CLUB TROPHIES
The Silver Football is held by the club with the highest number of championship points in all grades that season.
It is the second-oldest trophy in the Auckland Union’s cabinet, behind only the Maurice O’Connor Cup and was presented in 1905 by Mr Moss Davis.
At the time it was presented, this was a fair way of acknowledging the season’s best-performing club at all levels, since the District Scheme was in place and most clubs fielded no more than five teams, with a minimum of three. Once the Scheme was abandoned, it was always going to become the preserve of the big clubs who fielded most teams, but only after the extraordinary decade and a half of Ponsonby dominance; that club, although not the biggest in town, won the Silver Football 15 years in a row between 1916 and 1930 – by far the longest run for any of Auckland’s club trophies.
In 1962, the rules were re-written; it was now for competition among clubs fielding at least ten teams whose average points per team figure was the largest. More or less the same rules apply today, except the ten-team requirement is, sadly, a thing of the past. It is still a sought-after trophy and despite its age (and a few bumps and bruises) it is holding up well for something nearly 120 years old.
Moss Davis was born in England in 1847, arriving in New Zealand at the age of 14. He initially settled in Christchurch but moved to Nelson, where he began to make his fame (and a considerable fortune) in the commercial world. He was near the peak of his powers when he arrived in Auckland in 1885 and joined the liquor trading firm of Hancock and Company, which he later bought outright.
He made his fortune in the brewery trade and was renowned for buying artistic and historical works, many of which were purchased for significant sums, and donating them back to the public galleries and collections of Auckland. He enjoyed his rugby but was not particularly notable in any organisation, although he was a frequent visitor to Alexandra Park.
Shortly before he moved to London in 1910, he donated the Silver Football.
