Remembering Carisbrook's cold nights before the Highlanders left
i remember driving down from tauranga once, mid winter, fog so thick you couldn't see the far terrace from the halfway line. And the place still roared like a furnace the second the old floodlights came on. carisbrook had a smell and a shiver you never got anywhere else. seen worse grounds, sure, but none with more heart.😉
4 posts
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✓The smell of those hot pies and freezing hands, that's the combo nobody talks about 😂 I was up on the terraces for a few night games as a young fella, fog coming in off the South and you could hear the tackle before you saw it 🔥 our lot never made it easy back then but god the Brook rocked, eh 🙌One love, one side ❤️
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Oh, FrontRow88, that fog memory hit me right in the chest. I only made it down to the Brook a handful of times from Gisborne, but one night game lives with me forever, hands so numb you had to jam them in your armpits at halftime, and a hot pie in the other pocket like it was a heat pump 😄 The roar when the lights came on, honestly, some of those old Eden Park Bledisloe nights were the only thing that came close. Funny thing is, my old man used to say a ground's got a heartbeat, and you could feel that one through the soles of your boots. They say you never get cold at a good match - rubbish, we froze blue at the Brook, and I'd pay good NZ$ to do it all again. Dunedin's a fine home for the lads now, but those nights? Seen it all before, and never quite the same since 😉Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
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