The Brown Hornet rides again

It's not a bird...
It's not a bee...
It's the...
















No, not that one. The Brown Hornet, for those who came in late, was my first car - if you're not counting the powder blue 1976 Datsun 180B (cream vinyl roof, metal sunshade, street cred of DC Talk) inherited from me Nan, which I ain't. The Hornet wasn't actually a Hornet, since AMC didn't export to 'Straya, or even particularly brown, given it was more a pooey maroon with a nasty beige-tan interior. What it was, was a 1988 R31 Nissan Skyline GX with a three-litre six and a four-speed auto. Ten years ago as of Christmas eve last year, the Brown Hornet left the forecourt of Grafton Mitsubishi (since gone tits-up, through no fault of mine - though they did get royally screwed on the deal) and joined life as the loyal servant of Dr Yobbo. It took about ten or fifteen kays along the back road towards the Lawrence ferry to figure out the reason the odometer only read 110 thousand kays or thereabouts in the 13 years since rolling off Nissan Australia's production line in Clayton - also long since gone tits-akimbo - wasn't solely because the thing had been a sparsely used second car of a Harvey Norman manager's missus, but because the odometer only worked intermittently, i.e. when it could be arsed. As did the fuel gauge.


















Despite that - and the fact Nissan Australia specified the contacts in the high beam headlight switch were factory OEM alfoil, explainifying why the fuckers burned out every twelve months or 10,000 km - the Hornet was the most awesomest weapon in the history of shit. Fucken ay. It was as ugly as a hatful of arseholes, had the aerodynamics of a block of flats (the Japs had clearly looked to Europe for styling inspiration - though sadly had looked no further than 1980s Volvos), had a narrower track than a snowmobile and a softer arse than Brando-as-Dr-Moreau, meaning debilitating roll oversteer in corners was possible (read nigh-unavoidable) even in the low-speed confines of your local Woolies carpark - to say nothing of the time Your Correspondent somehow conspired to spin the bastard out on a mildly moist roundabout near the Caloundra re-entry to the Sunshine Motorway, on my first trip away with Dr Mrs Dr Yobbo. But what it had was that glorious RB30 three-litre six, matched with that creamy four-speed auto - the same setup as borrowed by Holden for the VL Commodore. It devoured distance. And distance was what it was fed, in bulk - Christ knows what the odometer would have read after four or five years had the fucker actually functioned continuously, but it would have been a good fifteen thousand kays a year at least with plenty of trips up and down the Pacific Highway from Sydney home to the North Coast, then moving up to Brisvegas, then plenty of sorties back down to Sin City to go to stuff like Homebake...















and to catch up with mates and sink piss like real men...
















...or at least like men do in that part of Sydney. It served as Hovel shopping trolley in the wilds of Randwick, towed trailers up and down the hills of St Lucia for moving days between iterations of Chateaux Dodgy, racked up untold numbers of sorties down the Goldie to catch up with Moff and his band of no-goods, did sterling service on the great Springbrook camping mission of '03, performed unintentional circlework on the road out to Dumaresq dam out the back of Farmadale - that fucking hideous roll oversteer again - credit to the mighty Dawso, whose 21st it was, for not only enduring the trip into the undergrowth but acting as site foreman in the operation to dig the fucker back out again (well he did turn out to be a geologist I guess.) Dawso had a beige Pintara wagon (the eminently regrettable four-cylinder local variant of the R31 Skyline) which, while even more rat-arsed than the Brown Hornet shared most of its foibles - dodgy fuel gauge, dodgy odometer, dodgy high beam switch, set-square styling - though spent far more of its time sideways in RSL carparks, abandoned quarries, leaving HSC exam venues et al, Dawso being Dawso.





















