New Zealand Masters Games Saturday 30 January

New Zealand Masters Games Saturday 30 January

Aussie ‘Rebels’ Marching in Step with Kiwis

An Australian marching team, competing at the New Zealand Masters Games in Dunedin, call themselves the ‘Rebels’ for a reason. Marchers of old they have rebelled against the new direction that marching has taken in Australia and have come to the Masters Games so they can march the Kiwi way.

Rebels’ leader, Tracey Michel, says Australian marching just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore.

“Australia has dropped the whole drill component from marching and gone all creative it’s just not like marching anymore, whereas in New Zealand technical drill is very much alive and kicking.”

Tracy says a few of the Rebels’ team members met each other through a small Facebook chat group. They all belonged to marching groups and discovered that they shared a mutual love of old style Australian marching. They decided to form a team and recruited others through social media.

“We wound up with a wonderful diverse group of women; the majority were strangers to each other. We soon became aware of the Masters Games and the competitive streak emerged. Before we knew it we had decided to have a crack.”

The average team member age is 51yrs and incudes a mother and daughter. One of the team has a 560 kilometre round trip to get to the weekend training sessions, while another flies from Tasmania to Victoria to be part of the Rebels.

The team are very excited about donning their new uniform which was designed by their personal dressmaker, a skilled period costume designer, who has become so involved with the team she has joined them in Dunedin as their chaperone.

The Rebels get to live their dream tomorrow at Memorial Park in Mosgiel.

ENDS

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