Christmas came early for a former West Coast rugby player now living in Matamata, with the discovery of a prized rugby jersey that had been missing for over 40 years, and long since thought to have simply vanished for good.
For former Hokitika St Mary’s Rugby Football Club and West Coast flanker Graham McGurk, being selected for the 1981 New Zealand Colts to play the Australian Colts at Eden Park was the pinnacle of his rugby career.
Playing alongside players who would go on to become All Blacks, including Kieran Crowley, Arthur Stone, Mike Clamp, Warwick Taylor and Albert Anderson, as well as powerful Canterbury No 8 Dale Atkins, Mr McGurk was in the company of some of New Zealand’s finest young talent.
Mr McGurk’s star-studded colts team vanquished their Australian counterparts 37-7, a team that included future Wallaby greats David Campese and Gary Ella.
For Mr McGurk, who played in the match as blindside flanker, playing in and getting to keep his black silver fern-adorned No 6 New Zealand Colts jersey was a special moment, and he cherished the jersey immensely.
When, in 1983, he was transferred to Balclutha through his job with the New Zealand Police, Mr McGurk decided to donate his jersey to his St Mary’s Rugby Football Club to be displayed on the wall at the clubrooms.
But for some reason, despite gifting the jersey, this never eventuated and the mystery of what happened to it began.
Frequent inquiries in the immediate years following turned up no sign of the jersey, nor could he locate it despite an extensive search when he was transferred back to the Coast 12 years later.
With the McGurk family now living in Matamata, Mr McGurk’s son, Jonathan McGurk, decided that 41 years on he would see if he could track down what happened to his dad’s jersey.
Jonathan thought he would start by contacting Adam Gilshnan at the West Coast Rugby Museum.
"I reached out to Adam, who said he’d never seen it before, but would make a few calls to see what he could find out, and we both agreed that it was a needle in a haystack-like mission.
"Adam made a few calls to a few St Mary’s people and initially had no luck, before he phoned me to ask if I’d ever found a needle in a haystack, because he just had!" Jonathan said.
"I was a bit emotional to be fair, and Adam said he contacted St Mary’s life member Bernie Lee, who’d only just stumbled across it recently and that he’d be delighted to get it back to Graham."
Mr Lee then presented the jersey to Mr Gilshnan, who in turn mailed it to Jonathan.
Mr McGurk said he had been hunting for the jersey for years, and was blown away that it had been finally tracked down, as he never thought he would ever see it again.
"It’s a very special thing that "Stretch" [Jonathan] has done for me, and I want to also pay a special thank you to Bernie Lee and Adam Gilshnan for their efforts in tracking my jersey down.
"It’s incredible to think that after all of these years, I’m able to be reunited with it, and to share it with my family and grandchildren," Mr McGurk said. — Hokitika Guardian
