"All Golds" - Just A Name?

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

The New Zealand Rugby League has announced that it will be conducting an "All Golds re-enactment tour" to Great Britain in October and November 2007.

Marking the centenary anniversary of the first international (touring) rugby league team, it will hopefully serve as a great tribute to the pioneers who left New Zealand in the winter of 1907.

But were they really called the "All Golds"?

The team wore conventional black New Zealand jerseys, socks and shorts - not a sliver of gold in sight!

Rugby league writers/journalists have been referring to the 1907 team as the "All Golds" since at least the 1960s. It was not however the most commonly used name over the past century, with many describing the team as "professional All Blacks", "(Albert) Baskerville's team", and mostly "New Zealand rugby league team".

Since the early 1980s though, the "All Golds" name has come into more frequent use as the years have rolled-by. In an age where it is common for all 'events' to be shortened into an instantly recognisable tag, it is not surprising that "All Golds" should now be the most used description. It is immediately recognised as referring to the 1907 team.

Interestingly, amidst the Super League war, we saw plans to form an "All Golds" team of ARL-aligned New Zealand players to take on the Kangaroos - like many concepts at that time, it never came to fruition.

The name "All Golds" is now thought to have originated in a New Zealand newspaper in May/June of 1907 (see panel below), amidst editorial arguments over whether it was honourable for the proposed "professional All Blacks" team to be paid.

"All Golds" was an insult against the players, criticising the arrangement where they would each share in the financial rewards of the tour. Clearly, "All Golds" was a play on the amateur "All Blacks" name.

The first documented use in Australia was in a headline in the Sydney Morning Herald (August 7), just before Baskerville's team arrived. Interestingly, those same Herald articles, also had a tag for those who supported the amateur rugby union - they were called the "Lily Whites" (who were clean, pure, and repelled the evils of professionalism).

Is it fair that we continue to call Baskerville and his team mates "All Golds", when it was used to demean them?

Apart from in the Herald (in less than a handful of news items over the space of a month), "All Golds" was never used by the press. It was not used in match reports, and never appeared in the English or Welsh newspapers during the tour. Nor did it appear in letters from the public to newspapers about the team.

There were no reports of how Baskerville or the other players felt about the "All Golds" name. However, they continually objected to being labelled as "outright professionals", and as men hell-bent on securing money from the sport of rugby. In reality, they were no more 'greedy' than Australian cricketers, who formed similar arrangements for their Ashes tours of England.

The terms of the team's contract required each man to contribute £50 to finance the tour - at its conclusion the profits (if there were any) would be equally divided. To find £50 would not have been easy for the working-class men who took part - it equated to about half-a-year's wages. This mandatory upfront investment would have ruled out those who were simply looking for easy money from playing football.

To hand over £50 was a big risk, especially as no one had ever before mounted a rugby tour of the Northern Union (English rugby league) clubs. It could easily have turned sour at any stage of the tour (compare it to the financial failure of the Kangaroos 12 months later). In the end, the New Zealanders earned a return of four or five times their original outlay. Many of them later turned out with English clubs, gaining very lucrative contracts.

It is a reasonable argument to say that the "All Golds" name has transcended its original use as an insult against the team, and could now well be considered to be some sort of badge-of-honour.

Ultimately, it is for the NZRL to decide how Albert Baskerville and his team should be honoured. Is "All Golds" an appropriate official title?

References.
Sean Fagan, Pioneers of Rugby League
The Sydney Morning Herald