In 1954, Gordon Clinton was 17-years-old when he chose to join the Ashburton Centennial Sports Hall committee.
Now age 92, Gordon is the sole survivor from the founding committee and remembers his many years with the group fondly.
‘‘I was playing a lot of table tennis at the time, so when one of the committee members asked me if I would like to join, I agreed.”
Being part of a committee was unfamiliar terrain for the young Tuckers Hardware building supplies assistant, but he soon got the hang of it.
Gordon’s first meeting was big.
On the agenda was the decision to buy the vacant Ashburton Motors building on Tancred St.
‘‘When it came to vote on buying the building, I just sat there,” he said.
“Then I looked around I saw everyone else had their hands up, so I put mine up too.”
With some help from the Bank of New Zealand in the form of a favourable interest rate, they bought the building.
“Then the hard work begun,” he said.
Gordon said the building was a dirty old building full of oil and muck and car fumes, with a six inch thick cracked concrete floor that had to be removed.
‘‘We took to it with 10 pound sledge hammers and crowbars and broke it all up.”
“We used to go in there two or three nights a week and work till nine o’clock smashing it up.
‘‘It was hard work. Our cut off time was nine, we never worked after that.”
Removing the existing flooring took weeks and had to be done before they could add the new frontage, which is still there today.
Walls were scrubbed down and painted, new concrete floor poured, front of the building updated and courts marked out for basketball, mens and ladies, and the hall was open for business.
Gordon said table tennis was popular back then. Local halls around the district held weekly competitions, culminating in an annual competition at the sports hall.
Gordon was working just across the road and it naturally fell to him to be the unofficial hall caretaker.
‘‘I would put the rubbish bins out, arrange chairs for night meetings, clean the wash basins in the toilets, and sweep up the lolly papers under the seats.”
Keeping the hall afloat and paying back the loan lead to many varied fundraising activities. From a chocolate wheel in town every Friday night, bottle drives, digging out sheep manure from under sheep sheds and picking up pine cones.
Gordon said the group would take on anything to make money, with one condition.
‘‘The president at the time, Mr Nicholl, said we had to give value for money.
‘‘We weren’t to do anything where people weren’t getting a fair deal, and not just ask for a donation.”
Selling candy floss at the Ashburton A&P show is another fundraiser that sticks in Gordon’s memory as they ended the day covered in sugar.
Other members of the Ashburton Centennial Hall Society Committee 1954 – 1955 were O Morris, M Wall, W H Dalton, J Kelsey, S K Carswell, T Spicer, D G Campbell, A H Gazzard, secretary J R Fitzgerald, R A Grigg, F Esker vice president G H Nicoll, patron and Ashburton Mayor Ernest Cook Bathurst, president R T Hungerford, vice-president S G Macfarlane.
The sports hall was gifted to Ashburton District Council at the end of March. They are currently assessing its future, including the possibility of sale.
