New Zealand Football lost a popular member of the football community this week when former All White Peter Flynn lost his battle with cancer aged 83.

Flynn, who was born in Mayfield in Mid Canterbury and raised in Christchurch, proudly played all of his club football for Shamrock. He was an All White in 1957 when he played four non A internationals for New Zealand as a uncompromising centre-half.

Former Canterbury United rep Peter Fletcher first met Flynn at Primary School and the pair would become lifelong friends in both football and life.

The pair played for many age group teams together, Fletcher was always No 4 and Flynn was No 5 in the football teams they played for. Flynn played all of his life as a centre half and very occasionally he would play as a fullback.

“Peter Flynn and Joe Callaghan, the goalkeeper, were both highly respected players,” said Fletcher (83). “The best of teams would seldom do any good down the middle when Pete and Joe were in defence. Even as kids they were a great partnership. They went on to play for New Zealand together. Of course they didn’t call them All Whites in those days, they played in black.”

Flynn was originally selected in 1956 to play football for New Zealand to be part of the world tour but the tour was cancelled. Back home, playing only for Shamrock was important to Flynn, Fletcher and Callaghan.

“We were all very proud to play for the one club and Shamrock was it. We started in 1944 and played every time we could for the club.”

Fletcher has good memories of competing in the Chatham Cup Final in 1956 against Stop Out Sports Club in Wellington where they went down in a close match.

“The wind was blowing a gale that day from the north. I remember we were camped down in our half for a long time and they kept having corner kicks. We finally got a goal-kick and Joe kicked it but it caught the wind and blew back over the top of our goal. Unfortunately we ran second that day.”

Fletcher said Flynn was a natural athlete and everything he put his hand to and he was a popular member of any team he was part of.

“All through his life he was very good at every sport he took on – he was a talented cricketer, good rugby player, good at tennis, a natural athlete and a very handy golfer – but the one thing he couldn’t do was swim. As much as he tried, he couldn’t bloody swim.

“He was a brilliant friend. He was a great guy. He was quite modest and very helpful. He came from farming stock so he was very down to earth and a good mate. I have a lot of good memories of playing football with him. As kids we used to go camping together and we were all very close.”

Fletcher said he will always remember when he was 18 when Shamrock stayed in a hotel in Petone on a football trip. Flynn, who grew up on a farm, was used to having cream with his porridge he asked where was the cream. The waitress was quite shocked by that and said to him: “We used to throw stones at the team who came up here, not give them cream for their porridge.”

Flynn went to St Bede’s College in Christchurch and they didn’t play football there so he tried his hand in the backline of the First XV and was very good, but football was his first love and he returned to it after leaving school. He went on to be part of a Canterbury United team who enjoyed a very strong era and went on to represent New Zealand.

“It is a tremendously sad time for the football community here in Christchurch and for all of the people who knew Pete well. He was a very reliable person.”

Flynn had a rough time in the last few months of the life. He suffered from a toothache and had the tooth extracted by a dentist, but once it was removed the swelling did not go down. That prompted the doctor to do a biopsy and it came back cancerous. The subsequent jaw pain saw him have a nasty stroke, but he managed to recover from that until the cancer resurfaced.

Flynn leaves behind his loving wife Jude, two sons and a daughter.

“He was a self-made football player in many ways. He didn’t come from a soccer family but he could look back on a wonderful career and did it all himself with his mates who loved the game. We will really miss Peter. He was a great footballer but an even better friend.”