Ted McKenzie - A rugby man of many parts
Ted McKenzie was a formidable figure in New Zealand rugby during the first 40 years of the 20th Century.
He covered the spectrum of involvement in the game as a player, coach, referee and administrator.
He was a member of the famous family from the Wairarapa. Five brothers played first-class rugby, one of them, the oldest brother Bill, earning fame as Off-side Mac, among the early practitioners of the wing-forward craft.
According to The Sportsman1, the nickname was earned after a game in which he was penalised 23 times. He played 12 games for Wairarapa from 1889 to 1892 before transferring to Wellington in 1893 to play 31 games until 1897. He played 20 times for New Zealand between 1893 and 1897 and won notoriety as the first New Zealand representative to be sent off in an international game, against New South Wales in the third 'Test' of the 1893 series, famously limping from the ground so the crowd thought he was injured.
A third brother, Norman, who played fullback for North Island Country in 1911, would go on to coach Hawke's Bay during its first significant Ranfurly Shield era in the early 1920s. During this era, he and Ted, as coach of Wairarapa, were often pitted against each other.
Other brothers included Jack, a forward who played 25 games as a forward for Wairarapa between 1899-1903, and who refereed one first-class game in 1907, and Bert, who notched 50 games for Wairarapa between 1902-15 and was a forward good enough to be selected for the North Island in 1913. He also refereed. He refereed 73 games between his 1920 debut and his last in 1939. He refereed one Test match between the All Blacks and Australia in 1936 but had international provincial appointments involving the 1921 Springboks, the 1928 New South Wales side, and the 1930 British & Irish Lions while also refereeing the 1927 North-South game.
Ted's playing peak was as a North Island representative in 1902. He played his first senior club rugby for Carterton at 18, and by his third season, he was playing for Wairarapa, something he did for 10 years, apart from one season in Wellington, where he played for Petone. In his early career, he played in the forwards but was sent out into the backline firstly as a wing and then as a fullback, which became his regular position.
He played 35 times for the province.
McKenzie was unusual in achieving first-class status as a referee while he was still playing the game. He refereed 29 games in his career, which started with one game in 1903 between Wairarapa and South Canterbury. He then waited until his playing career was completed before refereeing Wairarapa against Bush in 1908 and then Manawatu-Horowhenua against the touring Anglo-Welsh side in the same season.
His final season was in 1921, when he refereed the Wellington-South Africa game. His final appointment was as referee of the first New Zealand-South Africa Test in 1921 - a game in which he was critically assessed. He was the founder of the Wairarapa Rugby Referees' Association.
From 1911, he was the secretary of the Wairarapa Rugby Union until 1929, during which time he had several selection stints, his last year being in 1938. He was on the management committee of the NZ Rugby Union from 1923-30, a national selector from 1924-37, and the All Blacks' sole selector in 1938 and 1939. Amid all that, he had time to serve as manager of the 1925 All Blacks to Australia.
One of the great myths of New Zealand rugby, certainly in its history with South Africa, concerns his selectorship in 1939. It was said that after the 1939 All Blacks trials, Ted McKenzie never announced his team as the outbreak of what became World War Two intervened.
As this column showed earlier this year, the only reason the team was never named was that more trials were to be played in May 1940 before McKenzie's final selection was announced.
He was also to have been the sole selector of the 1924-25 team that became known as The Invincibles, but in the months before the trials, a panel of seven became involved. The reasons for this will be outlined in the forthcoming series on this blog, The Invincibles – 100 Years On.
The Sportsman, Auckland, 22 August 1913