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Bledisloe: the place, the man and the cup
Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:30
On Saturday New Zealand and Australia are playing a Tri-Nations match which also doubles as a leg of the Bledisloe Cup. But who/what/where was/is Bledisloe?
It could have been the Bathurst Cup, for the gentleman after whom it was named was really Charles Bathurst, wealthy, well-connected, English, a Tory, a member of parliament, a privy councillor, a lord, the governor-general of New Zealand, a farmer with no interest in rugby. The name itself is centuries older than the cup.
Charles Bathurst was the heir to a grand estate, Lydney, in Gloucester, looking over sweeping lawns past azaleas and rhododendrons and stately trees out over the Severn. The estate has been in the family for some three centuries...
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