Ex-Coasters in Hawke’s Bay Union

Grey River Argus, 27 March 1948, Page 7

Ex-Coasters in Hawke’s Bay Union

NAPIER, .March 25. Three ex-West Coasters are playing a prominent part in Hawke's Bay rugby football at the present time, and, by a strange coincidence, one followed another as president of the Hawke’s Bay Union. On the retirement of Mr Jack Russell (Waipukurau) whose father, Mr A. C. Russell, was at one time Mayor of Grevmouth, Mr V. Fraser (president of the Wairoa sub-union) and formerly of Greymouth, was elected to the position, and, on taking the chair, made reference 10 the fact that possibly nowhere else in the Dominion had such a coincidence occurred, in that former residents of a centre some 600 milees from the headquarters of a rugby union had been selected to hold oil ice immediately following each other. The third gentleman previously associated with the Coast is Mr C. H. Bunker, who is president of the Hasting Rugby Sub-Union, and who many years ago resided at Kumara, and still remembers the earlier residents of that township. He plays a prominent part in tire management of the code at Hastings, and at present is actively assochued with the efforts of his sub-union to bring about a new constitution for. the Hawkes Bay Union, it being claimed that the voting svstem at present is far from democratic, and the issue oromises to be a knotty one for the newlyappointed Hawke's Bay executive to deal with.