The Tour of Southland had snow and hail on today’s stage - TV3 video here. Makes wussy part time cycle commuters who don’t fancy a bit of rain look even more wussy than usual. Ahem.
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| Rugby | Cricket | Netball | League | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Match day |
Match itself dreadful bore, but networking top class |
Behind the bowlers’ arm or listening to Radio Sport in the bar |
You can GO to a game? No way! | Waving a big flag and being there each and every largely unrewarded week |
| Eating and drinking | Buffet left a little to be desired, must have a word to PA on Monday |
Off season spent on piss smuggling strategies | Milo, mostly, with the odd family sized Milky Bar | Big bitter, salty tears of disappointment |
| Showing support | Blues and All Black scarfs kept in boot of the Jag | Agonising sunburn and patchy nightclub eviction record | Ruth Aitken embossed dinner trays | Queues overnight for all matches, sell out or not |
| Patron saint | Colin Meads - so rustic and charming to talk to |
Chris Cairns, Adam Parore, or anyone with a bad attitude |
Lois Muir. Or Jo Seager | The Mad Butcher |
| TV | Good god, no | Usually catches highlights on clubhouse big screen, where you’ve been sleeping rough after Cheryl got house and kids, the bitch | Slightly perturbed at missing Coro, but TV’s set to ONE permanently as it is, Mittens ate the jolly remote years ago | Away matches at Workingman’s club. Better win / loss record in meat pack raffle than Warriors in NRL |
If you love sport, there’s nothing like walking into a new stadium - reaching the top of the stairs, seeing the field and getting all excited in spite of yourself. I’ve been lucky enough to go on sports adventures home and away - here’s my top 12 stadiums, ranked in totally subjective order, based on factors like how *thrilled* I was to go there, the matches I saw and, erm, how drunk I got.
*Click the images to make them bigger*
12. Croke Park
This is Ireland’s national stadium for Hurling and Gaelic Football in Dublin, and is a gleaming, modern stadium for these quaintly traditional sports. The atmosphere is rabid, but friendly, kind of like NPC Rugby when it meant something. It’s up there with Twickenham and Old Trafford, and has real history.
11. Carisbrook
I got to experience that scarfie atmosphere for an All Blacks v South Africa test in 1994 - it was the Boks’ first time back since the Apartheid ban, and they shamefully refused to face the Haka, instead lining up to sing an old anthem to the grandstand. Bad move.
10. Lansdowne Road
Lansdowne Road is a bag of shit when you’re soaked through watching Ireland make hard work of beating Andorra in a largely meaningless World Cup qualifier on an open terrace. It’s better watching Richie McCaw make his All Black debut on a gloomy afternoon with yer mates over from London. It’s best, though, watching underdogs Ireland beat 6 Nations favorites France in bright Autumn sunshine, the crowd going absolutely crackers. Afterwards a bunch of Irish cricketers took me to a pub that looked like someone’s house, it was so packed that pushing the front door open disturbed drinkers pressed on the other side. My All Blacks jersey got me shouted several pints, and later that evening the 25 minute walk back to Rathmines turned into about about an hour’s stagger. The Irish *really* know how to enjoy a day’s Rugby - we could learn a lot from them, team.
9. Old Trafford
5-1 win over Wimbledon with Beckham wonder goal. Did the tour, and had a good nose through the super store, but passed on the pencil cases and duvet covers. It’s a magnificent stadium.
8. Lords
Parents were visiting wayward son on OE, and Dad wangled a Lords press box ticket through his correspondence with Jonathan Agnew, on what turned out to be the old press box’s final day before the move to the 2001: Space Odyssey-style new one. There was a little speech. Middlesex were playing someone or other, but no-one was too interested - the scribes were busy stuffing their faces at the buffet and wiping the crumbs with their ties. I didn’t get any scornful looks from anyone in a B+E tie, which really disappointed me for some reason.
7. Sydney Cricket Ground
New Zealand beat Australia, and having put up with sheep noises all day, I was a very happy Young Guns fan indeed. It’s a great place to watch cricket, and a real thrill to visit having seen it on telly for all those years. The best bit’s not having to put up with the Channel 9 commentary team, though.
