Minute Book

This Minute Book was kept by members of the Auckland Baptist Harrier Club (1935-2011) to record their meetings from 1 March 1962 to 19 March 1983.

Of particular interest are entries in 1966 which record that the club's secretary, Brian Airey, was ‘authorised to investigate the possibility of obtaining a pair of old running shoes from a prominent distance runner for the trophies’ (28 June 1966). A month later, Airey ‘reported that running shoes had been obtained from M.G. Halberg for trophies…and that matters were in hand for having them suitably mounted’ (25 July 1966).

'M.G. Halberg' was Murray Halberg (1933-2022), one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most significant national figures for his athletic career, for re-inventing the New Zealand Sportsman of the Year Awards as the Halberg Awards, and for founding the Halberg Foundation (1963) to assist physically disabled New Zealanders to participate in sport and recreation.

These trophies were initially competed for by the club’s colts and sub juniors under 16 for ‘First Home’ and the ‘Fastest Time’. Later, the trophies were awarded for 5km and 10km time trials (the 5km trial being a nod to Halberg’s achievements in this distance). The trophies are engraved with winners’ names from 1966-2011 and were redistributed each year for winners to display in their homes if they wished. These trophies are now in Te Papa's collection.

Sir Murray Halberg (ONZ, MBE, Blake Medal)

Murray Halberg's greatest athletic success was winning the 5000 meters at the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960. He first competed at the Empire Games in Vancouver in 1954 and the Olympics in Melbourne in 1956. He won the three miles at the Cardiff and Perth Empire Games (1958, 1962). In 1958 he was the first New Zealander to run a mile in under four minutes (in Dublin), and was awarded Sportsman of the Year. In 1961, he broke three world records in less than three weeks. He was knighted in 1987, and appointed to New Zealand’s highest honour, the Order of New Zealand (ONZ) in 2008.

His successes were all the more remarkable after being badly injured while playing rugby at 17, which left him with a withered left arm.

Halberg was a pupil of the master coach Arthur Lydiard who was responsible for the finest era in New Zealand athletics from 1951-66, including the international highlights of Halberg's win of the three-mile event at the Cardiff Empire Games in 1958, Sir Peter Snell's 800m win followed quickly by Halberg's 5000m win at the Rome Olympics in 1960, and Snell's double gold at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964.