RUGBY NURSERY

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20504, 21 May 1938, Page 9

RUGBY NURSERY

RECORD FOR WAIKATO KEREONE CLUB COMES OF AGE FOUNDED BY SOLDIER FARMERS (Special to Times) MORRINSVILLE, Friday The great part played in Waikato football by the Kere’one Football Club of Morrinsville, which has produced one All Black—J. Leeson—and three other North Island representatives in recent years was commented on at the dinner last evening held to celebrate the ” coming of age ” of the club. The club was started in May, 1918, by settlers of the Kereone Soldier Settlement near Morrinsville. These men had been invalided home from the front and had taken up sections a few miles from Morrinsville'. They formed a football club as a means of getting recreation again after several years of active service and hospital treatment. At the dinner held in the Nottingham Castle Hotel the chair was occupied in turn during the evening by Mr 0. P. Mortensen, the first club captain and present president, and by Mr Malcolm Larney, of Te Hoe, who convened the meeting to form the club in 1918. About 50 past and present members and officials attended. To mark the occasion of the club’s coming of age those present resolved to % confer the honour of life membership on Mr Larney, as founder of the club, and Mr W. J. Aitken, of Kereone, the first president, who is still supporting the club as patron. Representative Honours That the Kereone Club had won the Morrinsville senior championship for twelve seasons since the Morrinsville Rugby Sub-union was formed in 1919 was mentioned by Mr Mortensen. Between 1926 and 1936 the Kereone seniors won the championship without a break for 11 seasons in succession. So many Kereone players had won places in the Waikato representatives that it was difficult to compile a record of them, but in one season six Kereone men wore the Waikato jersey. Congratulations of footballers generally were offered by Dr. S. Morrow (president) and Mr W. Hogg (patron) and Mr C. H. Mclntyre (secretary) of the Morrinsville Rugby Union, and by Messrs A. G. Yardley and B. Chapman, both life members of the Waikato. Rugby Union. Reviewing the record of the Ke'reone club during its 20 years of exists e'nce, Mr Larney recalled that one of Its foundation members was "Jock” Mclntyre, a member of the New Zealand Army team in France, who captained the South Auckland team against the Springboks at Hamilton in 1921 and was later Waikato selector. In the past decade four members of the club had in turn won places in the North Island team, these being Stan Thomas (1930), Colin Cameron (1931 . Johnny Leeson (1933 and 1935) and Len Russell (1936). Leeson toured Australia in the 1934 All Black team, while' Russell, whom Mr Larney referred to as a future All Black, was prevented by injuries in the Rugby trial games last season from aspiring to higher honours.