Brown Hornet on tour: Outside the Clovelly Hotel, Nov 2001


















Somewhere above Montville, April 2002

















Broken near Armidale, May 2002
















Outside Chateau Dodgy Evolution III in St Lucia, Feb 2003
(random fact: Buddha Handy lived in the apartment block over the road)

Anyway, in short, it was a fucking weapon. Noone I've spoken to who's ever owned a 1986-91 Strayan-built R31 skyline has ever had anything other than praise for the things - the marginally better looking '89-on model (they chiseled a bit off the square front section and put GT-R style round stoveburner taillights on it, which looked pretty bogus on something intended as a family taxi) had an electronic overdrive four speed auto, which according to old mate Matt who's had one (in the wanted Kelvinator white) since his folks handballed it to him after high school, wasn't as good as the conventional one on the original (my) model R31. Even so, Matt bought a grey grey import (i.e. it was both metallic grey and Jap-import) R33 GTS to supercede his R31, but ended up selling the ricer and kept the old whiteware-on-wheels until the thing literally could give no more, nearly twenty years after it rolled outta Clayton - and he abused the frack out of the thing away from lights and intersections, he's got the mechanical sympathy of a monster truck driver - when in the last few months he's used his fat accountant salary to get himself a BMW 3-something diesel.

Sadly, like last edition's title (of course there's more to life than beer and sport - there's tits), this one's something of a misnomer. Brushgrove Wreckers claimed the Hornet many a year ago, but his spirit lives on... in a slightly bizarre way.

Phone call this afternoon. Moff, half-cut at the Gold Coast races on a lads' day out. (The bastard.) He's rung to tell me that in the last race of the day, he was struggling to pick a runner FTW (or even FTP - as an aside I'm considering promoting the use of 'FTP' with reference to stuff which is a'ight but not quite For The Win - eg 'Peter Siddle FTP!' or 'Cold day-old BBQ sausages FTP!' ...Actually who the fuck am I kidding, cold day-old sausages FTW this day and every day 'til the end of eternity.) Then he spotted this particular conveyance on the tote:
















No-brainer, really. He put a lazy $10 each way on the nose.
And the Brown Hornet pissed it in.

As we go to press Moff is $170 up for the day, which if hasn't already been drunk, will be shortly, along with the rest of the members of the lads' day posse. Salut boys, that's fine work. And like they, we take this opportunity to raise a glass - or a stubbie of short-dated Grolsch at least - to the memory of the Brown Hornet.

And Moff, you owe me a beer.
Cheap-arse short-dated Grolsch don't count either.

The Doctor is OUT.

Is there more to life than sport and beer?

Recent arrivals to the World of Bollocks could be excused for believing, as some critics have previously asserted, that all that ever gets blathered on about here at the World of Bollocks is either sport or beer. That, frankly, is a load of poo. We leave no stone unturned and no topic unexplored here at the World (yeah, worked better when it was 'the Weak' I realise) and any assertion that all we ever discuss is (a) sport (b) beer or (c) combinations thereof will be vehemently denied with extreme Hansonesque prejudice. And furthermore...

HOLY SHIT, GROLSCH IS $24 A CARTON AT HENRY'S THIS WEEK!!!1!









Yes, it's real, imported, genuine, Dutch-as-clogs Grolsch. For $24 a carton. The catch? It's short-dated stock. Meaning I have two cartons of Grolsch to knock off by the end of March, on top of the other bargain beer stockpiled about the place. Just as well the old man's coming over for the last half of next month. (Who the fuck am I kidding. He'll turn up just in time to count the empties in the recycling bin.) It would seem that Henry's - a South Island bottle-shop chain owned by a major supermarket retailer, sort of like BWS without the eye-gouging orange shopfronts - bought in a couple of shipping containers of el cheapo short-dated product and decided to see how many of their customers thought quality Dutch lager at a buck a bottle was too good to be true, even time-bound in the enjoyment thereof.

They must have seen me coming. I don't have a problem with drinking, it would seem. I have a lot of beer which is sitting around the house, not getting drunk - as am I. What I have a problem with... no, let's be fair, an addiction to... is finding cheap beer on special and buying it up like it's some sort of treasured investment opportunity. Which, I guess, it is. I'm investing in the future. Specifically a future rich in BBQs and televised sporting events.

The short-dated stock clearance trick is an old one, and one which we at/in/of The Hovel (Randwick, Sydney, 1998-99) had pretty much licked. Jase, one of the med heads who, when he wasn't avoiding study at the uni bar with the aid of the $2.50 vodkas on hand (medicinal alcohol, of course) worked at the Bondi Junction store of a certain retailer whose name begins with a consonant and ends with Mart. It was a dark, desperate weeknight at the onset of semester two exam study madness when he called the flat from work. "Get down here!" he demanded. "And bring the Brown Hornet!"






