6. Twickenham
NZ v England 1999 Rugby World Cup. Twickenham is a vast, imposing, deeply impressive stadium worthy of that ‘HQ’ label. Maturely, I chose my one and only visit there to be as drunk as I’ve ever been at a game (with possible exception of Waikato v North Harbour shield defence. Ahem.) After mid morning pints at a Richmond pub, two companions + I got off the bus busting for a slash. After bow-legged sprint across the road we found some keen All Blacks fans in a park smoking something suspicious. We got in the ground with about 10 minutes ’till kick off and elbowed in to get Guinness, two pints each. We reached the top deck, only to be told we couldn’t bring the pints in. We looked at each other. Fuck. Six skulls later we were there. HQ. It’s massive, and still had that funny little stand at the open end of the horseshoe. The locals weren’t impressed with having loud, pissed Kiwis on their turf, especially ones that could barely stand up at about 1.30pm, and were keen on making their presence felt. Two guys from Whakatane in front of us shared a hipflask of something home made, and it’s fair to say we weren’t feeling much pain. I can only imagine what we sounded like in Hamilton in the dead of night in obligatory half time calls home. Lomu scored, we had a win to celebrate, and we streamed out full of the confidence of All Black fans in the in the early stages of a World Cup. I remember slurring to someone on the tube home that “Us Kiwis. We’re not good winners. We’re not good losers, either”. How apt.
5. Wembley
Anyone who ever got up with a Milo for the FA Cup final, or laughed at Prince Charles’ Live Aid dancing had to see the twin towers on their OE. I saw Sean Fitzpatrick’s last test v Wales there, and Michael Owen’s England debut in a Chile friendly. My fav Wembley memory, though, is going to see Arsenal play Barcelona in a Champions League match, and missing a Rivaldo goal by refusing to stand up for the Gooner fans’ incredibly witty ‘Stand up if you hate Tottenham’ chant. Fuck ‘em. New Wembley looks amazing too.
4. Seddon Park
When I was a boy, I’d race around Seddon Park armed with Hadlee Hits Out or similar, demanding autographs off visitors Ian Botham, the Chappells and Greg Matthews, as well as Richard Hadlee, Geoff Howarth, Lance Carins and any number of other heroes. When I was a student layabout, I spent one summer in particular at tests against the Aussies and West Indies, sat out for five days each on the grass banks, with mates, perfect weather, Sports Roundup on the radio, and a replay screen a languid twist of the neck away. We’d bowl back to one guys’ flat around the corner at the breaks to listen to music and play back yard cricket, even though we could probably have still got away with a tennis ball match on the field itself. Doesn’t get much better. It’s a perfect test match ground, and has had bloody crackers one dayers lately - I hope this dedicated Cricket ground keeps getting the fixtures it deserves. I can’t wait to take sportreview jr before too long.
3. Waikato Stadium
Going with me Dad as a boy, 1992’s ‘eye gouge’ NPC final, seeing Andrew Merthens, 12, taking the shield off us… I loved the old Rugby Park and miss the wooden terraces and big-cowshed-main-stand, but the new Waikato Stadium is easily the best Rugby watching venue in New Zealand now. The family was there for the opening match v Canterbury, and already I’ve seen NZ Maori beat the Lions, Waikato beat the All Black laden Canterbury side 59-41, and the Chiefs make the semis by beating the Brumbies. The routine now is the comfortable main stand if I’m with the family, and the bogan / student packed ‘Green Zone’ if I’m with the chaps. Either way you get great atmosphere, a fantastic view and beers easily.
2. Eden Park
A top three:
3. All Blacks v Wallabies 2008 - that crushing performance. Everyone loves seeing Aussies crushed, don’t they?
2. New Zealand v South Africa 1992 Cricket World Cup. A typical performance from that mad, crazy summer when we swaggered through the round robin in a very un-New Zealand-like manner, taking the best sides in the world to bits all over the place. We got them for not much, and our openers laughed at the 3.8 required, with Rod Latham punching drives at will, while Greatbach seemed intent on putting every ball on the roof of the main stand. The most exciting Cricket match I’ve ever seen live.
1. Waikato v Auckland 1994 Shield challenge. This was the 61 shield defense Auckland of Fitzpatrick, Fox, the Brookes and Kirwin v the Waikato side of Gatland, Mitchell and Foster. And we bloody did them. There were 45,000 there, and I think we saw most of them on the motorway on the way up. With five minutes to go the PA crackled “Would the crowd please stay off the field at the conclusion of play.” Not bloody likely, we all ran on to see Mitch lift the Log O Wood, and danced around on the green, green turf like a pack of school kids let out fifteen minutes early. Magic.
