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Wing/fullback Alby Jack was a Wellington club rugby player before and after World World War 2.
During the war Jack served with the Wellington Battalion of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force before being injured and captured on 22 July 1942 at the battle of El Mrier and sent to Germany and later Italy as a prisoner of war – but later escaped.
He returned to New Zealand by 1945 and played for the Poneke-Oriental team that had won consecutive Jubilee Cups the previous two years.
After playing once for the Central-Trentham Army team in 1940, he played three first-class games for Wellington in 1945. Substitutes were rare then, but at least one of those matches for Wellington was coming on as an injury replacement in a 20-8 win over Auckland at home in late September.
Poneke and Oriental disbanded from the following season, and he re-joined his former Oriental club and played for them over the next few seasons. In 1948 Oriental were Hardham Cup winners and in 1949 Jack was Oriental’s captain.
In 1950, Jack moved to the Wellington Football Club, where he played for another decade and held several other administrative positions.
In 1952 he made another two first-class appearances for the Centurions club, bringing his official first-class caps to six.
Albert Earnest Jack was born in Timaru on 8 July 1918. He attended primary school in Timaru and, playing as a wing forward, earned a place in the South Canterbury school representatives.
He later played for both the Star and Old Boys clubs in South Canterbury.
In 1937 he came to Wellington, where he turned out for one season for the Pirates club as a second-five.
In a recent book, Ghost Clubs of Wellington, it is written that the Pirates club was the Berhampore club rebranded.
“…However, a short time later in 1936, based on falling membership and unsatisfactory finances, it was decided to rename the Club, the “Pirates Football Club”, with the popular Pirates brand intended to attract new membership from a wider catchment. At the time, it was noted that “there are many people in Wellington who have been associated with the Pirates Clubs in Dunedin, Invercargill, Whanganui, Hastings, and elsewhere, and who no doubt would like to see a club of that name established in Wellington.”
His association with Pirates was short-lived, as the following season, 1938, he joined Oriental and became one of their Senior Championship team wingers.
Two years later he enlisted in the army and prior to embarkation to overseas he appeared for Trentham Camp and for the 25th Battery team.
The Freyberg Cup – named after General Bernard Freyberg DSO VC – is a New Zealand Army rugby trophy that was first played for by units of the Second New Zealand Division during the Second World War. In 1998 the New Zealand Army reintroduced the Freyberg Cup as a challenge trophy.
Arriving in the Middle East, Jack became a member of the 6th Brigade team for three seasons, in one of which it was runner-up to 19th Battery for the Freyberg Cup. He also played once for 6th Battery against the Rest of Egypt.
He was taken prisoner in Egypt July 1942 after a week of torrid fighting at Ruweisat Ridge and the El Mreir Depression. Of note he was captured alongside Jack Cragg who would return home to have a lifelong association with the Wellington Football Club and whom that club’s scoreboard at Hataitai Park honours.
In the closing stages of the war Jack escaped his captives and was in Lublin (Poland) while the trials for the selection of the Kiwi team were being held. Later he had the distinction of representing “Germany.”
Back in New Zealand, Jack played for Poneke-Oriental until that side split up and he retained his association with Oriental, before transferring to the Wellington Axemen.
In 1959, ‘Jack and Jack’- Alby Jack and Jack Cragg – coached the Wellington Axemen’s top team together. The following year Alby Jack ended is long career as player/coach of the B side.
As an administrator, he was a Vice -President of the Wellington Football Club, a foundation member of the Wellington Rugby Supporters’ club and an early member of the Centurions club.
As well as rugby, Jack was a keen boxing enthusiast, and in one N.Z.E.F tournament in the Middle East he was runner-up to champion Henry Robertson.
In his younger days he was also a cricketer and represented Ashburton against West Coast, while he also swam and played tennis.
Alby Jack’s son Peter also developed a life-long association with sport, notably rugby and athletics and in 2017 he received the Queen’s Service Medal for services to sport.
Peter Jack is a Life Member of the Wellington Football Club and the club’s record keeper, and has been a stalwart of Athletics Wellington for more than 50 years.
Alby Jack passed away on 2 March 2000.
That same season the Oriental-Rongotai and Wellington Football Clubs started the Alby Jack Memorial Cup in his honour, which is contested in their Swindale Shield meeting each year.
REFERENCES
- Akers, Clive. New Zealand Rugby Register 1870-2015. New Zealand Rugby Museum, 2016.
- Club Rugby – file information about the Alby Jack Memorial Cup.
- Noble-Campbell, Gordon; Cooper, Steve (Stephen Cyril); Richardson, Nigel (Nigel Timothy). Ghost rugby clubs of Wellington. Tales of the lost rugby clubs of Wellington. Glenbeigh Books, Wellington 2019.
- Oriental Football Club Inc. 75th jubilee, 1888-1963. Wellington: Standard Press, 1963.
- Quinn, Keith. Give ‘Em the Axe! 150 years of the Wellington Football Club. Wakefields Digital, Wellington, 2020.
- Swan, Arthur C. Jackson, Gordon F. W. (1952). Wellington’s Rugby History 1870 – 1950. Wellington, New Zealand: A. H. & A. W. Reed.
- Rugby Weekly – Contemporary article about Alby Jack published on 6 August 1949
- Swan, Arthur C. Jackson, Gordon F. W. (1952). Wellington’s Rugby History 1870 – 1950. Wellington, New Zealand: A. H. & A. W. Reed.
