A row of men wearing ski outfits and holding skis.

Sport and recreation

This guide provides a starting point for researching sport, recreation, sporting events and sport history in New Zealand, with an overview of resources held in the Library and in other institutions.

On this page

Introduction

This guide provides a starting point for researching collections relating to sport and recreation held in the National Library of New Zealand and Alexander Turnbull Library collections and provides some links to resources in other institutions.

This guide will consider sport in its most general sense, including both popular sports in New Zealand and other sports that are less-publicised.

You can begin your query by using the National Library website search. The website search includes the National Library catalogue of published materials — such as books, magazines and newspapers — and the Turnbull Archival Collections catalogue(Tiaki) of unpublished materials — such as photographs, manuscripts, journals and diaries.

Try searching for a sport, a team, an event or sportsperson. If you know the name of a book title or the author’s name, search for that. You can refine the search results on the left-hand side and sort by date, or so that the results only include images, articles, newspapers, books, manuscripts, oral histories or other formats.

National Library website search

National Library catalogue — Curated sports collection

Turnbull Archival Collections catalogue (Tiaki)

Many of our collections have been digitised and these may be available online to view. For other items you may need to be on-site. Information about accessing non-digitised material is provided below. If you are unable to come to Wellington, get in touch via Ask-a-Librarian, as we may be able to provide you with a copy of images, articles or sports results that you wish to see.

Tips for searching on the National Library website

Advice on accessing and using material from the Library's collections

Need help?

If you have questions or need help you can contact us via Ask a Librarian.

Ask a librarian

A black and white photo showing four men wearing snow parkas, ski goggles and holding a pair of skis and poles.

Members of the 28th New Zealand (Māori) Battalion at the Ninth Army Ski School in Lebanon, wearing ski gear (hats, goggles, anoraks) and holding wooden skis. Photograph taken circa 29 April 1942 by M D Elias. Ref: DA-02038-F. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Websites and e-resources

Websites cover both historical and recent sporting events and are useful for finding articles, and publications from around 2000 onwards. Many of the individual sports websites provide results to games nationally and regionally with some earlier results archived in the New Zealand Web Archive.

  • New Zealand Web Archive — includes websites collected since 1999 and includes websites that are no longer online about New Zealand and New Zealanders. The sport and recreation collection covers a wide range of websites from traditional sports and sporting related bodies, clubs and associations and is listed as a strength of the collection. Search items in the web archive using the National Library Catalogue then filter on the right-hand side and search for 'Resource type', 'websites'. When you find the item you want, click the 'online access' tab and you will see all the versions of the website that we have harvested.

  • National Library e-resources — The Library subscribes to free and subscription e-resources, including peer-reviewed academic journals with articles relating to New Zealand sport. International articles on sport through databases such as Gale can be accessed on-site at the Library.

  • NZHistory

  • Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

  • Sport on Topic Explorer — Teaching and learning resources for school age children.

  • Internet Archive — 'Wayback Machine' is another source of archived websites that are no longer active.

Sport websites

Newspapers and articles on sport

Sports results, matches, games, commentary, biographies, and opinion pieces are covered comprehensively in newspapers.

Additionally, you can find local club competitions and school games covered in the pages devoted to sport for the province the newspaper covers and includes regional, national and international sport coverage.

List of national, regional, weekly newspapers and magazines published currently and historically in New Zealand.

Papers Past — historical sport coverage in newspapers

Papers Past covers sport and sporting events from 1850s to the mid 20th century. There is particular emphasis on local clubs, schools, regional and national sports. If you get too many results when you search, try using the Title filter to limit your results to the relevant region or publication. The Magazines & journals section of Papers Past has a few magazines with sports content.

Press Reader — contemporary sport coverage

Press Reader provides access to current New Zealand and overseas newspapers and magazines. This resource is only available on-site at the Library however you may find your local public library has a subscription to Press Reader.

Press Reader (available onsite at the Library)

Index of articles from 1980s to today

Index New Zealand is a searchable online database of records containing abstracts (summaries) and subject headings (names and subject keywords) for articles from New Zealand newspapers and periodicals (journals and magazines).