1. White Hart Lane
I was at my most Tottenham-rabid when I set off on the OE, so getting to the Lane after seeing it on TV upteen times was pretty special. Between 1997 and 1999 I got along seven times, unfortunately co-inciding with Alan Sugar’s Tottenham at its’ most dark and dire, smack bang in the Christian Gross, Ruel Fox, Alan Neilson, Steffen Iversen, scoreless draws with Wimbledon, George Graham era. There was an awful lot of shit football. The upside? Seeing David Ginola play, the French sticking plaster on Sugar’s mess. His goal v Chelsea was the best moment I saw live (I was sitting with Chelsea fan Nick in the Spurs end, he had to suppress his celebration when Goldbaek did this in the same match. You can probably see us in the crowd behind the goal). The best match atmosphere was seeing George Graham bring his Leeds side to White Hart lane amongst swirling rumors Tottenham wanted him - he copped terrible (or excellent, depending on your point of view) abuse from the Spurs lot AND the Leeds fans, and we equalised in the last minute to draw 3-3. There was also the UEFA cup tie v Kaiserslautern, with the home fans chasing the supporters’ bus up the high road, and the German fans taking their shirts off en masse on a cold London night. It’s compact and intimate stadium, and easily the loudest I’ve ever been to.
Stephen Fleming loped over the boundary rope for New Zealand for the last time on Tuesday, having secured his test average of 40, and going out as undoubtedly our most successful captain ever, but leaving the sporting public torn. Depending on who you talk to he’s either going too early or he should have gone years ago. So which is it? The knockers may want to look away now…
Fleming famously asked Richard Boock to write his biography, after Boock spent the previous year waging a campaign against Fleming’s captaincy in the Herald as bizzare as it was savage. This was a typically pagmatic move. The book contains plenty of turmoil under its dreadfully cheesy cover, from Glenn Turner’s iron rule prompting Paroroe and Cairns’ hissy fit rebellions, the human ego Chris Cairns being in the dressing room generally, the Sri Lankan bombing and NZC’s disgraceful insistence the tour go ahead, and Dion Nash, Matthew Bell and Flem being hung out to dry for smoking grass in South Africa when others were involved. It’ll be interesting to read his side of the Bracewell era if he publishes another.
He was an atypical New Zealand batsman - graceful, not bludgeoning, preferring to guide the ball to the cover or straight boundary than slogging to cow corner. As the Napier radio commentators never tired of saying, it was typical that in his last test he passed 50 twice but missed out on 100s. I would have liked to see him ride it out for a few more years in the test team without the armband and rack up some big scores, and slyly digging at the opposition as a senior pro. He did this in Hamilton to great effect, hinting the Black Caps were the only team playing cricket going into the final day, helping pile pressure on England like a collector’s pin through a bug. We’ll miss his catching alright, and I was dying to see where his endorsements would head next, having flogged heat pumps like they were a new religion backed by country and western singers, and wandering Cuba Mall dressed as a giant deodorant can accosting passers-by. It could have only got better.
I was at the Oval in 1999 the day we clinched a test series win in England, it sparked the most productive period of his captaincy, taking in the the ICC trophy win, culminating in summer of 2001, when he toyed with Australia in Australia, knocking them out of their own Tri-Series, and so nearly winning a test series, which would have been the crowning glory.
Fleming was a thinking, pragmatic captain (Cricket with Balls went so far as to describe him as Noam Chomsky-like) and got the best out of the resources he had - this is New Zealand cricket after all, we don’t have a county championship to make professionals like England, or teams of potential Bradmans queueing up for their shot like Australia. Fleming was too intelligent, too sure of himself, too graceful in his strokeplay, too willing to say what he thought, and probably too handsome for yer average Kiwi to fully accept. He wasn’t the ‘gee, shucks’ humble bloke we love so much, and he copped it for that. If he’d been born in Sydney or Perth, the Aussies would have loved him.
Links on Flem
Fleming and Macca take to Shane Warne in 2001
The famous Richardson interview
THAT century v South Africa in 2003
- Gilchrist’s 57 ball century - Gilly is cool, dogdy “I always walk / but sometimes like to appeal for obvious non-catches, too” stance aside
- Attention wincing fans! Here’s the 15 Greatest Mountain Bike crashes eva
- Before Spike Jonze became the guy being mean to Scarlett Johansson in Lost In Translation, he made skateboard videos - and pretty bloody well, too
- Worst sport movies ever - they’re no Carry Me Back, that’s for sure
Normally Maunganui Road in late December is all rotary engines, hormones, and old farts of 34 shaking their heads smugly at the youth of today. Last night, they made room for muscly calves, European lycra and cool looking bikes sharking around warming up for the Bike Barn’s criterium series, with cyclists racing around a 1 kilometre course for 30 minutes, plus three laps.
