Gisborne’s football community farewelled three notable players from different eras during 2024: Harry Kennedy from the 1970s and early ’80s, Malcolm Bland from the late 1960s and early ’70s, and Les Benge from the late 1950s and early to mid-’60s.
HARRY KENNEDY
Gisborne was a stepping stone for most of the “imports” brought in to bolster local playing strength in the glory days of local football.
Not so for Harry Kennedy. He stayed, served Gisborne City with distinction on the field, and his family, faith community and employers off it. He died in October, aged 79.
He arrived in September 1974, a distinguished Irish League career – and even a taste of English professional football – behind him.
He could play in midfield or defence and soon became an integral part of the Gisborne City national league side.
Another Northern Irish footballer, Eddie Simpson, had urged him to consider a shift to New Zealand, and young City coach Kevin Fallon got things moving. By the time Kennedy, his wife Hilary and children Elaine, Martin and Sharon arrived in Gisborne, Ray Veall was coach.
Kennedy made a name for himself as a hard-tackling midfielder with a measured pass and a blistering shot. He played a full season under Veall and again in 1976 when close friend John Hill was coach.
When City were relegated from the national league, the club had to rebuild in the central league, and Kennedy joined Hill in defence as they set about guiding the club back to football’s top table.
His reading of the play was invaluable at the back, and his composure on the ball was a source of wonder. Kennedy would trap a greasy ball that fell from the clouds into the wet on the edge of his penalty area and hit a sidefoot pass to his mate Hiller at rightback, and City would be off on attack.
He was an integral member of the 1979 squad that gained promotion back to the national league under Fallon in the second of his three stints as coach of the club.
In the days before shinpads were compulsory, Kennedy suffered a couple of serious stud gashes below the knee. These came towards the end of his football career and either injury would have caused many to retire.
As late as 1982, the year Kennedy turned 37, he made himself available for first-team duty when injuries hit. He said at the time he felt he owed it to football for helping to keep him on the straight and narrow when he was young.
His Christian faith helped there, too.
Kennedy was born on May 11, 1945, in Belfast, the only son of three children to Maudie and Charlie Kennedy. He spent a lot of time with one set of grandparents who were deaf and dumb, and from whom he learned the rudiments of sign language.
At the age of 22, with the encouragement of an aunt, he became a committed Christian. He started attending the Brethren church of his father but ended up in Shankill Baptist church one morning after he turned up late for the Brethrens’ service and was locked out. He remained faithful to the Baptist church for the rest of his life.
He and Hilary married in December 1964 and, after they were joined by their three children, they started looking for a more peaceful life than could be had in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles”. Football and Gisborne City provided it.
Kennedy was an electrician, and initially worked in the trade for Gisborne City committee member Chris Fenn. In later years, his practical knowledge and approachable manner made him many friends when he managed the Ideal Electrical wholesale business.
Away from work, Kennedy’s main interests were his family, faith and friends. He took great joy in his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
His family regarded his final few years as precious, coming as they did after a heart attack during a past-versus-present match in 1999 when he was 54, further heart “events” and a cardiac arrest. His recovery from the last of these confounded doctors and amazed his family.
As a church member Kennedy helped wherever he saw need ... making repairs, picking up and dropping off people, running a youth group and performing myriad acts of service.
His Gisborne friends – from church and football – became his extended New Zealand family.
He is survived by his wife Hilary, his three children, 10 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
MALCOLM BLAND
Liverpool and Crewe Alexandra were part of Malcolm Bland’s history when he arrived in Gisborne at the start of the 1968 Central League season.
New Zealand and Australian football owed those two clubs – at opposite ends of English football’s hierarchy – a debt of gratitude for letting him go.
Bland was 19 when he arrived in Gisborne and quickly made a name for himself with his speed of thought and movement on the pitch.
One of the players from Hungaria, a team that drew on refugees of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising and contributed hugely to Wellington football, was in awe of Bland’s vision.
Most players could see one, perhaps two moves ahead, this player said. Bland could see three.
In Gisborne, Newcastle-born Bland moved into the family home of teammate Max Davis, and the pair started a long-running stream of banter over whose name should be mentioned first in sports headlines . . . Bland and Davis or Davis and Bland.