Index New Zealand (INNZ)

Some examples of sport-related records from Index New Zealand.

Newztext — comprehensive archive of news reports

Newztext provides access to articles in newspapers, regional papers, online news such as RNZ News, Wire, and Scoop covering 1960-2022 and is available on-site at the Library.

Covers sport, sporting issues, sporting events, individual sports people from 1960 but predominantly from 2000 onwards.

Newztext (available onsite at the Library)

Two side by side images of magazine covers showing sportsmen along with the respective magazine titles.

July 2004 issue of Spasifik with Jonah Lomu on the cover. February 2006 issue of Tū Mai

Journals and magazines

Most journals on specific sports held in the collections are published between 1980s-2010. Many of these journals had short runs with numerous title changes. Check the catalogue record for the ‘Earlier title’ or ‘Later title’ to see the complete run.

School magazines often include sports teams along with photographs. To locate these check the catalogue for the name of the school.

Examples of sport-related journals

Examples of journals covering individual sports

Lawnbowls

Canoeing

Cycling

Rugby and Rugby League

Trotting

Search results for journals and articles on individual sports

A women's basketball team photo with team members wearing red uniforms and the male coach in black.

Damer Farrell — Photographs relating to basketball and netball in West Coast Region, 2001-2005. Ref: PADL-000424. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Photographs, manuscripts and oral histories

Unpublished items include formats like photographs, paintings, ephemera, manuscripts and oral histories. Begin with a search on the National Library website and refine your results using the filters on the left-hand side of the results page — such as, images, manuscripts, ephemera and audio.

You can also search for unpublished items using the Turnbull Archival Collections catalogue.

For information on registering and requesting items to view please visit the Registering and requesting page.

National Library website search

Turnbull Archival Collections catalogue (Tiaki)

Registering and requesting items from the Library

Photograph collections

We have a wide range of photographic collections that cover sport including Evening Post photographs and team portraits from Crown Studios.

Evening Post photographs

Sport and sporting events are widely reflected in the The Evening Post collection of photographs, covering the 1950s through 2000s. The collection is arranged by subject and sports photographs are located under ‘Recreation’ rather than ‘Sport’.

Coverage is predominantly in the Wellington region and includes dragon boat racing, go karts, wood chopping, rodeos, bungy jumping, trampolines. The more popular sports of rugby, rugby league, soccer, cricket, netball, hockey etc are not in this section.

The Turnbull Library holds a collection of negatives from The Evening Post and Dominion newspapers between 1950s – 2002 that does include the popular sports. Staff can check the negatives for any images (not digitised) that appear in The Evening Post between 1945 -2000, if you have the exact date and topic.

A small collection of Evening Post prints are held separately and these can be found by searching under the name of the sport on the website or Tiaki.

Photographs taken after 2000 and digitised photographs are likely to be held with Stuff / previously Dominion Post as they have retained all their images taken digitally. Contact Stuff directly.

View digitised images from The Evening Post collection

Crown Studios

Photographs of national and regional sports teams, individual portraits of players, plus those representing New Zealand and visiting overseas sports’ teams from the early 1900s through the 1960s are available in the Crown Studios collection, many of the images have been digitised.

Crown Studios team portraits

Photographs of West Coast sports teams (1945-1995)

Photographs of West Coast sports teams (1945-1995) can be found in the Kevin Robert Fisher collection. Rugby teams include West Coast representative and touring teams, portraits, indoor basketball and Greymouth Working Men's Club's cricket team.

Kevin Robert Fisher collection (ref. PAColl-10615)

Ans Westra

Ans Westra's photographs cover protests against the South African rugby tours, for 1976 and 1981, among other subjects. Many are digitised.

Ans Westra photographs relating to sport

File prints — onsite only

File print drawers are a good starting point for images not digitised. These images are are accessible in the General reading room and cover the 19th century to 1970s. Individual sports are listed in alphabetical order, according to the Dewey system, 794 to 799 with individual portraits at 920. A Subject Index in a blue folder sits on top of the file print drawers.

