Loose Pizzle of the Year 1999/2000

Party at Duane's - Pre-season: Duane Knowles becomes the first nominee for the second year in a row when it is discovered that he has, without doubt, the dirtiest toilet in New Zealand.

Left:  This woman has not been anywhere near Duane's toilet!

 Party at the Reido's - Pre Season:   Del Whyte admits to some scurrilous Americas Cup style espionage.  His first XV team was playing a Wellington team in a semi-final match.  Desperate to get an edge over the other team, Del bundled his entire family into the car and drove out to the camp where the boys were staying.  He made his wife masquerade as the Aunty of one of the boys so that she could ask at reception when the team was going to arrive.   This would let Del know if they were going to have a practice before the game or not.  Once this was established, Del came back the next day armed with binoculars and parked up "private detective style" outside the ground where they were practising.  He was ecstatic when the opposition boys came out to practice, giving Del a full view of all their lineout moves.  He sat, slumped low in his car, binoculars in one hand, clipboard in the other and took 2 full pages of notes before slinking away and letting his team in on the secrets of the opposition and watching them take a victory over a somewhat bemused opposition who couldn't work out why their well-rehearsed lineout moves were being so easily countered by the other team...

Party at the Reido's - Pre Season:  Gary James broke the Loose Pizzle of the Year Trophy for the second time!!   Click here for the evidence.
After the Rugby (HB vs King Country):  Gary James falls asleep while sitting upright, beer in hand on the Gourdie's couch.  He then proceeds to give a noisy display of snoring, and chewing in his sleep.  Then as his beer was about to tip over, he sat bolt upright and rescued the toppling can. Then he realised everyone was watching him and attempted to act naturally, but this backfired as he gave Stu's cat a pat, causing it to hiss at him and run off.		He's done this before! Click here for an insight into Gazza's younger years...

Vs Napier Boys HS: Alan Smiley is dismissed by the first legal delivery of the season.

Vs Havelock North HS: After Tim Reid gives him a bit of advice about a fielding position during the game, Stu Gourdie moves a fielder.  The ball is then hit to that fielder.  And does Stu give Reido the credit he deserves? Oh no, he calls out "good captaincy!" from the field!

Vs Havelock North HS:  While umpiring at square leg, Gary James calls a bit of a dodgy no-ball against a schoolboy bowler, who shows his disgust by spitting on the ground.  Ignoring all rules of umpiring etiquette Gary promptly spat on the ground himself and called the young schoolboy a "Tosser".  The schoolboy then responded in typical schoolboy wit, saying "Oh, that's real mature mate".

Pre-Season: Stu Gourdie gets himself some long overdue new cricket whites only to discover that they are too long for his little pixie legs so he has to have 11 inches cut off each leg!!

At Mercantile: We don't generally mix Snake nominations with Loose Pizzle nominations but the next 2 nominations had to be included as they were so worthy of mention.  Stu Gourdie had been nominated for the Snake for his poor spelling in the scorebook because he had written the words "discolated his knee".  Imagine our surprise and indeed, horror, at discovering a week later that Stu had got his twink out and changed what he had written in the book.  It made us wonder what other alterations he may have made to scorebooks over the years...perhaps adding a digit to boost an otherwise dismal score?   Twinking out his wides?  Allocating catches and run outs to himself perhaps?   Where does it end...

At Mercantile: Sadly, Stu Gourdies effort above was not the only act of corruption this week.  Gary James was chairing the Snake meeting and when faced with making the final himself, went to the extent of allowing votes to be allocated to another nominee, then putting him in the final automatically, together with the next highest scoring person (which was not himself!) Not surprisingly a re-vote was demanded and Gazza won!

Vs Hastings BHS: In an effort reminiscent of his sledging brother, Tim Reid gave a young schoolboy his marching orders in no uncertain terms in what had been a good natured match (until now) and following a well-batted, chanceless innings.  He just can't help himself can he...

Vs Hastings BHS:  After dishing out multitudes of shit to Gary James for the same thing last year, Duane Knowles was spotted snogging and cuddling his girlfriend on the sideline during match hours!   PDA indeed.

At Practice: Last season Duane Knowles was fanatical about keeping his dangly bits and his protective box separate, to the point that he would line his box with an American flag handkerchief before batting.  With this in mind, we were more than a little disturbed to see Duane turn up to training with the same hanky on his head!

