Up to 2000 anti-Springbok tour protesters were confronted by police who used batons to stop them marching up Molesworth St to the home of South Africa's Consul to New Zealand.
350 anti-tour demonstrators invaded Rugby Park in Hamilton, forcing the abandonment of the Springboks-Waikato match. Rugby supporters pelted the protesters with bottles and scuffles broke out.
In Hamilton the protestors occupying the pitch had chanted 'The whole world is watching'. The same applied to New Zealand as a nation. Some believed the tour was an opportunity to address racism in New Zealand and show solidarity with the oppressed black majority in South Africa.
Around 5000 anti-tour protestors marched on Rugby Park in Hamilton. They tore down a perimeter fence just before kick-off, and about 350 protestors invaded the pitch.
Map showing opinion on the Springbok tour around New Zealand. Opinion on social and political issues often differed sharply between the cities and the rest of New Zealand.
This Eric Heath cartoon, which appeared in the Dominion in September 1981, illustrated how the nation divided into two distinct camps regarding the tour.
The central theme of opposition to sporting contact with South Africa was opposition to apartheid. This protest took many forms and involved many parts of New Zealand society from church groups to trade unions and student bodies, including school-age children, as shown here.
The parties to the Gleneagles Agreement agreed to discourage and not to support contact or competition with sporting organisations, teams or sportsmen from South Africa or any other country where sports were organised on the basis of race, colour or ethnic origin.
In this Nevile Lodge cartoon, which appeared in the Evening Post in 1973, the new prime minister, Norman Kirk, and his deputy, Hugh Watt, are discussing the problems the new Labour government faces.
The tour supporters were determined that the first Springbok visit to New Zealand since 1965 would not be spoiled. The anti-tour movement was equally determined to show its opposition to it.