A black and white group portrait of a women's field hockey team from 1910 shown holding their sticks.

An example of one of the photos contained in the file prints drawers. In this case, a Wellington hockey team from 1910. Ref: 11451. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Other categories include: 371. Physical Education, Physical Education classes. Sports teams can be located under the city, town and sports or school. Some examples: Wellington, Sports, Hockey / Running / Boating / Football / Rugby or City / Suburb / Schools / Collections.

Other sport-related photograph collections

Two side by side, black and white photos of soldiers competing and being cheered on by their comrades.

Left: World War 2 soldiers of the Maori Battalion cheering on tug-o-war participants at an athletics meeting, Farouk Stadium, Cairo, Egypt. Ref: DA-01362-F. Right: Three mile race in progress at NZ Division Athletics Championships, Cairo, Egypt, World War II - Photograph taken by George Kaye. Ref: DA-04381-F. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Cartoons

The New Zealand Cartoon and Comics Archive holds digital copies of newspaper and magazine cartoons and caricatures, from around 2005 to the present and original cartoon drawings from the 20th and 21st centuries, some of which are digitised and available to view online.

Sport features significantly in the cartoon collections. Topics include the Springbok tour, the Olympics, World Cups, other sporting events, sports people, drugs in sport and general politics in sport.

Some examples of other cartoons related to sport and recreation.

A colourful cartoon shows two people fencing with references to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, "Wow! she's been in incandescent form since we arrived in Tokyo. Just radiant."

Martin Doyle, The Radiant Games. 10 September 2013. Ref: DCDL-0026128. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Ephemera

The ephemera collection consists of posters, programmes, catalogues, brochures, advertising booklets, sales catalogues on sport, equipment and sporting events covering a broad timeframe from 1845 to present day. Sports like archery, orienteering, rope walking, and pig hunting are reflected in this collection.

Some examples of ephemera related to sport and recreation are below.

Three-panel illustration showing the variety of outdoors hunting and fishing that can be done in New Zealand.

An example of the ephemera held at the Library related to sport. New Zealand Government Publicity Office: Sport New Zealand. Ref: Eph-B-TOURISM-NZ-1927-01-cover. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Manuscripts

Collections in the manuscripts section include national and regional sporting bodies, records, minutes, correspondence, research papers, scrapbooks and diaries on various sports, events and individuals.

Some examples of manuscripts relating to sport and recreation are below.

  • An Encyclopedia of New Zealand - Sports and Pastimes Collection, 1960-1965 (MS-Papers-2000) — includes athletics, badminton, ballooning, ballroom dancing, men's and women's indoor basketball, women's outdoor basketball, billiards and snooker, indoor bowls, boxing, canoeing, cricket, motor car racing, motor cycle racing, mountaineering (including alpine climbing and tramping) and National Rifle Association, Olympics, horse racing, rowing, rugby.

  • Axemen Eric Ross Warner, 1933-2010 (MS-Group-2008) — papers and manuscripts relating to Warner's interest in woodchopping and sawing, and including the historical material which he collected, and the articles which he wrote on the history of the sport.

  • Boxing New Zealand: records, 1888-2002 (MS-Group-1563) — minutes, 1902-1971 and other papers including register of professional fights, 1957-1962; applications for professional boxers' licence, 1982-1985; miscellaneous correspondence, 1967-1983; annual returns from affiliated local associations, 1983; papers relating to the rules of the Association, 1951-1981 and papers relating to the New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association, 1983; rule books, 1903-1923; scrapbooks, 1888-1920; letterbooks, 1902-1916 and accounts 1902-1920.

  • History of Athletics and Athletics New Zealand records — research papers on athletics, history of amateur athletics in New Zealand covers 1880s to 2010s.

  • History of women’s basketball (2006-041-110) — papers relating to the history of New Zealand basketball/netball. Rona Bailey papers includes chronology, notes, booklets, photographs, and newspaper cuttings relating to the history of women's basketball/netball.

