But it wasn’t an after-work catch-up they were there for - they were discussing starting a Sunday soccer competition.
David Bolam-Smith, a photolithographer and member of the Christchurch Star team, was the driving force, having had the idea to start a Sunday league in Christchurch after returning from a working holiday in England, where Sunday football is wildly popular.
The Star’s team played weekly friendly matches, mostly against companies whose players worked on Saturdays, but he wanted something with more structure.
“I thought: ‘Why go to all this effort and not have a competition?’,” he said.
“So I put the word out to all the clubs, company teams that we were playing against - why don’t we get together and form a league?”
Retired Star sports editor Nick Tolerton was at the meeting, and played for The Star team at the time, and he remembered “a boozy night’’.
“It probably wasn’t the best idea having the inaugural meeting in a bar, but we got sense out of everyone in the end.”
The league began in 1974 with eight teams competing. All matches were played at Nunweek Park every Sunday.
They’d all get together for the after-match at the Harewood Hall, where there was a social atmosphere, despite the competitiveness on the pitch.
“It was a very social league when it started,” Bolam-Smith said.
“I can remember the colour of all the different uniforms and tracksuits and the kids, the parents, wives and children always came to the game.
“It was just full of kids and people and it was just a real good, social get together.
“Competitive on the field obviously, but everyone nice and friendly off it.”
Whitcoulls won the first Bolam Cup – contested between the top four teams at the end of the season, and named after the league’s founder – beating Christchurch Star 3-2 in the final after extra time.
Fifty years on, the Sunday League is still going strong, now with four divisions and 28 teams. At its pre-Covid peak, the league had five divisions and about 40 teams competing.
The Bolam Cup, now a knockout competition played separately to the league, was won by Joe’s Bower 11 last Sunday, beating Canterbury Fiji Navua 2-1 in the final at English Park.
Bolam-Smith isn’t involved with the league any longer, save for attending the final to present the winning team’s medals and the Bolam Cup trophy.
“It is a momentous occasion for us. It’s been a bit slow going in the last two or three years because our team numbers have been dwindling, but this year’s been a better one,” he said.
“What we’re planning on doing is having an event, it’s quite likely to be a dinner somewhere. We’ll invite life members and our existing clubs, but also older members who’ve been in the league as well. ”
Ralfs said the league was different now to what it was in the past when company teams and pub sides competed – like Avonhead Tavern, who have won the cup seven times.
“We still get a little bit of that, not much. Now there’s a lot more ethnic teams.
“Quite a few Fijian sides, from various parts of Fiji, we’ve got a few (expats) from around Nepal – Kathmandu and a little place called Lhotshampa, which I had never heard of, and now I have.
“These are ethnic people that are here in New Zealand, they have their own groups of people, and they all love football, so there’s quite a few of them.”
“When I think back 50 years, some of us guys from The Star and different clubs got together in the back bar of the Albion, I never, ever envisaged 50 years later, there’ll be a football cup final,” he said.
“It’s one of the memorable occasions in my life. It’s something I’ve dreamed up and it not only grew, but like small acorns grow into big trees, this is certainly a case of that little idea maturing into a meaningful sporting event.
“It gives me satisfaction that I’ve given so many young people an opportunity to exercise and play the sport that they love.”
