Bryan Purser

Bryan Purser, born in New Plymouth 1950, represented New Zealand at two Commonwealth Games and with his older brother, Richard, won New Zealand’s first Games badminton medal. 

Purser attended New Plymouth Boys' High School, where he was vice-captain of the cricket 1st XI in 1968 and was prominent in badminton and tennis.

He had a big family name to live up to in badminton, with Richard a long-time New Zealand No 1. Bryan won national junior badminton titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles in 1967 and went on to win 13 national senior titles from 1969-81 - the singles in 1972, 1980 and 1981, and the doubles eight times from 1969-80 with his brother, and the mixed doubles twice with Robin Denton. He also represented New Zealand in the Thomas Cup and Whyte Trophy.

He competed at the 1974 and 1978 Commonwealth Games.

In Christchurch in 1974, Purser won two rounds of singles comfortably, against Jim Ansari of Scotland and Raju Chiplukar of Tanzania, before being eliminated by Malaysian Tan Aik Mong 15-4, 15-3.

In the men’s doubles, Richard and Bryan Purser had the misfortune to run into second seeds Derek Talbot and Elliot Stuart of England in their first match, and went down 15-10, 15-4.

Purser teamed with Robin Denton in the mixed doubles and they beat Moo Foot Lian and Rosalind Ang of Malaysia 15-5, 17-14, a good performance, before losing to England’s seeded pair of Stuart and Susan Whetnall 15-12, 15-8.

Purser was chosen again for the 1978 Edmonton Commonwealth Games and he was a better player by then, benefitting from extensive time playing in Europe.

In the singles he beat Lim Yim Chong of Wales 15-7, 15-9, then went down to Indian Partho Ganguli 15-8, 6-15, 15-12 after a high-class match.

In the men’s doubles, the Purser brothers broke new ground for New Zealand, winning a bronze medal. They beat Canadians Jamie McKee and John Czich 15-12, 15-5 and Malaysians Abu Bakar Sulian and James Selvaraj 15-9, 15-8. In the semi-finals, the Pursers were no match for top-seeded Englishmen Ray Stevens and Mike Tredgett, losing 15-5, 15-8. In the bronze-medal play-off against England’s Derek Talbot and Kevin Jolly, they surprisingly ran away with the match 15-10, 11-15, 15-1.

In the mixed doubles, Purser and Allison Sinton beat Lim Yim Chong and Susan Brimble of Wales 15-7, 15-10 and then lost to Scotland’s Billy Gilliland and Joanne Flockhart 15-4, 15-1.

In Edmonton there was also a teams event in the badminton and Bryan played at No 1 in singles. He ended up playing 15 matches over the 10 days of the Games in Edmonton.

In the first teams match, when New Zealand lost to India 3-2, he put up a fine showing against future world No 1 Prakash Padukone, going down 15-3, 6-15, 15-7.

Next New Zealand took on Australia and edged home 3-2. Purser beat Peter Cooper 16-17, 15-2, 15-8 for an important victory. Then he and his brother beat Paul Tyrrell and Paul Kong 10-15, 15-9, 15-9.

In a 5-0 whitewash of Wales, the Purser brothers beat Brian Jones and Lim Yim Chong 2-0 and Bryan teamed with Allison Sinton to beat Jones and Linda Blake comfortably.

In the final round robin match, New Zealand suffered a 5-0 loss to England. Bryan could make no headway against Ray Stevens, losing 15-2, 15-2.

In the semi-finals, New Zealand were disappointingly beaten 3-2 by Canada. Purser lost the singles match 4-15, 18-14, 15-7 to Jamie McKee.

This left New Zealand in a bronze medal play-off against Malaysia, which the Malaysians won 4-1.

After more time in Europe for several seasons, Purser returned to New Zealand via stints in South Africa and Perth. The Perth stopover was important – he met his future wife Dorinka there.

Back in New Zealand in 1981, Purser and his sister and brother-in-law, Judy and Ray Cooper, bought the franchise for Cowell's Genuine Pavlovas in Hamilton. Under their care the business grew spectacularly over the next 25 years.

Purser's son Mark became a professional golfer after representing New Zealand in the Eisenhower Trophy. His nephew, Craig Cooper, represented New Zealand at badminton.