It’s fast racing, and tight courses with tricky corners means there’s high potential for crashes. There was a good size crowd enjoying cheering the riders on as we caught the elite Woman’s race and the start of the Men’s, high speeds and jostling for position create a real spectacle. SHIT they move. Auckland’s had events in Newmarket and Takapuna previously, and despite a good two minutes Googling, I can’t find details for this year. Check local guides for times, as they say. Recommended.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Flight of the Concords tonight” said Mayor Prendergast from the wreckage.
Walking on deserted beaches
The Mirror Lakes
The big L&P bottle
Sheep traffic jams
Moving to a lifestyle block for an easier pace of life
It’s nice of the good folk at Waikato stadium to do the maths for you - it can be real tricky after a few cans, alright.
What was the top story on the New Zealand Herald’s homepage at 1.30PM Monday 13 August? New Zealand’s nationally distributed and widely read newspaper published out of our biggest city?
A long retired Wallaby player reassures the nation about our biggest collective fear - the All Blacks won’t choke.
What will the evening edition bring? Martin Johnson saying Dan Carter and Richie McCaw are highly unlikely to accidentally kick each other in the bollocks in the first five minutes of the final? Janie De Beer saying “Go to sleep and dream little Kiwis, every thing will be alright. Everything will be alright”?
I love this country.
This month is NZ Music Month - here’s my top five local albums for what it’s worth.
5. Bailter Space - Robot World. All I had to do when I was at Uni was stand in one spot (well, a few, technically) while all sorts of marvelous bands played at the Student Union and the Hilly for not a lot of dosh. All I had to do was wear band T-shirts and Doc Martins. And sometimes a cardigan. Bailter Space were farkin cool, though - no band I ever saw was louder. You could have sworn there were more than three of them.
4. 3D’s - Swathy Songs for Swabs / Fish Tails. The 3D’s are another big live fav. These two EPs win over their albums for me, just ‘cos they’re pretty raw and reminded me of the live shows. Nothing makes any sense on these EPs. In a good way.
3. Phoenix Foundation - Pegasus. My number one NZ band that’s still going. Pegasus is a local Pet Sounds I reckon, there’s a lot of heart to these songs, and they sound like they’re having loads of fun, which I love. I really get into the first PF album and Luke Buda and Sam Scott’s solo albums too.
2. Straightjacket Fits - Melt. We had a party in the last year of Uni, and some dickhead stole my Stone Roses, Crooked Rain, and Melt LPs. The others I’ve replaced but NO-ONE’s got Melt on vinyl these days. Not when it’s one of the most epic, grand and huge albums ever. I still want revenge.
1. Bressa Creeting Cake - Bressa Creeting Cake. A FUCK of an album. An Early Microscope, Rocky Mountain, Palm Singing are all brilliant tunes, but there’s not a trace of filler here - this is one of the most dense albums I’ve ever heard. There’s a lot of Goldenhorse’s sweetness here combined with the most thoughtfully random lyrics around. Highly, highly recommended.
- Dropkicks Podcast - If you haven’t already, check out the Dropkicks podcast, a run through of the week’s sporting action in a ‘mates sitting around talking shit’ kinda way. Last episode saw the lads engage in a Mee Goreng eating competition while making their picks. Recommended, both spicy noodle dishes and the Dropkicks. You can even thrash them in the Super 14 picking if you fancy it - I’m ‘richirvine73′ if you need another easybeat on your list
- Rugby Dump - I found this link on the above website - it’s basically a blog of youtubed high tackles, stiff arms and fights, the web equivalent of legendary 80’s VHS Footy Brawls
- Shane Warne in SloMo - ‘cos we miss that peroxided scallywag already
- Matt Sinclair’s catch - super stuff
- Billitees - They’re a little pricey, but. I just got the Hamiltron one, it’s rather nice
- Glen & Garry & Glen & Ross - Har
- Talking on the phone while driving is now banned in the UK. Tough to enforce? Nah…
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I hauled this one out of the harbour this morning before work. I think I’ll call him Nathan Bracken.
G’day Mate. Here by yourself? Same here.
What are ya reading? The paper? I don’t bother, eh.
Got the sports section? Didja see they announced the Cricketers for the World Cup? Pack of girls, yinnow.
Shit, I’ve got pie on me.
