ONCE THE Garden of Eden… It is now the Fortress of Eden, a rugby citadel that has not been successfully stormed by a visiting team against the All Blacks since 12 months before the game turned professional – that is 1994, can you believe?
The largest crowd in New Zealand rugby history is the 61,240 who crammed Eden Park in 1956 for the fourth Test against the Springboks. I wonder if they counted those hanging out of the poplar trees. I was one of 61,079 there for the 2011 World Cup final, a dramatic, spine-tingling event.
One may think the stadium is just bricks, mortar and stands looming high in the midst of a residential zone in Auckland. It was a swamp at the turn of the 19th century. But no one calls it a swamp in the manner of English fans affectionately calling Twickenham ‘The Cabbage Patch’.
