The 29^th and 30^th Northlanders were inducted as a Legends of Northland Sport at the annual Conbrio Northland Sports Awards held at the ASB Stadium, Whangarei recently.

Long jumper Bob Thomas from Kawakawa and squash legend Shelley Kitchen from Kaitaia were honoured before a crowd of over 400, who had gathered to recognise Northland’s best sportspeople over the last 12 months.

Thomas, who was posthumously inducted, broke the NZ open record for the long jump in 1968 at Okara Park in Whangarei – and amazingly, that record still stands today. It remains the longest standing record in NZ athletics behind only the great Peter Snell’s 800 metre record set in 1962.

Kitchen represented NZ for 15 years winning 12 New Zealand and 16 international titles. She reached a career high of number six on the open world ranking list. At this time she was also New Zealand’s number one.

In 2006 Shelley not only won the women's doubles title at the World Squash Championships but also captured the women's singles bronze medal and the women’s doubles silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

Analysis of the Northland Legends of Sport list makes for some interesting reading, especially when you look at the sports that the different legends were involved in.

Predictably in this rugby-mad nation, our number one sport tops the list as the main sport with one-third of the 30 Legends – players Peter Jones, Sid Going, Johnny Smith, Joe Morgan, Peter Sloane and Ian Jones, coach Ted Griffin, referee Pat Murphy, administrator Duncan Ross and player/administrator Richie Guy make up the rugby legends contingent.

Hockey comes in second with five on the list – Trevor Blake, Ross McPherson, Grant McLeod, Arthur Parkin and Sandy Hitchcock (nee Bennett), reflecting this sport’s huge stature and tradition in the north.

The comparatively minor sport of table tennis has incredibly had three players inducted - Neti Traill, James Morris and Garry Frew (the latter also being honoured for his sports journalism), which just goes to show that minor sports can produce great sportspeople (and again table tennis is a sport that has a significant history in Northland).

Amazingly, that is 18 of the 30 (60%) that come from just three sports, which probably goes to show that tradition does play a big part in what sports people achieve in.

NZ’s biggest summer sport cricket has two legends (Brian Dunning and Bryan Young), as does equestrian (Blythe Tait and Andrew Bennie). Both sports also have a significant history in Northland and when you then look at the five sports above that have multiple Legends, they account for an incredible 22 of the 30 (73%).

There are another seven sports that have one legend each – cycling (Laurie Byers), netball (Lyn Gunson), woodchopping (Innes Davidson), bowls (Audrey Russell), swimming (Michael Davidson) and now athletics and squash with the two new inductees. Dr Matt Marshall rounds out the 30 Northland Legends for his sterling work in sports medicine and drugs in sport.