  • Māori Women's Welfare League papers (MS-Papers-11783-04) — background documents about the league's history, reports, conference papers, proposals and copies of correspondence.

  • New Zealand Amateur Cycling Association: records, 1934-1996 (MS-Group-1727) — including minutes, correspondence, general business records, sporting programmes, newspaper cuttings, printed material and photographs relating to amateur cycling in New Zealand. Included are the records of cycling competitions held locally and abroad (Olympic Games and the British Empire and Commonwealth Games).

  • Olympic Games, Athens, Greece, 2004 (2014-103-188) — Chef de Mission manuals and official result books for Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Basket ball, Boxing, Canoe/Kayak racing, Cycling (road), Cycling (track), Cycling (mountain bike), Equestrian and Fencing.

  • Trevor Richards — Papers, 1971-1983 (MS-Group-0860) — files relating to campaigns against sporting contact with South Africa and other countries that did not observe non-racist sporting codes; most sports are included. Note restriction applies to this collection.

Shows a zoomed image of men playing rugby with one player out ahead and the other team chasing after the ball.

Photographs by Damer Farrell relating to Runanga Rugby League Club, Rapahoe, West Coast Region, 2001-2005. Ref: PADL-000442. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Audio, video, oral history and radio broadcasts

We hold a number of oral history interviews and recordings. You can filter for these on the website using the audio filter. The audio filter includes includes radio broadcasts and other sound recordings including music.

To find video from our collections use the video filter on the website.

Examples of oral histories

  • A social history of women's cricket, 1998 — interviews with players from all levels; umpires, coaches, administrators, sponsors and supporters were recorded for a publication on women's cricket in New Zealand.

  • Basketball — interview with Joyce McCann (OHInt-0351-12) — mentions participation in senior basketball championships. Details past Presidentship of the Wellington Basketball Association, the New Zealand Basketball Association and the International Basketball Association. Touches on MBE for services to netball.

  • Cricket — Talking cricket: an Atlantic World of Sport record, 1963 — John Reid, chair; with Fred Trueman, Ken Barrington, Colin Cowdrey, Fred Titmus and Alex Bedser.

  • Emma Twigg: NZ's rowing world champion, Steven Holloway interviewer —

  • Interview with Barbara Levido-Howe (OHInt-0783-07) — “Describes becoming involved in the Wellington Cycling Club… sexist attitude she received when she offered her services, and how she progressed from helping with the afternoon tea to handicapping at the cycle races. Mentions Bev Meyer, a woman racer who rode with men in the 1950s and world championships. Describes other women becoming involved in cycling, including Sarah Ulmer.

  • Interview with Clare Simpson, 1985 (OHInt-0783-13) — history of women cycling in New Zealand and her PhD research on the history of women in sports.

  • Interview with Dick Cheyne — covering the history of road and track cycling, mainly Canterbury.

  • Interview with Graeme Milner — recalling the 1948 Timaru to Christchurch race. Discusses the differences between amateur and cash cycling, corruption in cash cycling, dirty tactics of other riders, records and achievements in his racing career. Discusses the effect that professional riders such as Tino Tabak on the Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

  • Oral history of cycling in New Zealand, 2002-2004 (OHColl-0783) — There are 17 interviews about various aspects of cycling from 1900s onwards, including cycling as a means of transport, recreational cycling, mountain biking as well as amateur and professional road and track racing, individual cyclists, drugs, dirty tactics and the Tour de France.

  • Paul Kennett Mountain Biking — describes the formation of the National Off-Road Bicycle Association of New Zealand (NORBANZ) and the New Zealand Mountain Bike Association (NZMBA) in association with the Hillary Commission in the late 1980s. Describes developing the New Zealand Mountain Bike Website in December 1995 and his ongoing maintenance of it’.

