Trevor Rowse, RIP

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Trevor Rowse, RIP

Sporting Codes Bid Farewell To "A True Gentleman"

by Jeremy Ruane

Trevor Rowse, a passionate long-time contributor to the media coverage of football and softball in New Zealand, passed away on 13 February, 2013.

Christchurch-born, the Rowse family moved to Auckland early in Trevor’s life, and during his formative years he was schooled at Auckland Grammar, whom he represented in a variety of sports, among them tennis, rugby, cricket, snooker, and the two sports with which he was to become synonymous.

One of his earliest joys was playing in the Auckland Grammar first eleven alongside his hero, Johnny Wrathall, a prolific goalscorer for Eastern Suburbs, Auckland and, briefly, New Zealand.

His time at school introduced Trevor to the world of teaching, an industry in which he was to enjoy a fifty-year career. He was just nineteen when he began work at Ponsonby Primary School, and he went on to enjoy spells at, amongst other schools, Mt. Roskill Intermediate and Farm Cove Intermediate, as well as Auckland Normal Intermediate, where he was Deputy Principal between 1965 and 1972.

Occasional treks to England interspersed his schooling experiences here, his first one including spells at a couple of schools in Watford, as well as the chance to earn his FA coaching badge in 1958. Another year-long teacher exchange opportunity presented itself in 1980.

In 1985, Trevor was appointed Principal of Northcross Intermediate School, a post he held until his retirement in 2003. Needless to say, his impact during his tenure was massive - “a man of great integrity and vision, whose inspirational leadership has made a positive difference …” was the tribute paid him by the school.

One of Trevor’s great strengths during his teaching career was his ongoing interest in children’s progress in school. Another was the way students related to their teacher, no doubt aided by Trevor’s coaching of any number of school teams in a variety of codes over the years - “awesome” and “cool as” were words one former pupil used to describe him.

He was a man of many hats and talents who valued people, but above all, Trevor was very much a family man. His first wife, Wendy, was tragically killed in a car accident in the early 1960s, while he met the love of his life in 1969 and married her a year later.

“Eve and I are so blessed to have had such a loving marriage”, Trevor said of his wife in recent years. Their five children, seventeen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren are a great testament to the strength of their lengthy union.

He was also very much a man of principle. Neither cigarettes nor alcohol passed Trevor’s lips, and if he ever cursed or swore, he did so out of earshot. “A true gentleman” is the accurate description afforded this Auckland Softball Association life member on their website tribute to a man whose efforts to promote the code in the media continued right up until his dying day.

For over forty years, Trevor wrote with great honesty about his twin sporting passions of football and softball, regularly filing columns on both codes in the Auckland Star and Sunday News throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and in the NZ Herald, not to mention the numerous football publications of that era, most notably Soccer Weekly and Soccer News.

Despite the phasing out of the majority of those forums over the years, there were still stories to be written, with the suburban newspapers the beneficiaries of Trevor’s softball work since the mid-1980s, around the time such contributions became voluntary efforts.

Indeed, since 1991, when this writer began submitting football columns each week for use in the suburban papers, there has hardly been a week go by when the Central Leader hasn’t featured at least one sports story penned by either Rowse or Ruane, with Trevor’s last story, about Mt. Albert Ramblers’ latest softball triumph, published in that paper on the day he died.

Trevor’s football media work dates back to the 1960s, and saw him, in 1970, joining with fellow soccer scribes of the times in forming the New Zealand Soccer Writers’ Association, a name later amended to Media Association to reflect the contributions of television and radio broadcasters.

One of only five life members of the NZSMA, Trevor was Chairman for eleven years, Treasurer for two and Executive Member for five years, and with the late long-serving Secretary-Treasurer, Vic Deverill, was the driving force behind the Association into the 21st Century.

Softball NZ presented Trevor with its Distinguished Service Award in 2011, in recognition of his enormous contribution to that code. Hilton Earley, the President of that body, went further at Trevor’s funeral, paying him this tribute: “The world would be a better place if there were more gentlemen like you”.

Trevor Harold Rowse was in his 78th year, and faced his recent health concerns with typical bravery and stoicism. He will be greatly missed by his immediate family, both the football and softball communities, and those to whose lives he contributed during his teaching career. Requiescat In Pace.

NZSMA