The Andrews family’s decision to swap Dundee for New Zealand has given a local newspaper plenty to right about.
Bernie, Corrie and their four children left Dundee in November 2013 for Timaru, New Zealand. Dean and Michelle both attended Ichthus Christian School before they emigrated.
Readers may remember Dean’s exploits on the rugby field and his chance to play for the Junior Sharks in Durban.
The Andrews quickly adapted to circumstances on the Land of the Long White Cloud and the children, especially Dean, are already making waves on the sporting field – even though Dean had to skip a grade – going from Grade 6 where he as in Ichthus – to secondary school in New Zealand. He has already been exceptional in rugby and was player of the year in his age group.
But it is on the athletics field where the youngster had really set the stage alight. The Timaru Herald reported on his exploits during his school’s, Roncalli, athletics meeting: “Eight records tumbled at Roncalli’s annual athletics day as two talented athletes had a field day on the track. In the under-14 boys, Dean Andrews stamped his mark on just about everything. He demolished Shannon Hende’s 20-year javelin record of 33.08 by more than 17 metres with an incredible 50.15m throw and then backed up in the shot put and discus with two school records before showing he could also foot it on the track.

Proud granny
Andrews eclipsed talented teenager Jacob Matson’s 2011 long jump record by 57cm when he leapt 5.86m and just pipped James Sandilands 2010 record of 13.3 in the 80m hurdles by 0.1 of a second. Andrews’ day of domination was completed when he jumped 11.69m in the triple jump to break Michael Hickey’s 31-year-long record of 11.19m.” Proud granny, Annatjie van der Merwe, told the Courier that Dean , he also came first in 100m, 200m and high jump events at the same athletics meeting.
Sadly, we may just witness Dean donning on the black shirt of the New Zealand rugby team rather than the green and gold.