A E Eckhold
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Bert Eckhold was a small inside back from the famous Dunedin club, Southern.
He was Australian born and educated and came to New Zealand as a teenager, where he developed into a reliable and consistent footballer.
Over a 10-year period he appeared for Otago in 53 matches, a remarkably high tally in a period when the number of representative matches in most seasons could be counted on the fingers of the hand.
Eckhold also made two appearances for the South Island and in 1907 at the age of 21 he made the eight match tour of Australia which included three official tests against the Australian national team.
Eckhold was the second string first five to the more experienced Simon Mynott who was preferred in all of the tests. But Eckhold played against New South Wales and in two matches against Queensland.
In the 1920s Eckhold was prominent again in rugby as a first class referee. In 1923 he controlled an unofficial “test” between the All Blacks and New South Wales and also had charge of four Ranfurly Shield matches: Hawke’s Bay against Auckland in 1923, two famous matches involving Hawke’s Bay magic year of 1926, against Wellington (won 58-8) and Canterbury (won 17-15 at Lancaster Park) and Canterbury against South Canterbury in 1928.
As a cricketer he also represented Otago and was a rifle shooter of note.
Eckhold’s son in law was Harry Simon, the halfback in the celebrated Southern club, Otago and All Black (against the Springboks in 1937) inside back pairing with Dave Trevathan.
Profile courtesy of Lindsay Knight
for the New Zealand Rugby Museum.
FULL NAME
Alfred George Eckhold
BORN
Monday, 28 December 1885 in Adelaide
DIED
Saturday, 24 October 1931 in Dunedin
PHYSICAL
66kg
POSITION
Five-eighth
LAST SCHOOL
Unknown
RUGBY CLUB
(First made All Blacks from)
Southern
PROVINCE
Otago
ALL BLACK DEBUT
Wednesday, 17 July 1907
v N.S.W. at Sydney
aged 21 years, 201 days
ALL BLACK TESTS
0 (0 as Captain)
ALL BLACK GAMES
3 (0 as Captain)
TOTAL ALL BLACK MATCHES
3 (0 as Captain)
ALL BLACK GAME POINTS
0pts
TOTAL ALL BLACK POINTS
0pts
ALL BLACK NUMBER
147
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The All Black Games that Eckhold played.
(+) = substitute; (-) = replaced
Click on the date to be taken to the Match Card
1907
17 Jul vs N.S.W. at Sydney 0-14
24 Jul vs Queensland at Brisbane 23-3
27 Jul vs Queensland at Brisbane 17-11
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Eckhold did not score any points for the All Blacks.
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Eckhold played in no test matches for the All Blacks