Where it All Began

It must have been about April or May 2016 that I had found myself a little bored at home, I’d go to work, I’d come home, spend time with the wife and do what not, but I never really had a really good hobby that I could go and do.

New Zealand Police Delta (dog) - photo taken at the temporary Christchurch Central Police Station

I have always had a sweet spot for emergency services, mainly police. That had drawn my attention to what my brothers used to do going back to probably 2008ish, maybe a little later.

They had joined up with a paintball club and had played a lot of games with them, I thought that would be cool so I began looking around for paintball clubs if they still existed.

I can’t remember exactly whether or not I had found a paintball club that was still running, my memory is a little foggy with that one, but what I had found was this sport called airsoft.

Curiosity got the best of me and I started doing th4e research, what is airsoft? Is there anything on YouTube?

There was an absolutely huge amount on YouTube, so I watched videos of games being played overseas and some from here in New Zealand. It looked much better than paintball with some of the guns that people had, the outfits they’d be wearing. Just the whole vibe seemed like it was the sport to get into. Now the only thing was, was there anywhere local to Christchurch that I could play?

Fortunately for me, there was plenty of options in New Zealand, and in Christchurch alone there at the time was four different options. I had the sweet picking from TAG, ACG (now known as The Arena), CSG and TF33.

My very first gun - Tokyo Marui MP5 Springer

First thing was first, I needed my own gun to go and play with – my only regret – not doing enough research on airsoft beforehand. I went out and bought myself a Tokyo Mauri MP5 spring powered rifle, now don’t laugh just yet, even though it was spring, this thing actually did pretty well. I played with it for quite a while before upgrading to an AEG.

I first reached out to TAG, signed up to their forum and got in contact with their committee, I was all signed up to come out for their next game day – and boy was I excited!

Unfortunately the first game I had signed up to was cancelled – it was either due to low numbers or weather, and to make matters worse, it was cancelled on the morning of the game!

I was absolutely gutted, I was looking forward to going out for my first game!

So it was now back to the drawing board for who to try out now, who was open on that Saturday?

I got in contact with ACG who were open every Saturday and Sunday and were more than happy to have me come along – I was set!

I absolutely loved that first day, I was knackered afterwards but it was well worth it. It was definitely going to be something I’d want to keep coming back to do again and again as much as I could.

Me leaving the field after my first day of airsoft.

I’m not sure exactly how long for they were my primary club, but eventually management had changed and they rebranded at The Arena – same place, same team, just better!

I would have lost count of how many times I had played at that field, and all the events that they held. I did really used to like how on a Wednesday night they’d have a night game for members only – they were always cool.

They didn’t do too much in the way of milsims being a smaller field, which was fine, plenty of other clubs were doing milsims anyway. But they did have their fair share of events on their own field.

I was still with ACG in 2017 when I really had my first solo airsoft trip. This was a really memorable trip away to Nelson for the annual Queen’s Birthday Interclub that is hosted yearly between Nelson Airsoft Corps (NAC) in Nelson and CSG in Christchurch.

Having travelled to Nelson numerous times as a child and as an adult I really wanted to head along to this, so saved up my pennies and headed along.

Me with my trusted VFC M16 on my first airsoft trip to Nelson for Queens Birthday Interclub 2017.

For my first out of town trip it was nothing short of legendary, all the clubs that had travelled from all over New Zealand to come together for 2 days of nothing but shenanigans out on  the field, and I found my favorite field at Armageddon Paintball. That first trip to Nelson for that weekend will probably always be one of my most fond memories of airsoft – although all the other ones that I’ve gone up there for a pretty damn good too!

After a while I had got a bit bored playing at The Arena (through no fault of theirs!), some of the guys I had been playing with there had also been playing at TF33 so invited me to come along and give it ago. I didn’t last long with them, I did play some great games with them and the 24 hour milsim that they hosted – but they were very military driven, and while some of the training was invaluable, it was a little too full on for me. I don’t know why given airsoft is a very military style game, but hey, it was just my personal view and it was no fault of their own, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

I think I only lasted with TF33 for a year, I know it wasn’t that long really. And once I had stopped playing with them I had ended up taking a bit of a break from airsoft in general, there must have been probably about a year or two where I didn’t really go and play any airsoft, I had somewhat lost interest in it – although I had never forgotten about it or even considered permanently giving it up, I just think I needed a break.

