Sports historian puts the boot into closed shop
Prolific rugby league writer Bernie Wood launched the attack on Hall of Fame chief executive Ron Palenski after his committee refused to induct the pioneering league team the All Golds, coach Graham Lowe or former Kiwis star Dean Bell.
Wood found backing from another well-published author, Joseph Romanos, who ran the Hall of Fame before Palenski. The two men said the hall should be moved to Wellington and were critical of a selection panel which inducts nominees without meeting.
In response, Palenski said Wood was paranoid and indicated he would never again be invited to sit on the induction panel.
Wood said the exclusion of the All Golds on the centenary of their 1907 trip to Australia and England, where they beat both hosts and launched the sport here and internationally, was a real farce.
Wood was dismayed the decision was made by the nine-man panel through correspondence not a face to face debate as it was when he was a panelist in 1997.
They have all been influenced by Palenski, Wood alleged. Romanos said he quit the Halberg Awards jury when they adopted a similar system, which has received widespread media criticism, and said robust debate was always needed.
Wood claimed league now has no chance of adding to their seven inductees who are among the 150-plus in the hall.
I am complaining bitterly about missing out because we now have no show in the future, he said.
We are finished because you have the best team in 100 years [the All Golds], the best coach in 100 years [Lowe] and our best overseas achiever in 100 years [Bell].
It has now become a closed little shop with one man running it and what he says goes.
Palenski said that was nonsense, adding he [Wood] has always been quite paranoid about rugby league.
The implication of what he is saying is that it is the same panel every year which is not the procedure and he knows it; he has been involved before. But given what he is saying he wont be involved again, Palenski said.
He said Wood should credit those league people inducted, including All Golds founder AH Baskerville: If it wasnt for the Hall of Fame, half of New Zealand would never have heard of Baskerville.
The rotating panel of nine always includes three inductees, three journalists and three sports representatives. Wood and Romanos both criticised the mix of last years panel, which included netball coach Lois Muir and veteran cycling coach Ron Cheatley.
Palenski said an extremely tight budget dictated the panel didnt meet and said the All Golds rejection had been utterly conclusive. He had no influence on the decision and added that Lowe, as a serving administrator, was ineligible for admission anyway.
The Hall of Fame was established in Wellington in 1990, but moved to Dunedin under Romanos stewardship in 1999 when offered three years free rent by the city council Wood and Romanos now believe the hall should pursue a return to the capital, where an Olympic museum is planned. But Palenski said the hall received around 20,000 visitors a year and he knew of no other suitable venues.
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Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 6:06 pm under