members' Council and they will be installing those who are willing to carry out their Agenda. So at the end of the day Board Members including Sharrock are just puppets.

The only issue is that he quotes that Prize Wanker, Hoskings

Yes they were developing surplus land at the back of Awapuni into residential sections. The proposal originally was to sell the sections and then demolish the public stand and build a conference centre. They did the sub division in stages and after selling the first stage which was only a small percentage of the overall development, they went ahead and built the conference centre by borrowing $9M from BNZ. They planned to repay this from the sales of the remainder of the sections. However, along came the GFC and section sales came to a standstill. They were straddled with total debt of around $12M and when they finally sold some sections, the proceeds only went to paying off interest. Since then it has been a case of selling off any of Race's land assets they can in a desperate bid to reduce the BNZ lending. I doubt whether they have either learned any lessons from this debacle or have anyone on their committee / board who has knowledge regarding property development.

He uses the analogy of Rugby. Well that sport has huge issues with Clubs in Auckland and Wellington down to mainly Polynesian players keeping the game going at a club level. Football in Wellington would be at least three times larger than Rugby in participation. They are so desperate, they have KFC sponsoring handing out crumbs so that Rugby Clubs can carry out small improvements to their run down clubrooms.

I was at the Bayer Classic in Levin when Canterbury Belle ran poorly after injuring herself prior to the start. There was a large contingent of "Rugby Heads" from Canterbury wearing Rugby jerseys who made their way up and they got themselves thoroughly pissed. So when she ran poorly they started fighting with other race goers. One of the most disgusting things I have seen on a race course.

My apologies, it was on the another channel.

Very sad Tim. I took a look at the Waitangi Day thread, it's disgusting.

Sorry I will clarify. When I say that they have to pay staff holiday wages it is the tote staff.

The problem with holding race meetings on public holidays is that the clubs have to pay holiday wages. Both Hawkes Bay and Otaki moved away from public holidays over the New Year. I talked to a Hawkes Bay Official who claimed that they saved $15k in wages by holding their meeting on 31 December rather than 1 January. In the past higher wages would have been no problem but crowds have started dwindle in recent years . Tauherenikau gets massive crowds happy to pay $20 entry fee so they have no problem holding their meetings on January 2 and Waitangi Day/ Monday.

Aah the old "But some of my best friends are Maori" Yeh right!

Hey mate. Sky Australia is owned by Murdoch who also owns Fox News. They are only interested in ratings which equals income and will make up any right wing shit to achieve this, the same as Fox News. Currently in NZ there is no opposition, the Tories are a rabble. Crusher is hated even by many of her own party MPs and they have long list of misfits. It goes back to "do you know who I am" who was kicked out by Key. Since then we have had Jamie Lee Ross, followed by an MP from the deep South releasing confidential information given to him by a former President of The National Party. Then we had The Tory MP who got his Dick out took a photo and sent it to young woman. This was followed by some sex fend who stood for North Harbour who was assuming a former partner's face book indentity. The Tories are no longer relevant, the latest poll shows them at around 21%. At the last election we had farmers voting Labour and the Tories last Annual Conference was a big shit fight. Jacinda has seen off 3 opposition leaders and is at very short odds to send Crusher packing. Crusher even tried a "Don Brash" out of desperation which went no where.

Boy George has finally got around to finding the Warriors a base where they can also play their "home games". The Phoenix did this last season by setting up and playing out of Wollongong. Whilst you have to acknowledge that it has been tough for the Warriors, Boy George's lack of organisation skills has made life a lot tougher for the players than it should have been.

Agreed, same with Weaver when he came in and screwed up the racing calendar. He said he did not need the punter who walks around with a Best Bets poking out of his back pocket. Instead of punting he had all the posers and A listers standing around with wine glasses in their hands and having selfies taken. The Best Bets punters pissed off as directed by Weaver and many of the Posers moved on to other "on trend" social occasions. The Auckland Cup run on a Wednesday in March was just about down to Weaver and the barman in attendance. Meanwhile NZTR stood by and did nothing. A great racing day well and truly fucked up.