  • Spotlight on Women's Rugby — "In a bumper episode of the All Blacks Podcast, the spotlight is shone on the women's game with three big guests. World Rugby General Manager for Women's Rugby chats about the growth of the women's game globally. Then Black Ferns stars Kendra Cocksedge and Les Ketu talk about the upcoming June series when Canada, Australia and England all descend on New Zealand for Test matches."
    We talk about the fine line between high performance training and bullying, why Emma retired from rowing, and why she came back, sexuality and sport, her roller blading obsession, training with her rowing heroes, cycling home from Switzerland.

Examples of video

Te Reo Irirangi o Te Upoko o Te Ika (Radio station)

A collection of sound recordings of radio broadcasts made by Te Reo Irirangi o Te Upoko o Te Ika, a Māori radio station based in Wellington, 1983-1994.

Two side-by-side images of book covers, including one that uses a painting of a cricket match at the Basin Reserve and another that shows backcountry skiers high in the snowy mountains cross-country skiing.

The Basin: an illustrated history of the Basin Reserve / Don Neely & Joseph Romanos. 2003. New Zealand backcountry skiing by James Broadbent. New Zealand Alpine Club. 2004.

Books and published content on sport and recreation

Search the National Library catalogue for books on a wide range of sport, sporting events and sporting personalities relating to New Zealand and the Pacific.

You can find regional and national sporting associations, club newsletters, journals, annual reports, association rules, coaching manuals, commemorations of clubs and souvenirs, on your choice of sport and school magazines.

National Library catalogue

Key publications about sport

A selection of books and publications highlighting the range of topics related to sport.

Books from 18th and 19th century covering the history of field sports such as hunting and fishing

The Rare books and fine printing collection offers a selection of books from 18th and 19th century covering the history of field sports, fishing, hunting, shooting, boxing, horseracing, steeplechase, pastimes and medieval tournaments in England, Ireland, Scotland, France and Canada. Many of these books are beautifully illustrated with etchings, engravings, and woodblocks.

Some examples of books from the 19th century that cover sport.

The complete angler: or, The contemplative man's recreation, being a discourse of rivers fish-ponds fish and fishing — Written by Izaak Walton includes instructions on how to angle for a trout or grayling in a clear stream by Charles Cotton; with original memoirs and notes by Sir Harris Nicolas. 1836.

Two side-by-side book covers show a female athlete and a male athlete, standing in strong, powerful poses.

Lisa Carrington: Olympic champion by David Riley. 2020. Winston Reid / by David Riley, 2017.

Books on sport for children and young adults

The National Children’s Collections (NCC) offers a range of fiction and non-fiction books on sport for children and young adults published in New Zealand. These are available for requesting and viewing in the reading rooms and for interloan through a public library.

Books for children — Fiction
Books for children — Non-fiction
Primary and intermediate level books

Other places to look for resources on sport

Example research topic — Jack Lovelock

Below is an example of how you could approach using many of the primary and secondary resources when researching sport. The Library holds a comprehensive collection of published and unpublished material on the life of Jack Lovelock and his achievements. This includes several books on running, coaching and training written by Lovelock, his diaries and a novel by James McNeish based on his life and biographies that can be accessed via the National Library catalogue.

A black and white photo of two men at the finish line with the winner looking relaxed as he crosses and the second place finisher over-exerting himself.

Photograph of Jack Lovelock beating W R (Bill) Bonthron in a mile race, 1934. Ref: MSX-2251-027. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Jack Lovelock published books

Jack Lovelock unpublished collections

A large collection of manuscripts and photographs that includes training diaries, scrapbooks of articles relating to athletics, the Olympics and his medical career.

Shows men racing in a 1500 meter with one behind the other as they go around the track, the stands are full in the background.

Photograph from Jack Lovelock's scrapbooks showing the finalists in the 1500 metres, as the enter the home straight for the second time, still with about 900 metres to go. Lovelock is shadowing the pacesetter, Glen Gunningham, 1936. Ref: MSX-2261-048. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Feature image at top of page: Detail of photo of members of the 28th New Zealand (Māori) Battalion at the Ninth Army Ski School in Lebanon, circa 29 April 1942, by M D Elias. Ref: DA-02038-F. Alexander Turnbull Library.