Both played for New Zealand, Bland 16 times for two goals between 1969 and 1973 (starting with World Cup qualifying games in Israel), and Davis once (against Australia in 1973). Both left Gisborne for notable careers with Auckland clubs – Bland with Eastern Suburbs and Davis with Mt Wellington – and both won the national league with their new club.
Bland left Gisborne for Suburbs midway through the 1970 season, having scored five goals in nine games of the first season of national league football, but he carried a torch for the place.
It was where he met and courted Margaret (Margie) Wakelin, his wife and companion until he died in August, and they kept in touch with relatives and friends.
In a message of goodwill sent on Gisborne City’s 60th anniversary in 1999, Bland said he still had the letter inviting him to come to New Zealand. It convinced him at the “ripe old age of 19” to leave England for a new life on the other side of the world.
Bland scored 27 goals in 48 games for Suburbs, then moved on. He tried his luck again in England – with a short spell at Bournemouth – before he and Margie went to Brisbane in 1975. He played four seasons with Merton East, two as player-coach.
Bland retired as a player in 1980, having decided to concentrate on coaching at Brisbane’s Mt Gravatt Hawks.
An Instagram post from the club said Bland “was more than just a member of our community – he was a friend, coach and mentor who touched countless lives”.
“Mal was an exceptional footballer, having represented New Zealand, and an even better coach and mentor,” the post said. “As a coach and technical director with Hawks for many years, his impact on our club was immense.”
Malcolm Bland died in August at the age of 75, having lived with Parkinson’s disease for his last few years. He is survived by his wife Margie, sons Stephen and Joel, and grandchildren Mahtaya, Emmersen and Jaxon.
LES BENGE
In an era when Eastern Union and Poverty Bay teams were likened to the United Nations because of their multinational line-up, Les Benge was a rarity ... a Kiwi.
He played alongside former Chelsea captain and England international Ken Armstrong for Eastern Union in 1958, and in 1960 he was one of three New Zealanders – Dave Waugh and Bob Elliott were the others – in the Union team who beat Auckland champions Eastern Suburbs 4-0 in a challenge match in Gisborne.
But he was also in the first line-up of a totally Kiwi team, Riverina, in a 1961 photo taken before their first game.
Les Benge died last January at the age of 84.
Old teammates remember him as a tenacious wing half, left or right, who could be relied on to do his job.
“Les was a good midfielder who would be the right man in the right spot at the right time,” former teammate and centre forward Mike Mulrooney said.
“He was the captain of that founding team.”
Riverina had grown out of conversations that Mulrooney, Dennis Surridge (an outside-right) and Kevin Green (a leftback) had, often at Surridge’s home in Maki St. Their idea was to start their own team, and young local players rallied to their side.
Surridge’s father Doug became Riverina’s first chairman and Kay Sewell, then in the veteran stages of a distinguished local football career, provided some structure to training sessions. They trained for a few months at Anzac Park and then at Childers Road Reserve.
Another Riverina teammate, wing-half Terry Martin, said Benge “was a top guy”. An elder brother had played for Hutt Valley club Stop Out and represented New Zealand.
Fred Benge played three games for New Zealand in 1954.
Riverina founding member and inside-left Evan Morley said Les Benge was a hard, give-no-quarter player who never stopped working.
“Often, when we were being cut to pieces, Les would go in and clean up. He had a lot of guts.”
Riverina had been formed as a team for New Zealanders, Morley said.
“A lot of us, especially in the second year of the club, had played together in the Boys' High 1st XI.”
Goalkeepers Ron Leakey and Tommy Walker, from England and Northern Ireland respectively, came in as coaches and other overseas players joined the club, but it had been started as a team for local players and retained that identity.
Les Benge had lived in Taita, Lower Hutt, and attended Naenae College. About 1956, when he was 17, the family came to Gisborne. It was thought the warmer, drier climate would be better for Les’ father, Leslie Ernest Benge, who had lung cancer.
The elder Benge died in Gisborne, aged 56. The family stayed on, and Les Benge’s mother, Jessie May Benge, died in Gisborne at the age of 81.
Les Benge was one of five brothers, the others being Fred, Laurie, Mervyn and Allan.
Les started working life as an apprentice electrician with Ellis and Bull, and became a faults electrician with the Poverty Bay Electric Power Board. In his latter years with the organisation he was an overseer in the lines department.
Les Benge is survived by Shayne, his wife of 59 years, sons Paul and Simon, and grandson Ryan.
