Unless you live there, there’s not much reason to go to Southbridge. The tiny community of fewer than a thousand people is close to an hour’s drive from Christchurch, near Lake Ellesmere, neither on the way to anything, or home to any major landmarks.
Driving through it on a Saturday afternoon is eerie: the wide main street is devoid of cars; the shops are closed; the takeaways and pub yet to open. There’s not a person in sight.
Other than sport, there’s not a lot to do in Southbridge – the aforementioned pub notwithstanding (nearby Leeston still doesn’t have a pub, four years since the earthquake).
This is rugby country though. All the cars that aren't on the main street are at the rugby club – and it’s only the first game of the season.
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All Black first-five Dan Carter grew up here, and there’s a virtual shrine to his career. His father, Neville, still pulls pints behind the bar. “I think everyone seems to be brought up [around rugby]. Even when you’re a wee fella like I was, when you’re around 6 or 7, and you see all those All Blacks play. And of course, the likes of Dan, when he was brought up, he’d come down and watch me play, and even when he was a baby, he was put up in the stairs underneath Albert Anderson so he could look up and aspire to being an All Black.”
And that’s the same for Michael Sheat, who plays for Southbridge’s senior team now. “If I had tried to play soccer, there would have been a bit of frowning in my family probably,” he says. “And that will be passed on to the next generation no doubt. We grew up with a rugby ball, and it’s just what we do.”
Rugby in the winters and cricket in the summer has been a massive part of his life. “Like most kiwi kids, you dream of being an All Black, I guess but for most of us that dream doesn’t come true.”
Megan Whelan and Julian Vares head along to Southbridge’s first game of the season to see how important the local club is to a small community.
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