The perils of octopus wrestling

In his 2015 book “Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports”, Edward Brooke-Hitching refers to a group of sports, now forgotten, which dwindled and gradually died owing to “the enormous amount of personal risk involved”. The appeal of pastimes such as balloon-jumping, waterfall-riding and firework-boxing lay in their element of danger and voyeuristic spectator appeal.

New Zealand was not immune to this spirit of “derring-do”. In 1899, “Captain Lorraine” (David Mahoney), a young Aucklander, proved himself a man of nerve in undertaking a balloon ascent from the Basin Reserve, and (from an estimated height of 2,000 feet), an exciting and graceful descent by means of a parachute into the grounds of Wellington College, after initially plummeting toward earth for several hundred feet, “like a rocket-stick”. Lorraine later died during a later similar exploit in Canterbury, floating out past the Lyttleton Heads never to be seen again, with the press noting that he was “butchered to make a Christchurch holiday”.

However, Charles Ferris (from a famous Poverty Bay rugby family) was perhaps the most famous of New Zealand’s early sporting daredevils, who in 1927 at Wainui Beach in Gisborne, intimated his intention of capturing a great white shark, locally known as “Kruger". Cutting up a stingray, Mr Ferris waded into the sea armed with a harpoon, to which was attached a rope held by watchers on shore. He cast his bait and brought four sharks around him. A prosaic observer described the strange scene as “closely akin to a poultry-farmer feeding his chickens”.

Others said it was the most thrilling thing they had ever seen when Mr. Ferris drove his harpoon hard into the biggest shark and then dashed for the shore before the companion sharks were awake to the moveThe shark was pulled ashore by those holding the rope and was found to measure 10feet and to weigh 400 pounds. “Such sport, however, is not to be recommended for all”, it was wisely observed. Ferris, it was widely reported, continued to undertake similar marine adventures for another decade thereafter The sporting bravado of the early 20th century continued between the Boer and Second World Wars, with celebrated author Arthur Conan Doyle noting in 1929, “better that our sports should be a little rough, than that we should run a risk of effeminacy”. Also reflecting the spirit of the age, the great Maori statesman Sir James Carroll (known as “Timi Kara”) observed “life without sport, life without the element of chance, would be very dull, very dull indeed”.

At this time football, in all its global forms, was historically one of the world’s most dangerous sporting pastimes. By way of graphic example, in the years 1890-1892, there were 71 deaths from playing the original form of the game (soccer) in England (1),while in 1909 alone, there were 26 deaths from those playing the North American variant of Rugby Union, with 32 players killed in the 1934 season in what became to be commonly known as the “American football slaughter”

It is perhaps a less well-known fact that no fewer than 22 young New Zealanders died from injuries sustained while playing rugby in this brutal era of sporting heroism. The main causes of death were from concussion (cerebral haemorrhages), broken spines, punctured kidneys or “kicks to the heart”, or abdomen. By 1930, there was a growing outcry against the perceived savagery of the game, with one journal noting with reference to rugby, “if this game of savages is banished from civilised countries, the death of the victims will not be in vain.”

Those that died in the first half of the 20th century in New Zealand were: 1899,Alexander Armit, (Dunedin, broken spine); 1908, Richard Kearse, (Westport, blow to the abdomen); 1910, Sidney Charlton, (Napier, kicked just below the heart); 1911, Stewart Robertson (Zingari-Richmond, lacerated kidney); 1911, Tom Hertnon (Celtic, Timaru, blow to the abdomen); 1913, Adolphus Bust (Ellerslie, concussion of the spine); 1913, Sam Plimsoll (Christchurch, concussion); 1921, Alexander Aitken (Sydenham, heart failure); 1922, Robert Williams (Wanganui Collegiate, broken spine); 1924, Louis Allerby (Colyton, Palmerston North, severe internal haemorrhage due to blow on the side of the chest); 1925, Nira Mitchell (Rotorua, acute heart trouble); 1926, Wilfred Munro (Kawakawa, fracture of the skull); 1929, Clarence Spence (Wairoa, fractured spine); 1930, James Farr (Old Boys, Oamaru. concussion), Frank Kruse (Tauhoa, Northland, fracture of the base of the skull); 1934, Gordon Johnston, (Rangitikei, concussion, cerebral haemorrhage); 1935, Charles Estall (Petone, concussion), Lindsay Watson (Victoria University, haemorrhage and rupture of the left kidney); 1940, Jimmy Nehua, (Okaihau, Northland, broken neck); 1941, Ashley Wilson (Old Boys, Marlborough, cerebral concussion); 1942, Maxwell Stewart, (Army, Auckland, fracture of the neck); 1944, George Cameron (Eastbourne, fractured temple).

While today, the annual mortality risk of playing rugby is generally estimated as 1 in 100,000 (2), in 1930’s New Zealand between the two World Wars, the risk of death wasat least 15 times higher.

By 1945, it was becoming increasingly noted that “the sport which is the most appreciated, is the one which entails the least risk of personal injury”. After two World Wars, it seemed that the significant loss of life experienced by New Zealand on the battle-field had largely deflated the idea that risking life and limb on the sports-field, was a necessary exhibition of New Zealand masculinity.

The grim reality is that since the heady days of the two World Wars, Rugby Union has been in a steady decline in New Zealand. The numbers speak for themselves. Over the past 90 years, the number of adults playing rugby has reduced by 6% from 30,0003 to 28,000. However, over that same period, the population has grown by 223% from 1,467,400 to 4,749,598. In relative terms, 2% of New Zealand’s adult population played rugby in 1927, compared to 0.6% in 2017, a decline of 70%.

While perhaps not suffering the fate of Octopus Wrestling or Balloon-Jumping, physical sports such as Rugby Union which had their hey-day in the early 20th century, are perhaps no longer as important to many in our contemporary society in establishing our national identity. However, the appetite of the gladiator is still satisfied in the professional game, where for most New Zealanders “the big hits” are celebrated from the safety of the lounge sofa, rather than out on the field.

Perhaps it is fair to suggest that the aura of sports such as Rugby Union can be placed in the same historical context as the famous battles which characterise our national memory each year, in ANZAC Day. Our heroes from the battle-field are akin to our heroes on the sports-field. If there is some truth in that statement, then perhaps it would be appropriate to more formally remember those who have lost their lives playing New Zealand’s national game?

And looking toward the future, there is also an opportunity for our heroic sports of the past to reinvent themselves as community sports for the future, where the benefits of participation are promoted less around the physical risk taken, and more on the social and community good which can be received by taking part.