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

The advent of chilly mornings signals the serious start of the rugby season.

This Saturday morning, thousands of youngsters will be in action as the junior rugby season kicks off. 

However, it's the Lions Tour in June and July which has this grey-haired rugby fan looking forward with huge anticipation to the visit of many of the best players from the Northern Hemisphere. 

Known officially as the British and Irish Lions - the tour is more than just an international rugby tour, going hand in hand with the short-term migration of thousands upon thousands of Lions supporters. 

The first visit from a British combined team was an unsanctioned tour in 1888.

From that early tour, combined rugby sides from the United Kingdom and Ireland toured the Southern Hemisphere.

United Kingdom and Ireland sides toured New Zealand and Australia in 1904, 1908 and 1930, with the 1950 team going under the banner of the British Lions for the first time. 

This grey-haired rugby fan first saw the Lions as a fresh-faced school boy in 1959 and has seen at least one game on all subsequent tours, until the last Lions visit in 2005.

Looking back at the Lions tours reveals how much our country has changed over the decades. 

New Zealand hand a population of just a tick over two million residents at the time of the 1959 Lions visit.

Walter Nash was Prime Minister, with the Auckland Harbour Bridge opening in the same year. 

By the time of the 1966 Lions tour, the population had climbed to 2.7 million people with Country Calendar making its television debut.

Hand in hand with the 1971 Lions visit, was the opening of the underground Manapouri Power Station in Fiordland, while Keith Holyoake was Prime Minister. 

Robert Muldoon was at the helm of the National Government during the 1977 and 1983 Lions tours, with Winston Peters winning a Tauranga by-election as an independent candidate at the time of the 1993 tour.

Professional rugby in our country was a decade old when the Lions last toured in 2005. 

One thing missing from this year's Lions visit, is the death of games against provincial teams such as Bay of Plenty.

Bay of Plenty played against the Lions in 1930 and 1950, as a combined East Coast/Poverty Bay/Bay of Plenty side with both matches played in Gisborne. 

The 1959 tourist ventured to the Bay of Plenty for the first time, meeting a Bay of Plenty/Thames Valley team in Rotorua, with the visitors sneaking home 26-24. 

The contest was even tighter in 1966, when the Lions played a standalone Bay of Plenty side for the first time, with the encounter finishing in a 6 all draw.

The halfback at Rugby Park in Rotorua was Max Heimann, who is still a well known identity in the Western Bay of Plenty rugby community. 

The Bay of Plenty game on the 1971 tour was the first major match played at the Tauranga Domain and was fought out in front of a reputed crowd of 20,000 spectators.

Another well known Tauranga character in Bruce Trask, was selected out of the Marist St Michaels club in Rotorua and scored a try, kicked a conversion and slotted a penalty goal.  

While the Lions won the hard fought encounter 20-14, the Bay team outscored the visitors by three tries to two, on the day where the spectators were packed into the ground like sardines in a tin.

Katikati outside back Graeme Moore grabbed a touchdown, while Bay skipper Ron Walker from the Rangataua Club was also awarded a try. 

Bay of Plenty were again right in the contest against the 1977 Lions, going down 23-16, with the tourist having their biggest success on the 1983 tour winning 34-16. 

The tightened schedule on the 1993 tour resulted in Bay of Plenty not being allocated a match, with the last Bay of Plenty verses Lions match taking place under lights at the Rotorua International Stadium in 2005, before 33,000 spectators with the Northern Hemisphere team posting a 34-20 win.