What springs clearly from the yellowed pages of the Otago Daily Times of June 1908 is boundless enthusiasm for rugby, overwhelming goodwill towards Britain and its players and a sneaking suspicion about the New Zealand Rugby Union's commitment, or lack of commitment, to amateurism.
At a time when rugby was just 40 years old, ODT rugby scribe "full back" described it as a "healthy infant" that "fires the blood of the sons of the southern seas".
"They frequently ride miles on horseback, fording rivers and crossing mountains to play in an important match."
To get to Dunedin, the 30-strong Anglo-Welsh touring team had spent six weeks at sea, travelled 500 miles from Wellington, suffered two losses on the way and suffered injuries to 10 players.
Their express steamed into Dunedin's winter gloom 10 days before the test and was greeted by a railway-station platform "covered from end to end with a motley mass of assorted humanity".
The crowd, the ODT reported, was made up of old men, young men, boys, factory hands, members of Parliament and rugby club members.
"The feminine element was very strongly represented, so much so that that the ladies seemed more numerous than the men. Football was paramount in everyone's mind."
The crowd surged towards the carriages containing the players - the platform becoming "the scene of a vast scrum in which both sexes participated with much good humour".
The police "reasserted themselves" and formed a narrow gangway through which the players could pass - most wearing "natty little narrow-rimmed straw hats" trimmed with the British colours.
Among them were J. A. S. Ritson, "a clever dribbler", Gerald Williams "a clever and nippy little half back" and "Ponty" Jones a "splendid threequarter back" and the star of the side.
The unnamed ODT reporter noted the players did not seem "at all embarrassed" by the stares, cheers, crowding and "chaotic mass of humanity".
Porters with trolleys followed through the crowd shouting "by your leave".
The team checked into the Wains, Grand and City hotels and went off to His Majesty's Theatre to enjoy a performance of A Moorish Maid, which featured an "acceptable" hockey ballet, a brigand, a prince and a princess.
The enthusiasm of the "motley mass" carried over into the mayoral welcome where the ODT noted "pure, strong feelings of British brotherhood" and love of the game appealed "so strongly to manly men" as "the keystone of the arch of empire".
Mayor J. McDonald said the tour was a reminder New Zealand was part of "that great country, England" and such visits would ensure "our beloved empire would remain a united, warm and loving brotherhood".
Team manager George Harnett responded it was "that stamp of patriotism that the British loved".
And when the British were beaten by Otago 9-6 the next day, ODT editor Sir George Fenwick was at his most sympathetic, noting the team did not seem to be "in the condition" for a hard, fast game.
"A long sea voyage is generally conducive to idleness and slackness" he wrote.
"It is reasonable to conclude that the team is playing itself into form."
"In any case, the members of the British team do not take their football so seriously as the New Zealand players do. They do not forget that, after all, it is only a game ..."
Sir George was far less polite when it came to the New Zealand Rugby Union.
The tour was already under something of a cloud - chief executive of the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame Ron Palenski explaining Scotland and Ireland refused to take part because they considered the New Zealand union had breached amateur regulations in 1905 by paying its All Blacks an allowance of three shillings a day.
In the lead-up to the test, Sir George firstly took umbrage at the New Zealand union's refusal to release to the ODT the British team list - thereby protecting the value of the union's own match programme.
He then railed against the union charging two shillings rather than one shilling for admission to Carisbrook.
"We do not believe that the NZRFU may legitimately be accused of possessing any desire to prostitute the game of football ... but it is impossible to deny that it is giving the public ... very strong cause ... for concluding ... it has determined to take advantage of the British tour to secure as large a profit as it possibly can."
He considered it should be the aim of every amateur organisation to "combat strongly" sport being used for "mere pecuniary gain".
"The degradation of sport into a business is always to be deplored."
Then, for 80 minutes, at least, politics took a back seat to the game - Carisbrook's first test, in front of an estimated 20,000 fans.
- Prints available from otagoimages.co.nz
