Suburbs Old Boys

2025 Notes

(Extracted from 2025 President's Report)

A big thanks to all of the Old Boys who renewed their subscriptions last year, and especially to those new subscribers. We need to keep our membership around the one hundred mark if we are to achieve the minimum goals of our mission to support the brand new Suburbs Rugby Club. As you are no doubt aware, a new constitution is likely to be adopted in 2026, along with a discreet change in name, where the word “Football” is to be removed. This is in part, spurred on by the legislative requirements of the Incorporated Societies Act. The club has drafted a new constitution which reflects both the new legislation (transparency, accountability, good governance) while retaining Suburbs’ long standing values, culture and structure. Old Boys have been invited by Club Chairman Wayne Dowd to review the draft constitution and offer feedback or provide questions. There is no requirement for the Old Boys Association to upgrade or change their constitution, as we are an unincorporated association with no legal status. Basically we are a collection of free souls, old farts, two eyed rugby tragics, one eye red and the other blue. So therefore we will continue in our mission to support the club in whatever way we can.

One of our supporting gigs was to feed the kids at Prize giving. This role is now taken by the club caterer; I assume there are commercial and contractual reasons for this. The Old Boys will therefore look for other ways to support Suburbs Juniors.

Supporting Premier Rugby has been done in conjunction with our sponsor, John Grayson, and the Player of the Day awards throughout the season have been aggregated to determine the winner of the JC Trophy, or the ideal Premier Player of the season, as determined by the Old Boys who attend the games. While there has been a pleasing attendance of Old Boys at the Home Games, although we would still like to see more, the numbers at away games has been seriously dwindling. But nothing has deterred Peter Osborne from making these trips and keeping our flag flying.

The Building programme has been a core beneficiary of Old Boys support and I expect this to continue into 2026. We are well and truly on the home straight. Old Championship Team Photos, Donated Jerseys, Life members portraits are being catalogued, some may need TLC and maintenance, and Trophies will need cabinets for display.

The Old Boys Association was involved in two major events in 2025. First up was ReUnion Day, which coincided with the Battle of the West. Before the formalities we paused for a moments silence to remember stalwarts from both clubs, Rod Trembath our Patron, and Danny Lendich, the hardman of Waitemata. The pre match jousting was very intensive, with Bernie Allen putting on a great display for the visitors. For Suburbs, Barry Riley was equal to the occasion. The second half comprised the Premiers match up on number 1 and I am happy to report that this match was once again won by Suburbs, despite being, yet again, the underdogs. Next season we will travel to Waitemata Park, our ancient enemy is just waiting to remove the Battle of the West Trophy from our grasp. Let’s have a strong contingent of Old Boys out there to ensure it doesn’t happen.

The Old Boys had a good turnout for the Grayson-Stevens Challenge Cup at Gribblehurst Park. It was a great occasion to see Tom O’Hanlon, a good friend of Suburbs, being honoured by the Eden Club, naming their Hall after him. Grant Fox and Bernie McCahill came along to talk about Tom. On the Rugby field Suburbs went quite well to win the first half, but Eden came back winning the half that mattered, and they keep their little black and yellow hands on the trophy for yet another year. It seems to be mirror image of our relationship with Waitemata, with a small twist, the Eden matches have been fairly conclusive in favour of the victors, with the Waitemata matches, Suburbs has had an uncanny habit of being outplayed, but never giving in, and turning up at the death with a big bang and taking out the win. This coming 2026 season, the games v Eden should be at Shadbolt Park, we hope to see you there.

Re Union Day will be decided by the incoming committee, and Challenge Cup matches are generally given priority, so long as other circumstances are fitting. Re Union Day is the time for Old Boys to make a special commitment, for many it’s quite a long journey, so if you can only make it once a season, this is the best time to come.

Another event, not strictly an OB event, but one with a significant overlapping membership, was the 50th Re Union of the Argentine Tour, a report for that event will be filed in the first Informer of 2026.

Overall our membership in 2025 was down a little from the previous year, I urge all members committed to Suburbs to try and recruit a new member, we need to keep the Old Boys Association thriving and growing if we are to help Make Suburbs Great Again.

Robert Chisholm
President of the Suburbs Old Boys Association.

2025 Senior Prizegiving

The senior prizegiving took place on Saturday 3 August. The two coveted Old Boys awards were presented to:

Ideal Premier Player (The John Carter Memorial Trophy) – Ash Tuia

Ideal Club Member (The Mick Gibson Cup) – Penny Kee