I recall attending the King Country challenge in 1969, a time when games were invariably played in mid-afternoon. A student at Victoria University of Wellington, I made a belated decision to hitchhike to Napier to see the game. My girlfriend and I headed out to Paekakariki on the unit and began hitching from there. Almost immediately we struck it lucky. A car stopped and the driver, a friendly Maori gentleman probably in his 40s, informed us he was heading to Napier --- and, it soon transpired, for the same reason. He was an avid King Country supporter, working for NZ Railways in Wellington. This all seemed too good to be true --- a timely and comfortable ride all the way to our destination! We hadn’t gone very far, however, before it became obvious that our driver wasn’t very experienced. Enquiries soon elicited the fact that he didn’t usually drive but had rented a car to go up and see the game. The erratic but not necessarily dangerous driving style certainly got our attention, and thinking of the Manawatu Gorge coming up I at last asked him if he would like me to drive some of the way. There was relief all round when he accepted with alacrity. I settled into the driver’s seat, and we proceeded to Napier, bantering with each other about the likely result. We parted company at the ground, and within a few minutes of the game starting Hawkeye was squawking as the Bay took a seemingly unassailable lead. I started to feel sorry for our companion on the trip up, spending so much of his hard earned cash to attend a game that had quickly turned sour for his team. But, of course, those feelings soon disappeared as King Country staged their fantastic rally in the second half, and the crowd got quieter and quieter as the possibility of losing the shield began to loom. The final outcome, a 19-16 victory for the Bay, was greeted with huge relief. My expectation of getting a ride back to Dannevirke, where we intended to try to get a lift out to my parents’ farm, with family members who would also be attending the game proved ill-founded. So we made our way back to the rental car. Our former companion soon arrived, both elated and disappointed at the outcome of the game. I drove us down to Dannevirke. He got back to Wellington without incident. I know this because I later ran into him one afternoon in the Thistle Inn and we spent a congenial couple of hours reliving the game over a few beers.