The Aussies bloody laugh at us. Mate, they’ve got guys averaging 300 in domestic cricket that can’t make the team, yinnow? And a guy that bowls at 200 Ks. I’m moving to the Gold Coast next year, my cousin reckons it’s choice. Piss is cheaper there, eh. You get all the rugby on TV, too. You’re quiet, eh mate?
Tuffey got picked. Fark’s sake. Remember when he bowled that over for 38 at Eden Park? Farkin’ embarrassment. I could do better. You should’ve seen me in high school. Would’ve made First XI but for that FX82 going missing. Fark you like reading that paper, eh? Mate?
This lot, known as Katz FB…
…won the jackpot and a $175 bar tab in the Pub Quiz last night for knowing that Dolly Parton wrote ‘I Will Always Love You’, Richard Adams wrote ‘Watership Down’ and that Jack Dempsey is the Manassa Mauler.
And we did it all by being stupid.
Two Wellington moments from today:
- I’m sure I saw an achingly hip Wellington muso in the New World car park. Just getting his groceries and that.
- We had an earthquake today, a 4.8. The locals laughed and told me anything under 5.5 was nothing to worry about.
It’s just a party. If you’ve ever watched the Wellington Sevens and wondered why the stands are mostly empty when the tickets sell out in twenty minutes, it’s ‘cos the crowd is all under the stands having a whale of a time.
What is it with dressing up, though? Watching Hurricanes matches from the Cake Tin, you always see a couple of muppets in the crowd in costume braving the pissing rain, make you wonder if you were there for the rugby or what. The Sevens, though, takes away all that bother about watching a game so you can fully concentrate on your get-up, and people go to huge efforts to outfit themselves and their mates in elaborate costumes. For the ladies, it was all about cleavage, with saucy policewomen, saucy taxi drivers, and saucy air stewardesses to the fore. But for the lads, it’s all about lycra. Jesus, the lycra, there were super heroes, wrestlers, aerobic instructors, if it was slinky and it stretched, it was there, with everyone being obsessively photographed on cameras and phones. There were at least 40 Crocodile Hunters, some going with the controversial Sting Ray wound option. Star of the weekend was The Borat, a guy brave / foolish enough to wear that Lime green over the shoulder G-string down Lampton Quay to the match - he wound up on the front page of the Dominion Post with a follow up story on Waitangi day. Most impressive was the Gimp sitting in front of us on Saturday, promoting much speculation on logistics every time he nipped to the loo.
As for the rugby, well, most people don’t bother to even start watching matches until late Saturday. In keeping with the spirit of the weekend, there was huge support for the under dogs, like Kenya and Portugal, who walked off with some trophy or other after beating Scotland. New Zealand looked like what they were - guys not good enough to be included in the Super 14 thrown together at the last minute, despite the best efforts of Titch and Eric Rush. The final was a huge boil-over, Fiji were looking skillful and very strong until they met the hard tacking Samoans, who gave them no space to work their magic at all.
The IRB sees Sevens as a way to promote the game without all that pesky rucking, mauling and having to watch Rugby for an hour and a half. While Sevens has more tradition than say, 20/20 cricket, in NZ the tournament is an excuse for a party, and for two days 30,000 odd people had a bloody good time, without a hint of trouble that I saw, and you can’t say fairer than that. The Cake Tin is a superbly appointed and located venue - we were out of the stadium and having a drink on the waterfront about half an hour after the final whistle. If you’re not bothered about watching Rugby, the Sevens is a highly recommended experience, in New Zealand’s best city for a weekend away.
Bring out the Gimp.
Borats. Note the traumatised child bottom right.
I got ‘interviewed’ by the One Network News team, who were quite a larf. They don’t like Judy Bailey, though.
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Here’s a ham-fisted attempt at ‘live-blogging’ on my shiny new Nokia 6275 phone. I think the pics came out nice, but I’m disturbed that my phone’s megapixel count is fast catching up on my three year old ‘actual camera’!
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…has some marvellous views of the Kaipara harbour.
Go play it.
