The Club
The Mount Albert Rugby League club was formed in 1927 by a group of players who became disgruntled with Marist League club. Marist had been training at the Domain in central Auckland and the rebels went to train at an unknown park in Kingsland. The club played in the junior competition in Auckland before gaining Senior status in 1935. Click here to see a match report of Mt Albert's first ever match on 27th April 1935
Some time in the early 1930s the Club moved to its present site at Fowlds Park in Morningside. Fowlds Park in those days was used by a hockey club situated on the present day “Number 3’ field closest to Rocky Nook Avenue. Dividing the fields on what is today ‘the bank ‘ was a thick macrocapa hedge. A wooden shed sited on the north western side of what is now number 2 field served as the club’s first changing rooms with 1 cold shower available for the players.
Ray Cranch a member of Mt Albert Rugy League throughout the 1940's remembers, “I was going to Seddon Tech in Wellesly Street and a couple of my mates Tommy Hetherington and Norm Carter were playing for Mount Albert. I wanted to play with them but was too heavy. So I got a game with a club called Akarana which was based in Parnell. When I came back from the Second World War in 1946 I joined Mount Albert and played with them for the rest of my playing days.
I believe that Mount Albert itself started in a billiard Saloon in the Kingsland shopping
centre run by the Herring family. They were well known in trotting at the time. Jack Herring played hooker for Pt Chev and his brother Des became a Kiwi whilst playing at Mount Albert. There was also a club at the time “Kingsland’ and I think they might have merged with Mount Albert at some stage.
I know too that sometime in the 30s there was an argument between some key figures in the Marist club – Len Shultz and Percy Capels were a couple of them I think and they left to start the Mount Albert Senior team.
When I started playing for Mount Albert after the War in 1946 Jack Kay was the President and Theo Gabriel was the Secretary – Theo ran a menswear shop. Most of the boys I played with were tradesmen. If we had a home game at Fowlds Park we would just sit around in the old shed on the Malvern Road side of the ground and talk – there was no drinking in those days and very little social scene around the club at all – that didn’t really start until after the war. If we played away – say at Grey Lynn Park we would just hop on our bikes and ride home. A funny thing I remember is prior to the war having a sticker on my wardrobe at home warning against the evils of the demon drink. I am pretty sure I made up for whatever I missed out on pre war afterwards in regard to the ‘demon drink’.
Tommy Hetherington remembers the 1930s:“ We grew up around Mt Eden and Eden Tce living for a time in Walters Road before the family finally settled in Belle Vue Road. I went to Mt Eden Primary and Kowhai Intermediate – when I was 13 a chap called Freddie Martin got a few of us who had been playing in the 1st xv for Kowhai to go down to Fowlds park and play League for Mount Albert. Me and my mate Norm Carter went down together – Norm was later killed in World War 2 in Italy. He was a good fullback or five eigth. We went up a grade every year until the was started and then I played off and on for the 3rd grade. All the teams used to train at Fowlds park and the field was full of kids – I remember one year the showers were cold the whole year. When I was 17 I joined the army and used to get time off now and again to play for Mount Albert – the Rugby boys got all the time off they liked."
"After the war I got my old job back at Smith and Browns in Symonds st and did an adult apprenticeship as an upholsterer."
"After the war I played a few games Seniors we had a good team with some real characters Arthur McInnaney, the Cranch brothers Ray and Eric and a couple of boys we got from Manukau when their team broke up, Ra Rogers and George Shilton."