If you live in Auckland you're an Aucklander

I went to the rugby at the weekend, as you do. It was the Waikato /Auckland game, and apart from the fact that we lost bigtime, I did notice a bit of a dearth of Auckland supporters. Which is odd, given that you'd usually expect mostly home supporters at an Eden Park game.

So why is this? I suppose you have to allow for the fact that a lot of Aucklanders are league fans, quite a few are from what you could call a non-rugby heritage, and the weather was what you'd consider bloody horrible up here, but a nice evening by Hamilton standards. Still, you would have thought that we could muster as many people (from 1.3mln) as a city of 200k two hours drive away managed.

I guess it's that many people who live in Auckland don't identify with the city. A lot of Aucklanders were born elsewhere (or claim to have been). I've noticed also that people will choose the most interesting and "authentic" place they have lived as their hometown, even though they only spent six months there at the age of four (or in extreme cases, once stopped there for a pie).

The only problem with this is that people without any attachment to the city they live in don't want to do anything to improve it. But really, I think Aucklanders should face the fact that we're stuck here, the city has plenty of good points, and most of us don't really want to try and live on $10 an hour picking kiwifruit.

By the way, I'm not an Aucklander. I've decided to identify as a Frenchman from Fontainebleau. I lived there until I was two, so despite not having been back since, not being a French citizen and only speaking schoolboy French, I think I should identify as Fontaineblouis (?). They don't seem to have a rugby team - maybe I should start supporting Stade Français. Neat shirts too!