Springbok tour left two brothers divided

Lindsay Amner was watching from the sideline as hundreds of protesters occupying the pitch at Rugby Park faced off against riot police when the man standing next to him pulled out a huge knife.

‘‘He said ‘I’m going up in court on Monday. May as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. I’m going to kill me a protester’.’’

Unbeknown to Lindsay, his brother Bryce was among protestors marching to stop the match that day and the tour that was dividing a nation.

The knife-wielding man jumped over the fence and started to run towards the crowd, Lindsay recalls. ‘‘The police saw him within about 10 metres and about five guys jumped on him and carted him away.’’

It was a surreal moment on an extraordinary day, probably the most dramatic day in the history of Hamilton.

Four decades have now passed since the thwarted game between Waikato and the touring Springbok team, but for many who were at Rugby Park on July 25, 1981, the memories remain as fresh as if it happened yesterday.

The 1981 Springbok Tour was likely the most violent and divisive series of events in Aotearoa’s history this side of the New Zealand Wars. Pro and anti-tour convictions ruined friendships and put families at loggerheads.

The Amner household of Hamilton East was very much a case in point.

Bryce and Lindsay were both teenagers at the time and, unbeknownst to each other, both went to the sports ground that day. But for very different reasons.

‘‘He was in the stands, I was in the protest,’’ says Bryce – although Lindsay later corrects him: ‘‘I was just on the embankment. I paid just $4 to get in. It was the cheapest ticket in the house.’’

It might have been a cheap ticket, but it proved to be a front-row seat for an extraordinary spectacle. After a group of about 2000 anti-tour protestors marched on the stadium, an estimated 500 of them ripped down a perimeter fence and fought their way through the spectators to get to the middle of the pitch.

Little did Lindsay, 16, know, but his 18-year-old brother was among those who had marched on the stadium.

Bryce was not in the contingent that made it onto the field, but he demonstrated his opposition to the tour in other ways.

‘‘I was among those who tried to push the cattle trucks [protecting access to one end of the ground] and letting the air out of the tyres.’’

Lindsay would rather have been watching the game.

‘‘When we saw the riot police run onto the field we all cheered – ‘Woah! Look at that! Cool!’ We thought they would clear them off in a matter of minutes.’’

But the expected baton charge never came, and the game was called off.

Bryce, meanwhile, managed to avoid being set upon by the angry fans spilling out of the ground, ‘‘but I did see a few people coming out with bloodied noses’’.

Lindsay is now retired and living in Whatawhata, on the outskirts of Hamilton, while Bryce is now an Anglican priest in Australia.

The couple are skilled videographers and happened to be visiting New Zealand at the time of the anniversary. Inspiration struck and they created a short documentary film about Bryce and Lindsay’s experiences.

Aptly titled Two Sides, the video contains amateur footage of the protests at Rugby Park shot by their uncle, Tom Bryce.

Lindsay now recognises he ‘‘was on the wrong side of history on that one ... but it was not until I got home I realised Bryce had been a part of it’’.

‘‘I have totally moved on ... To this day I think Bryce was there because he wanted to have a good stir, rather than for any altruistic reasons. But I was pretty naive thinking that sport and politics did not mix.’’