One of the original Silver Ferns, Oonah Shannahan becomes the first to turn 100 - just days before one of her rivals reaches the same rare milestone, Suzanne McFadden discovers.
She may not have beaten the Australians on the netball court, but our second-ever Silver Ferns captain, Oonah Shannahan, has finally ticked that off 73 years later.
At her home in Christchurch's McCormacks Bay, Oonah will be celebrating her 100th birthday on Friday - the first Silver Fern to reach the exceptional milestone. And two days later, she’ll be joined in the exclusive Centurions Club by one of her Australian opponents.
Still sharp as a tack, with a lovely wit, Oonah lives with her daughter, Louise, and says she doesn't get around the garden like she used to. She will quietly raise a glass of champagne at becoming a centenarian (the pandemic lockdown has, of course, postponed any party).
Although she may not like to admit it, Oonah was a netball trailblazer, setting the scene for future Silver Ferns by leading the New Zealand team in the first test to be played on New Zealand soil, in Dunedin in August 1948.
They lost that test to the touring Australian Diamonds, but Oonah can now rightfully claim a small victory over them.
As far as the Australians know, they’ve never had a Diamond reach 100 years. Well, that’s until Sunday – when one of their netballers who played in that historic test series also reaches a century.
Wyn Haywood – a talented wing attack (or attack wing as they called the role back then) - lives in Melbourne, still in her own home. A big cricket fan, Wyn will celebrate by walking out to her mailbox and lifting a cricket bat in a nod to 100 not out.
Both women remember each other from that netball series, and Wyn has an old sepia photo of them contesting the ball in a tour match between Canterbury and Australia. They’ve never seen each other again, but they’ve both have wished each other well on joining a team where they are very first members.
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Oonah Murray was born in Dunedin on September 3, 1921. Her father worked for the railways, so the family of five children followed him to Taihape, where they lived for five years, before he got a job in Christchurch. Oonah has lived in the city ever since.
Her two older brothers both fought in World War Two. “Looking back on it we lived in a great time. We worried with the war, of course, but you got on well with everyone,” Oonah says.
She was introduced to netball at primary school, and played in the champion Sacred Heart School team in Christchurch.
Captain of the victorious 1947 Canterbury team, Oonah was chosen to play for New Zealand against Australia in the first of three tests in 1948. The selectors decided that rather than move the whole team around New Zealand, they would bring in different players in each city hosting a test – Dunedin, New Plymouth and Auckland.
Oonah wasn’t upset by this. The date of the third test was also the day her sister Mary was getting married and Oonah was a bridesmaid. “I think we were more interested in a wedding than we were in the netball,” Oonah says.
A midcourter, Oonah was chosen to play at centre for the first test. "A skilled player, she passes with deliberation and foresight and her court movements appear always to be effortless and unflurried," the test programme read.
At the time, she was working for a fruit and vegetable auction house. “They made a big fuss of me on that occasion. They presented me with a book I could keep records in,” Oonah says.
She has no idea where that is today; she also had a New Zealand team blazer, but never wore it again. “I don’t know what happened to it. Sorry about that,” she says with a laugh to her daughter.
“The game against Australia was really no different to playing another association. You know, they didn’t go to any special trouble for it," she says. “We had two practices together, that was all.”
The coach of the team was Myrtle Muir, always known as “Mrs Muir”, New Zealand netball’s first coach. “But she hadn’t been coaching players for some years,” Oonah says. “She appointed herself to run the team, I think. We were never pre-schooled in what to expect.”
That would turn out to be a problem – as Australia played a completely different ball game than the Silver Ferns.
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The Australians arrived in Auckland on a flying boat they’d caught on Sydney Harbour. They were nine years late.
Up until then, the only game played between the two nations had been in 1938, when the first New Zealand team toured Australia and lost the solitary test, 40-11, in Melbourne. The Australians were supposed to visit the following year, but then war broke out.
The first test of 1948 was played at the Forbury Park racecourse in Dunedin – on a special court drawn up on an asphalt carpark - to cope with an unprecedented crowd of 2000.
A collection of newspaper clippings from August 1948, collated by Netball New Zealand historian Todd Miller, paint a fascinating picture of that game.
New Zealand was the only nation in the world still playing a nine-a-side game. The Australians only played with seven players, a rule the rest of the world was adopting. New Zealand was holding out, but these games would be played to Australia’s rules.
In some games on tour, though, the visitors wear made to wear thick, scratchy stockings under their heavy woollen tunics – the Aussies were used to wearing short socks.
The sport was also known then as women’s basketball – it wasn’t until 1970 New Zealand changed the name to netball.
Both sides took time to settle in, but journalists wrote New Zealand found it difficult adjusting to the seven-a-side game and getting used to a “more liberal interpretation of the stepping rule”.
The score at the end of the first quarter reflected that – the Australians led 11-1.
It soon became obvious, though, that the goalpost at the northern end of the court was exposed to a strong breeze. With the sheltered shooting end in the second spell, New Zealand closed the gap to 13-9 at halftime, but couldn’t sink a goal in the third quarter (to be fair, only four goals were scored at the windy end by both teams in the entire match).
