Shadbolt: I’ll never forget ’81

Invercargill mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt was among hundreds of marchers who gathered in Hamilton yesterday to mark 40 years since one of the most dramatic days of the divisive 1981 Springbok Tour.

‘‘I’ll remember those days for the rest of my life,’’ Shadbolt told Stuff.

‘‘It was a victory in a way and changed New Zealand for the better.’’

On July 25, 1981, hundreds of protesters broke on to the pitch at Hamilton’s Rugby Park, where the Springboks were due to play Waikato. At exactly 3.10pm yesterday those attending the commemorations broke into applause to mark the moment their actions forced the cancellation of the game.

The march towards Hamilton’s premier rugby ground was a few clicks slower than the corresponding march four decades earlier.

Yet demonstrators’ passion for social justice hasn’t waned.

‘‘Remember racism. Remember Soweto. Remember Mandela,’’ march leader John Minto chanted through his megaphone.

‘‘Remember those at the back,’’ came the good-natured reply from a few demonstrators who struggled to keep up with the front group.

Angeline Greensill, who was in the middle of the field in 1981, said the minutes they spent there seemed like hours.

‘‘It wasn’t funny being in it and I feel sorry for those that suffered injuries, and there were many,’’ Greensill said

Minto said white South Africans got up in the middle of the night to watch the first televised rugby match from the other side of the world and were instead confronted with images of protesters.

When news the game had been cancelled reached future South African president Nelson Mandela in his Robben Island prison, he remarked it was as ‘‘if the sun had come out’’.

Minto said the actions of protestors reverberated around the world, but the battle against apartheid is unfinished.

He said the new apartheid struggle focuses on Israel and its alleged brutal repression of Palestinians.