Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

Sideline Sid has a real passion for the early history of this beautiful country that we live in.

Changes and developments in today's world don't just happen but evolve from earlier days. 

Over the years there are many changes, with plenty of innovations of earlier times becoming just a distance memory.

Such as horse and coach travel throughout the Bay of Plenty has long been consigned to the history books. 

Regional sports silverware that is still contested a century later is worth recalling, as going back one hundred years can give a snapshot of life in the early twentieth century. One such very battered trophy is the rugby union prize of the Peace Cup, which was first contested in 1920.

With the Peace Cup centenary just three seasons away, there is an awakening by regional rugby officials to recognize the contribution to the great game of the now battered Cup. 

The early printed rules of the Peace Cup, say that a Mr English presented the trophy for competition between the Auckland Province Rugby Football Sub-Unions in 1921.

However, concrete evidence has been discovered, that the Peace Cup was first contested in the winter of 1920.

In the heyday of Peace Cup competition, thousands would turn out for challenges with street parades and chartered trains taking opposition supporters to the games.

In the 1930's to the early 1960's, the Peace Cup ranked only second to the Ranfurly Shield in terms of support and fervor, before the Upper North Island trophy fortunes began to wane.  

In 2011, the Peace Cup received new life when it was taken into the newly created Stan Meads Cup regional competition as a challenge trophy.  

A look at the list of the early winners of the South Auckland Sub-Unions competition reveal a very different population base to today.

The first few years of competition were dominated by the Thames Sub-Union representative team who took the trophy from Hamilton in 1920.

A Thames Star report in September 1920, told the tale of 1500 people at Steele Park in Hamilton to witness Thames (dressed in their blue and black colours) defeat Hamilton 11 points to eight.  

While the Thames region gold rush of the late 1880's was over, Thames was the centre of commerce in the Thames and Coromandel regions. By comparison Tauranga was still a sleepy fishing village with just over two thousand residents.

Rugby Football was then played by fourteen men teams, with the old two three two scrum and a wing forward with six in the back line. 

While Thames ended the season with the Peace Cup in their possession on ten occasions, their last success came in the 1949 season, which reflects the changing population of the Upper North Island.

A cartoon depicting Winder making the winning kick to claim the Peace Cup in 1920 By D Barker, Thames

It wasn't until the 1980's that the Tauranga name was first engraved on the Peace Cup. The Tauranga Sub-Union representatives won the Peace Cup silverware in 1980 and followed up in 1982, 1983 and 1986.

The emergence of the strength of Western Bay of Plenty rugby in the 1980's was backed up by the Te Puke Sub-Union side victory in 1982. 

Today the Peace Cup heavyweight is Te Awamutu, who brought the Peace Cup into the Stan Meads competition in 2012 and have remained unbeaten ever since.