The Australians played a faster game, with long, hard one-handed passes, that “bewildered” the Kiwis, who used more frequent, shorter passes to get down court. Australian captain, Mary White, later questioned the New Zealanders' style, saying it seemed to tire them out.
The two sides played very different defensive styles too. “Where we played a game away from partners, they played a game on top of their partners,” Oonah says. “If they’d played our game they would have been pulled up every minute.”
Among the defenders in the New Zealand side was Dixie Cockerton, who later became the second Silver Ferns coach (after Mrs Muir) and took the team to the first World Cup in 1963. One of the Ferns shooters, or ‘goal throwers’, Azalea Clark (now Sinclair) turned 91 last month, and lives in Tauranga.
“Azalea was a great shot,” Oonah says. “She was in my regular team and we were a good combination.”
Despite a comeback – outscoring Australia 9-1 in the final quarter – New Zealand lost the test, 27-16. When the game was over, they played a 10-minute exhibition under nine-a-side rules. New Zealand “played spectacularly” according to the Otago Daily Times, winning 4-2.
As the Australians got into their groove, the Silver Ferns lost the next two tests by margins of 31 and 22. But the series opened the door to future internationals – even if their next meeting wouldn’t be for another 12 years.
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Wyn Haywood was 27 when she toured New Zealand with the Australian side. She made friends with one of the Silver Ferns, Del Turner (later Bandeen), and decided to stay on for three months to see some of the country.
She stayed with the Turner family in Christchurch, and got herself a job at a nearby ice cream factory.
Wyn’s grandson, Cam Osborne, says his Nana tried her hand at many things – she was a tailor’s apprentice, and during World War II worked for Ansett refurbishing planes for the war effort.
After her New Zealand sojourn, she returned to Melbourne and was told she had a heart murmur. “They said she needed to slow down her netball,” Osborne says. “She kept playing club for a while, but her international career was two tests and that was it.”
Wyn married and had two children - and now has five grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren. She cut her ties with netball when her playing days were done.
“Nan was the youngest of seven kids, and netball was like an escape for her,” says Osborne. “Her father abandoned the family when she was six, and they moved from country Victoria to Melbourne. Then she started playing at primary school, she liked and it she was good at it.”
She even finds it hard to watch a game these days.
“Compared to her game in the ‘40s, netball today is almost unrecognisable to her,” Osborne says. “In her mind, back then it was about skill, today is about strength. She doesn’t like that part of the game. But she always loves hearing the score when Australia and New Zealand play.”
And she still holds dear the honour of being an Australian Diamond. She's kept a box of newspaper clippings and photos, and even the menus from meals they had in New Zealand. Her green blazer from the tour has been kept in her wardrobe and is in pristine condition.
“She was proud to represent Australia, but she didn’t make a big deal about it,” Osborne says. “I didn’t find out she'd played till about 10 years ago.”
Wyn’s sporting days caught up with her in recent years - she has two new knees and a hip replacement. She lives on her own in the Melbourne suburb of Bentleigh and “still has all her marbles”, her grandson says. Plans for her 100th birthday party at a local hall have sadly been scuppered by Victoria’s Covid lockdown.
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Dame Noeline Taurua, Silver Fern #108, wrote a message for Silver Fern #8, Oonah Shannahan, on reaching her 100-year milestone.
“Our Silver Fern #8, captain of the 1948 team, is still paving the way in life like she did in our sport. One of the true pioneers of New Zealand netball,” she wrote. “I was fortunate to meet Oonah in person in 2019 and she is remarkable.”
The Silver Ferns coach had morning tea with Oonah two years ago, after the Silver Ferns won the World Cup. “She has a great way with her,” Oonah says. “They’re very lucky to have her.”
Like Taurua, Oonah continued to give back to the sport once she finished playing when she got married. Her husband, John Shannahan, represented New Zealand in soccer.
“It seemed to be the fashion in those days, to stop playing when you got married and had children,” Oonah says.
The Shannahans had two children, and Louise played netball right through school; when she went teaching in Timaru, she played for the Fire Brigade team. “My netball career wasn’t paved in glory like Mum’s, but I made lifelong friendships,” Louise says.
"Our sport has been built on the brilliance of people like Oonah. We'd like to pay tribute to her for helping provide such a rich Silver Ferns legacy," - Jennie Wyllie, Netball NZ CEO.
Oonah and her sisters, Mary and Julia, became well-known administrators in Canterbury Netball (which also celebrates its centenary this year). Mary, a national long jump champion, served as secretary of the netball association for years, and was the netball correspondent for the Christchurch Press. Among her many roles, Oonah managed the Canterbury team, and she later received a Netball NZ service award for her work.
“It was a good interest for us, because we were great workers,” she says. The sisters also played golf together.
She still watches a fair bit of netball on TV, “but if it’s one-sided, I’m not interested,” says the grandmother of two, and great-grandmother of one.
“I don’t think it’s a marvellous game. In fact, if I had to choose between watching netball and rugby, I’d choose the rugby.”
The secret to her longevity? “It’s almost impossible to answer. I’ve had a very enjoyable life. I’ve been very lucky.”
Does she ever wish she could have played more games for New Zealand? “No, it’s not something I had regrets about. Life was busy, and you just got on with the next thing.”
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