Vs NOBM Blue:  In what could be a Loose Pizzle of the Year winning effort, Duane Knowles is seen having catching practice with the opposition!  We had looked over to check out the fielding form of the other team and to our horror saw Duane Knowles (decked out in his grandad's hat) slotted into their catching cordon.  As if this wasn't enough on its own, when Duane was clean bowled in the 2nd Innings he was seen in full view walking halfway up the pitch and high-fiving the bowler who had got him out!   And almost as if to try and secure the trophy in one pizzle-filled day, he then proceeded to do a spell of umpiring dressed in his blue silk boxer shorts!!

Vs CHB Club: Bevan Walker lets rip with an outburst of umpire abuse which echoed all around Frimley Park after being denied an LBW appeal.

Vs CHB Club: Gary James was seen hopping from foot to foot while waiting anxiously for Duane to score his century.   The reason for his nervousness?  He badly needed a crap and was holding on because he didn't want to miss the century!  He was seen shortly afterwards running at a great speed towards the toilet block!

Vs CHB Club: After a long hot day in the field, Al Smiley became delerious, suffering from what must have been sun stroke as he started muttering to himself, abusing opposition batsmen for alleged name calling (no one else heard it...) and even refused to field in the correct position.  When his team mates pointed out to him that he should be at mid off rather than mid on he retorted saying "shut up you!!" and did not come right until he got under the shade at the drinks break.   He does not remember any of this...

Midweek:   Stu Gourdie was given free tickets for himself and his wife to attend the Central Districts v Auckland cricket match at McLean Park, but went to the pub and watched it on TV instead!  Perhaps he should be made an honourary Aucklander...

Vs CHB Club: Stu Gourdie arrived at cricket to find Al Smiley already there.  They started chatting as per usual and then Al revealed that he had gone to the wrong ground initially.  That's probably not so strange (and most of us have done it at some time) except for the fact that this was the second day of a two day match!

After the Mission Concert:  Bevan Walker managed to lock himself out of his own house after leaving a bag in the boot of the car that had dropped him off.  He then had to walk around to Gary James' house at about 1.30am to make a phonecall to get his keys because his cell phone was in the bag too!

Vs CHB College: In his first match for the team Craig Sampson develops a reputation as a genuine sledger.  When the rather rotund captain of the schoolboy team came out to bat Craig reminded him of his girth by saying "...better suck in your gut, fatboy...".  After disposing of the skipper, the next batsman was a guy who although he had picked up 5 wickets, had bowled a series of goober-bowls and grenades to get them.  Craig was determined not to let the guy get a swollen head about it all so he announced loudly "Look out boys, here's the genuine all-rounder..." as he came out to bat.  Not satisfied with these efforts, Craig put some pressure on a young tail-ender who had to bat with only a couple of overs remaining in the day by stating "I'd rather have my balls in a vice than be batting right now..."

Vs CHB College: Not to be outdone by Craig Sampson's sledging efforts, Andrew "Kenny" Kersley was wicketkeeping and mentioned to a young batsman that his shoelace was undone.  "That's OK, I'll get it later..." said the schoolboy.  "Yeah, you can fix it when you're back in the pavilion, mate..." replied Kenny.  One ball later and  he was.

Vs CHB College: Gary James was again involved in a crapping incident.  He had disappeared for quite some time, only to reappear walking a little "uncomfortably".  When questioned, he revealed that he had badly needed a crap and since the school had not unlocked the toilet block, he took it upon himself to go down by the creek, amongst the long grass and sheep.  He was lacking in toilet paper so had to use the old six-pack carton that was lying there, hence the dodgy walk.  Al Smiley came to his rescue by producing a roll of toilet paper from the boot of his car and flinging it to Gary, who accepted it with glee and ran off to finish the job!  He was later also accused of "bothering sheep".

After some cricket game: Gary James manages to snap a photo, thereby providing proof that Bevan Walker has managed to equal Duane's dirty toilet effort by having without question, the dirtiest boot in New Zealand -

Vs Havelock North HS: Stand-in captain Duane Knowles goes beserk at Fatboy Morris (a cheating teacher from way back...) telling him what a fat cheating bastard he was.  He then semi-apologised, saying "I'm sorry I called you a fat cheating bastard, but I really think you are..."

Vs CHB College: Gary James gets in on the act, joining Duane in abusing cheating Morris, asking him why he doesn't let the schoolboys play. "Aren't you good enough to play for a club team?" he said, badgering the lardy teacher...

The "Day-nighter" to CHB: A few years back Jeff Reid won the Loose Pizzle of the Year trophy by dropping brown-eyes out the back of Kevin O'Connor's van.In the year 2000 his brother, Tim Reid repeated that feat, exposing his boney buttocks to the Tech Premier team who were in the van following close behind...