2025 marks 80 years since the opening of Avondale College and therefore 80 years since our first Athletics Day! An excerpt about school athletics from the 1945 Taikākā yearbook reads as follows:
“Held at Anderson Park on March 21st, the first annual athletic sports meeting proved a great success. With the ground assured, our only difficulty was material, and this was generously supplied by the officials of the Owairaka Athletic Club. We were able to do our training both at Anderson Park and at the racecourse, and gladly availed ourselves of the services of Mr. Cahill as starter. Our best runners, while obviously inexperienced, show distinct promise, and with the experience of this year should soon be making their presence felt in competition with other schools. Unable, as yet, to enter teams in all three sections of the Inter- Secondary Schools' competition, we entered a team in the junior section — under 14 1/2 — and we congratulate Ridgway of Industrial C on scoring first points for the school at Eden Park.”