This break that I was wanting unintentionally lasted for about 2 and a half years, as I was thinking about getting back into it, Covid came along and as we all know, had the world at a standstill for far too long. I think this really actually helped my passion for airsoft grow even more again.

Come I believe 2021, I decided to get out there and play, it was now deciding which club I wanted to join, The Arena didn’t interest me as being a primary club, TF33 was no longer, Zone 67 was still relatively knew if I remember correctly, so I decided to head a long to a game at CSG.

With this new found passion for the sport again, I was being very particular in what kind of club I wanted to be a part of, I didn’t just want to be a part of a club that just played the sport and that was that, I wanted the whole nine years, the sport itself, but the social aspect of it too, one where you could turn up to a game, take the piss out of anyone and everyone and have them give it back, and by the end of it, you’d just be laughing together, and one that supported players no matter what. I found that heading a long to CSG!

CSG Game Day

 I can’t remember exactly when my first game back with them was, but I was a little nervous as I had only met a couple of the other players before at various other events, and I could remember some of the Committee from other events too, some of which I didn’t particularly like. But thankfully, the ones I didn’t like weren’t actually there anymore, so that was good.

As nervous as I was to be coming along to a game day with more of the intent of joining as a member, I was actually proven wrong, and all the things that I was wanting in a club, was met by CSG.

There was plenty of banter and jokes to be had, even though a lot of the players hadn’t met me before they were more than happy to have a chat, answer any questions and just get me involved to have as much fun as I could.

The social aspect that comes with CSG is perfection for what I was looking for, no one was seen as an outsider, no matter who you were, what you believe in, how experienced you are, what rig you ran, everyone was just as welcome as the rest and treated as such. This gave me immediate respect to the club and its members.

One of those gracious stories I have to show what CSG members are like, I remember one day I had bought my wife out for a game, this was her first ever time, she decided to come and give it a try, I had previously been trying for a number of years to get her out and she finally came along! Anyhow back to the point of this little story, while we were gearing up, I didn’t have any spare gear and she was using a rental, one of the guys came and asked if she’d like a vest for protection, she took him up on the offer and played airsoft for the day – and she had a blast. At the end of the day while packing everything away, I suggested we go return it and she comes with me to thank the man that lent it to her, upon trying to return it he refused to take it back “Keep it, you’ll use it more than I do”.

That right there, blew me away! Random dude, just gave my wife a vest just because. That’s the kinda thing I like to see, and I hope that one day, I can do the same for someone else.

Now moving forward, after playing with them for a good year or two I think it must have been, one of the more senior players came to me randomly one day and asked if I would be interested in being a Committee member for the club, between them and the club President they had liked how involved I was being and turning up to events and all that good stuff, this was pretty cool for me, two senior members of the club wanting me in the committee – was a damn good feeling that’s for sure. Fast forward to present day, I’m now the clubs Secretary!

I also now frequently play at Zone 67, not all the time but somewhat often. I had started up a month CSG Goes to Zone 67 thing within the club, but that had fallen over a little while I had life things happening, but have just started that back up.

I’ve played there a bunch of times over the last year or so, that’s where a lot of YouTube videos come from! One video per game rather than one whole night into one video.

I actually quite like it there, it’s a good change of pace from an outdoor field, and good game modes with a nice challenging field.

The future for me in airsoft, I have OZ1 coming up in September, that’s where a bunch of people come over from Australia to play airsoft (its illegal there), and there is often even more people from other parts of the world who come over just for this event!

My clubs hosting Nationals in October, which is exciting. I’ve never attended Nationals so it will be interesting to actually see how it runs before trying – I am hoping to get myself into a Nationals squad soon!