Alan Walter Blake (3 November 1922 – 31 October 2010) was a New Zealand

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

player. A flanker, Blake represented

Wairarapa The Wairarapa (; ), a geographical region of New Zealand, lies in the south-eastern corner of the North Island, east of metropolitan Wellington and south-west of the Hawke's Bay Region. It is lightly populated, having several rural service ...

at a provincial level. He played for the New Zealand national side, the

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987, ...

, in a single test match in 1949. Despite not having any

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

ancestry, Blake played 26 matches for New Zealand Māori and captained the side in 1950. He had an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

grandfather. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Blake served as a trooper with the 4th New Zealand Armoured Brigade from 1943, and saw action in Italy. At the end of the war, he toured with the New Zealand Army rugby team, known as the "Kiwis", appearing in 24 matches.

References

1922 births 2010 deaths People from Carterton, New Zealand People educated at Wairarapa College New Zealand rugby union players New Zealand international rugby union players Māori All Blacks players Rugby union flankers New Zealand people of African-American descent Wairarapa rugby union players New Zealand military personnel of World War II Rugby union players from the Wellington Region {{NewZealand-rugbyunion-bio-1920s-stub