- Ireland vs Australia Compromise Rules - Paddies and Ockers have loads in common, like a deep love of gambling, wit/swearing, binge drinking - and sport nobody else plays, ie Gaelic Football and Australian Rules. Enter Compromise Rules, an excuse for a scrap thinly disguised as a sporting event
- ‘The Look’ - Lance Armstrong gives Jan Ullrich the beat down in the Alps, 2001
- Kiwi Blokes - click on the Chainsaw for everything bloke-like. Actually, the fact you’re sat at a computer, and not out drive-by deer hunting in the Holden, means none of this applies
- Consumption photos - this is pretty freaky
- Zinadine’s European Cup winning volley vs Bayer Leverkusen - I miss that Spock-like nutter already
- How to get traffic for your blog - and there I was relying on the power of stupidity and laziness…
Ever since Peter Jackson got famous and started going to the Oscars and that, there’s a huge void in New Zealand’s splatter/gore/farm animal film canon he pioneered (here’s the stupidest / best bit in PJ’s Bad Taste). Bollocks to fashion or auction websites, Sheep are still the blimmin’ backbone of this country, so I teared up just a little when watching the trailer for upcoming NZ film Black Sheep.
Most NZers have deep, dark issues with these moronic woolly creatures, especially people growing up in rural areas that ate their pet lambs - so seeing our film makers come up with twisted shit like this is hardly surprising. Black Sheep comes out in late March here in New Zealand. Here’s the youtubed trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-l93gltkCc]
Russell Brown is having a Flying Nun Moments contest on Public Address System. Har - did you ever spend ages remembering and writing about your fun-filled FN memories and then forget to proof read it before you posted it on a really happening forum read by a whole lot of people you admire? Me too. I even left out the one about meeting Hamish, the Sale of the Century / Mastermind winner at a Garageland show in London. Damn.
Here’s mine:
1. Getting Alister Parker to sign my Swervedriver T-shirt after Bailter Space played Gurus. He thought it was funny, I thought he’d had definitely had one or two whiskeys.
2. 3Ds at Ward Lane Tavern - a great band at a great venue.
3. King Loser supporting the Verlaines in the Lounge Bar at Mount Maunganui Tavern. Bizzare venue, but we did get to play air hockey between sets.
4. Driving up to the 10th anniversary concert @ the Powerstation. I got a really cool (actually shit) hooded long sleeve t-shirt that I then wore every day for the next year.
5. Dave Yetton offering the crowd beers at a JPSE show at the Riv. Me mate yelled “WHAT A WANKER” when we missed out, and Dave totally got the wrong end of the stick. (sorry Dave, I loved ‘Blow Out Your Candles’, though)
6. Bailter Space at the Riv. We showed up at about 9.30 to see them already on stage. Luckily they were only sound checking, and they didn’t come on til at least 12. Rock n Roll eh.
7. Going to see JPSE at the Hilly, and getting booted out for being underage before they’d even played a note. Real sickener.
8. Going to see Straightjacket Fits at the Hilly the week of the “eye-gouge” Waikato v Otago NPC final, and Shayne Carter hassling John Mitchell for being bald, which caused Flying Nun cool kid / Mighty Mooloo Man identity crisis for weeks afterward.
9. Seeing Snapper at Oranga, and thinking they were the loudest band I’ve ever seen.
10. My friend and I racing home from school on our bikes to listen to his brother’s DoubleHappys Needles and Plastic EP - then leaving it on the record player in the sun. Cue irreparable warpage, and World War feckin Three when he found it. I always felt really guilty about wrecking a pretty rare bit of vinyl, and almost bought him the re-issued CD… I’m sure he’s over it now.
A Waikato University study has found Mark Ellis reinforces traditional male chauvinist attitudes to women. I’ve found that most of the time he reinforces being a cock.
Depressingly, every third NZ male wants to be Mark Ellis. Here’s how:
1. Make sure you went to Otago Uni in the early 90’s. Sorry, ‘Tago.
2. Get naked a lot and run really fast. It doesn’t matter where, but make sure you get it on tape.
3. Have a troupe of no-names tagging along to laugh at everything you do as though their lives depend on it. See also: Knoxville, Johnny.
4. Spend your journey to work working on your eyebrow raises.
5. Go on TV drunk, that shit is HALARIOUS.
6. Make some extremely unusual choices with your facial hair and clothing.
7. For a signature move, say something unintelligable and then clench your jaw, combined with the eyebrow raise. Don’t say anything after that. The public laps that shit right up.
8. Don’t be as clever, or as good a bloke, as Ric Salizzo.
9. Interestingly, take drugs with all your celebrity mates.
10. Go to league and be shit.
Matt Gunn has shared his thoughts on my article on Radio Sport. Apparently he’d like to headbutt me!
Now violence doesn’t solve anything - but if you’d like a headbutt from Matt, leave your name in the comments.
So yeah, my name’s Richard Irvine, Matt, and I was trying to be constructive! Rebuttal here.
