It's difficult to write about the pending season from the sticky climes of the Orient, where I have watched one game of NZ-related rugby since last November. So, rather than look into that generally disappointing place we call the future, I have decided instead to try and relive some of the glory days past. If this seems negative and a bit sad, it is because I am a negative and sad (in both senses of the word) man who sees the future of North Harbour rugby disappearing down the dank musty hole of professionalism and being carnivorously devoured by the parasitical Big Five. The future is bleaker than a July thunderstorm on Tonar Street, the whiff of miseries past subsiding only to the septic, inevitable, encroaching stench of what is to come. The Reaper hovers over our Union and its white elephant stadium, scythe poised to cut yet more young talent from our ranks leaving us rootless, abandoned, and decaying.

So, here are five games from our short history that I went to that help to ease my pain in such moments of foreboding. There will be inaccuracies. These are an important part of any history. As Teddy in Memento says, "So you lie to yourself to make yourself happy. So what? We all do it."

1988 (or maybe '89)
We beat Waikato with the most remarkable display of running rugby. This game heralded a style of rugby hitherto unseen at the top provincial level in NZ. Quinny was going spastic. We ran in 3 or four incredible tries through backs no-one had heard of, like Scott Pierce, Allan Pollock, and Ian Wood. Then Paul Feeney dropped a goal from half-way, just to take the piss. We were an erratic team, capable of genius and of acts of suicide. This was the day that everything worked.

1990 vs Australia, Onewa Domain
We lost, quite comfortably, but this match was important in that it showed that Onewa Domain couldn't host an international touring side but was great in spite of - or maybe even because of - it. Lots of kids skipped the last part of school that sunny day to pack the bank and watch Thorburn's 15-man maul. Which failed, but only because it was impossible to see the ball grounded under that pile of bodies. We got into a wee bit of trouble for skipping school but not too much. It didn't help our cause that we were standing along the fence parallel to the 15-man maul, were consequently snapped by the Auckland Star, and ended up with our piccies splashed over the back page of that now-defunct organ.

1994 vs Auckland, Eden Park
There are moments in time that freeze and indelibly burn themselves so deeply into your consciousness that they become part of your cell structure. When Walter came running toward us to dot down under the sticks and clap his lovely little hands, several million of my cells exploded into my underpants. It was a great game of fu cking awful defence and open, flowing rugby and because words at times like these are so hollow, I shall say only that those who were there, know, and those who were not are emptier for it.

1994 vs Canterbury, Onewa Domain
My God, how we crucified them. The brashness of youth had us chanting "We want 50" in the 5th minute of the game. Then the buggers went and did it. We even let them get a quick 20 points at the end but were so chopped and happy and obnoxiously arrogant that we dismissed them with calls of "We don't care". On a balmy spring afternoon, one of our number had facepainted 'BUCK' on his forehead, only to get sunburnt and discover that the facepaint had served as sunscreen. Chopped on a dozen Reds, and with what many punters believed to be 'Fuck' shadowed on his brow, he lurched off to work at an upmarket Takapuna bar.

1994 vs Auckland, Onewa Domain
A strange choice, seemingly, because we lost the final by a margin that flattered us in its narrowness. However, for one lovely morning, we were in our own minds the top team in the country, and the sense of expectation that led our merry gang (and other merry gangs) us along Forrest Hill Road and Northcote Road encapsulated that great season: the arrogant Nike billboards, the unlikely victories, the big crowds, the refusal to change the venue just to kow-tow to some noncy big-wigs who cared fu ck-all about rugby and everything about cash, the staggering quantities of beer, the fleeting romances with maidens ranging from the exquisite (not me) to the criminally repulsive (a bit closer to me). We were 21 or 22, and still full of the belief that the world was ours. By 4pm, we had been forced to grow up, and things have never quite been the same. Except that Barry Shaun still drinks too much.

And one game that prophetically mapped the future of our union's place in NZ rugby.

1997 (?) vs King Country, Onewa Domain
We won the relegation battle but this match was about symbolism. Once-mighty King Country vanquished and banished forever to the lower reaches of the NPC; fleetingly once-almost-mighty North Harbour scrapping not to have the best stadium in 1998's second division. The last game at the 'Wa with a crowd of about 1000 in conditions that fluctuated between scorching sunshine and torrential rain. Those 1000 were possibly the only people on the Shore who knew that the new stadium would be a bit of a disaster, because all we had to do was look around and see that we couldn't manage to fill one bank of Onewa, and also that our players were being bled to richer unions.

Onward, then, to seeping death.