When the Tour Came to Auckland

‘At 2.40pm Patu charged. A human tank. The first time during the tour that a protest squad charged police lines with the intention of breaking through . . .’ The Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand in 1981 provoked the biggest mass protests in New Zealand history. For two months tens of thousands of New Zealanders took to the streets every week to register their opposition to the tour. In When the Tour Came to Auckland , Geoff Chapple, author of 1981: The Tour , describes the dramatic events in Auckland as a light aircraft flour-bombed Eden Park and protesters battled police in the streets of Mt Eden in the tour’s violent conclusion. Includes a new introduction prepared especially for this BWB Text by Geoff Chapple.