Eric Tindill, Cricketer, Rugby Player and Referee, Dies at 99

By HUW RICHARDS
Published: August 2, 2010


So remarkable was the sporting life of Eric Tindill, who has died in New Zealand at 99 years and 226 days, that being the longest lived of all the 2,600 men who have played test cricket was far from his greatest achievement.

Eric Tindill, who achieved unique status in world sport by playing both rugby and cricket for New Zealand, then refereeing test rugby and umpiring test cricket, died at 99.
A few men have played both cricket and rugby union at test level. The occasional test player goes into umpiring or refereeing and officiates in international matches. Tindill did it all — playing and officiating at test level in both sports — a “double double” that can truly be termed unique.

It is likely to remain so. Such versatility was the product of an era before specialization was demanded at an early age, when you could play rugby in winter, cricket in summer and earn a living from neither — Tindill was a civil servant.

“Snowy” Tindill, his fair hair marking him for spectators, made his first impact in rugby, winning selection for Wellington’s provincial team in 1932. There was versatility within his game as well, since he could play either scrum or outside-half (half-back or first five-eighth in New Zealand terminology). He was a smart rather than brilliant player, most noted for his facility at the drop goal — scored from free play by dropping the ball and kicking it above the bar and between the posts — a hugely valuable skill when scores were low and the drop was worth four points, compared with three for a try or penalty goal.

An outsider for the New Zealand All Black tour of Britain and Ireland in 1935, he worked his way through trials in which 188 players competed for 30 places on a trip that lasted from July 31, 1935, to Feb. 17, 1936.

Tindill had a mixed tour. In the early stages he was, wrote the squad vice captain, Charles Oliver, with striking frankness in the tour account co-authored by himself and Tindill “our weakest tackler” and he played in the first All Black defeat by a club team, at Swansea.

But his drop-kicking skills, which produced two goals against London Counties at England’s national ground, Twickenham, on Dec. 26, 1935, helped win him selection for the last international of the tour, against England on the same ground nine days later.

The event has gone into history as “Obolensky’s match,” immortalized by two spectacular solo tries from Alexander Obolensky, the son of a Russian prince playing his first test, in England’s 13-0 victory. Tindill was to outlive Obolensky, who was killed in a flying accident in 1940, by more than 70 years, but this was his only test.

He remained a candidate until the war and might have had a shot when New Zealand entertained South Africa in 1937, but was unavailable because he was back in England, with New Zealand’s cricket team. Tindill, who was married a few hours before the boat left for the six-month trip, played in all three test matches, so becoming the only man to play test cricket and rugby for New Zealand. Wisden Cricketers Almanack for 1938 recorded that he “did nothing out of the common with the bat, but as a wicket-keeper he was always worth his place.”

War ended his rugby, but he played two more cricket tests, the last in 1947 and for Wellington until 1950. By then he was established as a rugby referee with an understanding of the game’s patterns so acute that the New Zealand broadcaster Winston McCarthy remembered: “In one match in which six tries were scored I saw the six of them scored at Eric’s feet as he waited for the player to ground the ball.”

In those days the sheer distances involved meant that, in the Southern Hemisphere, the home nations also provided the referee. Touring teams were not always happy with the outcome, but the 1950 British and Irish Lions were, in spite of losing one match and drawing the other, completely satisfied with Tindill’s refereeing of the first two tests against the All Blacks. McCarthy recorded that they wanted Tindill for the remaining two, but “it was felt diplomatic to share them around.”

Tindill refereed one more rugby test in 1955, then in 1959 completed his unique double double by umpiring a cricket test against England. As a young man he played soccer and table tennis for Wellington, and he was later to serve as secretary of the Wellington Cricket Association and as a New Zealand cricket selector. He was, as the current New Zealand assistant rugby coach, Wayne Smith, put it with fine understatement “one of life’s doers.”

He became the longest-lived test cricketer ever, overtaking Francis MacKinnon, a Scottish clan chieftain who played for England in 1878, in November 2009. He was the last surviving prewar All Black and leaves one living prewar test cricketer, South Africa’s Norman Gordon, who will be 99 on Friday.