Category: stalkipedia

Ten years of sportreview.net.nz: Etc

This week marks the ten year anniversary of this blog making the internet worse. Cue a series of unprecedented navel gazing posts – thanks for reading, team.  Ten years: Banners / NEWSDESK / Cartoons / Links on Friday

Thanks for bearing with the ten year posts team, I know it’s been a hard slog. And thanks again for reading. It’s always a thrill to know that a few people enjoy reading the site and get a laugh out of it. As always, the aim of the site is:

I love sport, and I love New Zealand. We Kiwis support our sports people admirably, but take it all a bit seriously. I just want to inject a little humour. Relax, it won’t hurt a bit.

Also thanks to the other sports bloggers, who are a little thinner on the ground now as say five or six years ago (Twitter has a lot to answer for here). The likes of Graeme , JRod, the Beige Brigade (one of the finest fan-lead organisations in the world)’s Paul Ford, Hadyn (the Dropkicks!), Duncan Grieve‘s lamented DeadBall and all the others I’ve missed. It was a lot of fun being part of a group of (mostly) guys who gave a lot of fucks about sport, on the field, but also about the issues around it, the creep of commercialisation and where where the sporting organisations were taking their sports.

The site has evolved over the years from a pretty straight links-blog-with-a-little-comment to the cartoons, to the links on Friday, to the satire, to the ‘analytical‘ stuff to what it is now. Yes, I know the site is not updated as frequently as its heyday, and that pragmatically, with my job, I’m not as actively annoying.  Hopefully that’s balanced out a little, where possible, with some behind-the-scences stuff from the BLACKCAPS. Here’s when I went to Bangladesh and, um, here’s that other time I went to Bangladesh. Ahem.

Some of the posts I’ve enjoyed writing the most are from my own sporting experiences – as someone that spent most of my OE trying to visit sports events, the sportreview.net.nz top 12 stadiums post was a great place to record all that (top three are Waikato Stadium, Eden Park and White Hart Lane, spoiler fans). There’s also my two attempts to cover myself in glory and lager at the 1999 Cricket World Cup in Cardiff as the BLACKCAPS beat the Aussies, and the All Blacks v Italy pool match in Huddersfield that ended with an un-sanctioned meet and greet with the team in a Leeds nightclub, also in ’99. You may also enjoy this write up of playing cricket in a friendly fixture / piss up in Wexford, Ireland.

1999, what a year! Making friends with Glen Osbourne in Huddersfield.

Scoreboard 200608

1999, what a year! Celebrating wasting the Ockers in Cardiff.
Some other stuff that you may enjoy are the sportreview podcast – start with this French test preview. Try also Sport’s top five Fight Club duos and the Top ten tragic moments in New Zealand Sport.

I’m still taking Stalkipedia entries, you know.

I enjoyed the site the most during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, the one we bloody won. Reminisce on the semi-final,  the final, Stephen Donald’s recall and those bloody jerseys.

If you’re having a look through the site, start with the Greatest Hits.

I think that’s about it. I think the site can be summed up best by ‘caring about sport’ and ‘having fun’, and I trust that if you’ve found your way here you do one, or the other, or both.  Good on you, sport needs more like you.  Righto.

2013-10-14 07.30.05

That Bangladesh bat-signing shambles in full.

Stalkipedia is go!

Ever met a famous sportsperson? Got a funny story about it or a photo? sportreview.net.nz’s new project is Stalkipedia – a community chronicle of sporting stalking.

I want your stories and your photos – the more stalks we capture, the more fun it’ll be.

You get BIG bonus points for a photo! That’s me on the right with Glen Osbourne – no great story, he was most accommodating to have his photo taken with someone that drunk. Most interesting thing – CHECK OUT THE SIZE OF HIS HAND!

All the details are over on the Stalkipedia page.  Anyway, here’s a proper story to start off – the time I met Colin Meads.

Target: Colin Meads.
Stalker: Richard, sportreview.net.nz
When: 2002
Where: Muddy Farmer pub, downtown Auckland. The loo, to be precise
Details: I was having a few quiets late one Friday night, when I spied an array of then-All Black coaches and administrators regularly wobbling past our table. John Mitchell. Jock Hobbs. Colin Meads. The Hurricanes had played the Blues that night at Eden Park, and those guys were getting stuck in.

I kind of forgot all about them until I went for a slash and came around the corner into the urinals and nearly bounced off this man-mountain coming the other way. I looked up and saw the most tremendous eyebrows. I can’t stress this point enough – as someone often accused of being well brow-endowed, I was impressed. Colin makes Graham Henry look like Kate Moss. The brows belonged to non other than Colin Meads, the man, the legend, etc. He was bloody huge. I had to say something.

Me – “Can I shake your hand?”

Colin Meads – “OK”

*shakes hand*

Me – “Having a big night?”

Colin Meads – “Big night… *significant pause* ….ah ha. Biiiiiiiig night.”

And that’s it. I doubt he’d remember me. On reflection, I’d have preferred to meet our greatest in somewhere other than a pub toilet. Still, you have to seize the day, right?


Update: the first stalk is in! Mark encountered foul-tempered ex-Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink in Cardiff. Read all about it on Stalkipedia.