Battle of the Bridge
03 August 2011

The great thing about NPC footie for an old fella like me is that no matter how out of sorts our team is, there're always those few days of hope and promise and hand-shandy anticipation ahead of a Battle of the Bridge.

Now I know that the young fellas around the traps, raised on a diet of corporate, franchise-based wankery, don't really care much anymore about Harbour v Auckland. To them, it's just a couple of Blues teams from the same city, making it the most convenient away game of the season. But for those of us born between about 1970 and 1981, this is the grudge. Our dads and granddads either support Auckland or support Harbour but still like Auckland because that's who they supported before Harbour came along; our sons will grow up with the Blues as their main side. Or Otago / The Highlanders, if they spend three drunken years in Dunedin failing a degree and getting girls up the duff.

We haven't beaten them much - I think we're up to six wins and a draw now in 26 years - but when we do, I take great care to get extremely drunk. Here are the links to the three previous victories since this website's inception:

• 2009
• 2004
• 2001