Alf Hadden

Personal life A prison sentence ended Hadden's cricket career. In July 1911, while working as a tally clerk at the Auckland wharves, he was arrested after a series of cargo thefts at the wharves. At the trial it was argued in his defence that Hadden was a man of good character whose "only failing was drink", and that his accomplices had taken advantage of this weakness. In September he was sentenced to two years' jail. One of his accomplices received a nine-month sentence, and the other eight years.

He served overseas as a private in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in World War I. He was gassed near Messines in 1917 and spent some months recovering in England before returning to New Zealand.