This photo restoration project was one I gladly did for my old high school - Whangarei Boys’ High, Whangarei, New Zealand. It’s a Whites Aviation photo taken looking over the school and Whangarei in the 1950s. The school is seen at the bottom centre of the photo. With its imposing concrete structure and enclosing nature it was nicknamed by the boys ‘Colditz’ after the infamous German POW prison in World War II.

Measuring 1015 mm wide x 750mm high, the image had suffered from 50 years of hanging on the school wall and had a few tears and marks requiring restoration. I was approached by Greg of the Old Boys’ Association about getting it fixed. I was happy to do it, donating a portion of proceeds to the Old Boys’ fund. One original size photo print and three A1 prints were made, initial orders going to old boys students wanting a bit of nostalgia to hang on their walls.

Another interesting canvas print added to the canvas prints category this week. Among the canvas prints I’ve been making, this was a little more difficult to do. Bob came to see me about having two photos joined together and printed onto canvas. They were images taken looking from Kauri Mountain, Whangarei, Northland looking out to sea. Bob lives up in the hill where the photo was taken and liked a permanent reminder of the location.

The photos themselves were stained and marked and needed a bit of restoration work. Once the marks were removed the photos were joined together. The more difficult part was removing the outer shadows on each image, resulting from the type of camera used. These were reduced to produce an overall pleasing inage. A black border was used for the sides to preserve the whole image. A photo print was also made along with the canvas one. Bob says they’ll look good hanging in his office and now says he’ll need to find some more images to print.

Back home again after a week of hard slog playing some very hard games. Our last encounter saw the 40+ men play home team Waikato for 5th and 6th spots. It was a close encounter, very hard fought with us eventually winning 1-0. Towards the end of the 2nd half saw two of our strikers run into each other, with one having to be stretchered off to hospital. Luckily he was ok apart from small fractures to his cheek bone.

A great week anyway, I’ll be back for more next year when the tournament is held in Nelson.

Thursday night saw us playing an evening game in blustery conditions against the North Harbour team. They were  looking at retaining some pride after coming bottom of their pool. Our Northland boys were looking for a strong win to make up for the losses earlier during the week.

 This game I was put into the front line as a striker, my normal position being left half. We started out strong quickly scoring a series of goals to be 4-0 up before the break. Harour came back with a goal before half time to make it 4-1.

The 2nd half saw us start off strong, I was able to use some speed up front to create space and setup 2 goals for our other strikers. We eventually finished the game winning 8-2. If we’d performed like this earlier in the week, we’d have been in the top 4 playoffs. Well, that’s a big what if, so all we can do is beat Waikato in the playoff for 5th and 6th and go out on a strong note.

A non event game today. We played the last pool game against Poverty Bay. They only had 8 players so defaulted the game. Myself and 2 other players helped them out to make for a practice game. We eventually beat them 8-1.

We play North Harbour tonight from the “Pool of Death”, much like us they couldn’t finish the goals, so I expect it to be another tough encounter. Also of note,  Anna Thorpe, Maungakaramea and Northland rep player has just been selected to play for the New Zealand Women Black Sticks and will touring with them to India later in the year. Congrats Anna, it was only a matter of time!

Day 2 brought us head to head with Nelson, the favorites to win the 40+ men age group. This was a have-to-win game. Lose and we’re in the playoffs for the lower rankings. As it turned out, it was the hardest, fastest game I’ve played for a few years. We eventually lost 4-2 to a team that played slightly better than us - but filled with excitement, sledging, body checks, yelling at the umpires - essentially a normal competition game!

 So good on the Nelson guys for winning, now we want to take out Poverty Bay and not finish bottom of the pool. In other games Northland 35+ women had a loss and a draw played in lunchtime summer conditions. A rest day for us boys yesterday, so we’ll be refreshed and ready to go this afternoon.

Well, a disappointing day from the first day of the tournament - we lost 2-1 to Wellington in a game where we dominated possession but couldn’t slot the ball in the net. Wellington scored the winner is the dying minutes, so now we need to win the next two games in our pool to have a chance of making the semi finals.

Congrats to the 35+ women’s team for beating Wellington 3-0 last night and the 40+ Northland/Waikato combination for drawing with North Harbour 1-1. All the other Northland teams lost their games.

I also won’t be taking any more game photos. Apparently there are official sports photographers taking photos and all others with especially good cameras aren’t allowed to  do any. I was politely told by the photographer to ‘bugger off’.

Our next game is tonight at 7.15pm against the top team Nelson, so it will be a tough game.