Just five years after World War II ended, the focus of the British Empire turned to Auckland.
Before packed houses of 40,000 people every day for just over a week at Eden Park, Empire Games athletes battled for imperial pride.
It was a scene that would be unrecognisable at this year's Commonwealth Games, as they were renamed, in Birmingham, England, where athletes are heading to prepare.
In 1950, the big athletics events took place on a grass track ringing Eden Park while the field events happened in the middle, around the cricket pitch.
Cliff Simpson is believed to be one of two New Zealand athletes who competed in the games still alive, along with hurdler Lionel Smith.
Simpson competed in the half-mile and mile races.
"I was selected for the mile, but it wasn't my main event. I was used in the mile to be a pacemaker," he said.
"I was asked to go out and do the first three laps as quickly as I could do it, in a certain time, which I was able to do. After that of course the other blokes took over."
Cliff Simpson was an athlete in the 1950 Empire Games in Eden Park, Auckland. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The 93 year old, who has retired to the Manawatū town of Feilding, did not make it past the heat, but had more success in his preferred half-mile event.
"I did make the final, but I didn't do any good in the final itself. Well, I suppose the fact of just being there was good in itself, because that's what we'd been training for."
He finished sixth in 1.56 minutes.
The opening ceremony of the 1950 Empire Games at Eden Park in Auckland. Photo: Alexander Turnbull Library / Ref: WA-23745-G
Australia topped the medal tally ahead of Britain and New Zealand.
The 590 athletes stayed at the games village at Ardmore, where Simpson roomed with pole vaulter George Martin.
"He was a great athlete - not only a pole vaulter, but it was the way hr did it. He used to cut his own poles out of the bush, and they never had these good poles that they've got nowadays.
"He was a good rugby player, played for Wellington. He wasn't an All Black, but he went overseas and played league in Australia."
Simpson spent plenty of time watching other events, meeting athletes from around the empire, and filling a booklet competitors were given with signatures.
Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The New Zealand athletes were household names and each was presented with a black New Zealand blazer that had a silver fern sitting proudly on the front. Simpson still has his.
In the days before TV, some made sure they stood out from the crowd, he said.
"There's one thing that some of the chaps used to do - I never ever did that because I used to be a little bit embarrassed - but they used to wear their blazers out on the street.
"I didn't agree with that. I thought, 'Oh gee, bit of a show-off thing'."
Among the well-known names competing for New Zealand was Arthur Lydiard, who later coached Peter Snell and other successful runners in the 1960s.
But a real star was long-jumper Yvette Williams, who won gold.
She and Simpson were living in Dunedin then. He knew her well and would often see her training with her coach.
"We used to train out on the beach sometimes at St Clair and they'd be out there training. We'd see her coming down the sandbank then launching herself off."
Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Simpson did not do much running after the 1950 Games as his work as a stock agent took him away from Dunedin, but he played rep rugby for South Otago and Manawatū.
He shot to prominence in 1949 when he beat touring Australian athletes at half-mile races in Invercargill and Dunedin, and credits his newspaper run around the Dunedin hills with developing strength and stamina.
Historian Jock Phillips said sport and empire had equal billing in 1950.
"It was as much a spectacle of empire as it was about the athletic competition.
"They were known at the time as the British Empire Games, not the Commonwealth Games as we have today, and there was very much an emphasis on the links with Britain and the links with the British Empire," he said.
"Of the 12 countries that took part, eight of them were of the white British Commonwealth, South Africa, Rhodesia, Canada and so forth."
The Auckland games were the fourth overall, and the first since WWII finished.
They had one similarity with the famous 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, Phillips said.
"A New Zealander won the six miles on the opening day. Everyone remembers Dick Taylor in Christchurch winning the six miles.
"In 1950 WH Nelson, a Kiwi, also won the six miles, but what's interesting - and it's an indication of how little focus there really was on the sport as distinct from an imperial spectacle - no one remembers WH Nelson.
"He's not a household name in the way that Dick Taylor, in that one race, became a household name."
Australia dominated the Games, but there was trans-Tasman antagonism when New Zealand took offence to Australian journalists criticising the officials and quality of training grounds.
"The under arm of animosity between Australia and New Zealand in sporting areas surfaced, as one would expect."
These days, the Games focused on the sport and nobody saw them as a celebration of empire, Phillips said.
Simpson said he remained proud to have represented New Zealand, and to have competed against and met the world's best.
"I was lucky to have ever made it - very fortunate I was, to be able to do that."
This year's Commonwealth Games begin on 28 July.
Simpson will be watching on TV.