Neither of these dodgy bastards deporting themselves across the Hornet are Jase. But that's hardly their fault, they were born that way.


What Jase had done, of course, was spend the flat's grocery kitty on two dozen cartons of Australia's Choice brand cola. As you do. The store had a massive oversupply of the stuff, it was running dangerously close to the 'best before' date (if AC Cola can be said to be 'best before' anything - possibly self-flagellation) and had run a clearance on the stuff, slash-and-burn styles - three bucks a carton of 24 cans. Except some certified genius on the staff couldn't be arsed to recode the PLU for the short-dated stuff as clearance, so all the AC Cola in the store was effectively at clearance price. Which was how the boot and back seat of my 1988 Skyline happened to end up crammed to capacity with two dozen cartons of AC Cola - all of which were generously well in date and as fresh as the maker could provide. Didn't make the stuff any less fucking horrible to drink, of course. AC Cola mixes well with nothing, other than possibly drain cleaner; it tastes of arse tsuzjed with zest of more arse; and four cans in 12 hours will turn your piss the colour and aroma of V. Or Robitussin, depending on what you're mixing it with. I heartily fail to recommend the Brown Douglas.

Of course, this was hardly anything new for The Hovel. Pretty much the exact same thing had happened the year before. The majority of our exam periods in the Hovel were fuelled on $3-a-carton AC Cola and cases of Mi Goreng noodles. Surprisingly, we managed not to fuck all of our exams up. Unsurprisingly, over the same period we pretty much managed not to fuck anybody we were interested in (or anybody at all for that matter), probably because we reeked to the pores of that nasty congealed black oily shit packaged with Mi Goreng that you never quite know what to do with - other than to pelt unsuspecting flatmates with to vent study-stress cabin fever, or just 'cos they gave you a touch-up at N64 Goldeneye - and courtesy our AC intake, could (and did) burp the anthems of several countries without taking a breath.



















The precious...
(if you can describe anything as 'precious' which retails at $10 for a case of 24 from your friendly neighbourhood dodgy Asian supermarket)




















How we rolled at The Hovel (and later at Chateaux Dodgy 1-3), Goldeneye styles: one-shot-one-kill, pistols only. Made for epic four-way multiplayer action - though woe betide any poor bastard with only enough time to pick up the .44 Magnum before the shitfight commenced. That fucker was slower to load than a Commodore 64 with a tape drive.


Unfortunately, the folks at Henry's were careful enough to ensure only the short-dated stuff was available on the shop floor, foiling my dastardly plans to pull another Jase-esque switcheroo.

Oh well. That stockpile ain't gonna reduce itself, better get to it I guess. Anyone keen for one?

The Doctor is OUT.

Following on and/or through

Like the old Inuit Eskimo saying goes, unless you're lead dog in the sled pack, the view never improves. It's never an easy deal being the following act after a genuine star turn - being Brian Johnson after Bon Scott, Malcolm Fraser after Gough Whitlam, any poor bastard with the misfortune to play halfback for Newy after Joey Johns, or going back a few years, that twat from Consuming Passions after Peter ('G'day') Russell ('G'day') Clarke ('Fuck ya').

A season or two back we lost another genuine star turn - the reinventor of the wicketkeeper-batsman position in world cricket, the great and noble Adam Gilchrist (and no we wouldn't be pissing in his pocket anywhere near as much had he not originated from a busted-arse hick town about an hour up the road from the busted-arse hick town where we went to school.) The pissing in pocket and/or blowing of smoke up arse aside, Gilly was a fucking legend, revolutionizing one-day cricket, test cricket, Twenty20 cricket, and is probably a decent chance of revolutionising the XXXX Gold Beach Cricket series sometime around season 2012-13. This may even coincide with the Australian side declining to suck. Though probably not.

So who follows Gilchrist? Who can possibly match his whirling dervish-like fury at the crease, his heinously quick batspeed, his astonishing timing in front of the sticks, and his almost not entirely shit glovework behind them? Who also has the advantage of coming from a busted-arse hick town full of bogans and yeehaas? Step forward D-town's own, Brendon Barrie McCullum. McCullum will be familiar to most observers of the recent cricketing past as a wiry tattooed little bastard with street smarts honed amidst the swamp-like badlands of South D, and busted out upon poor unsuspecting bowlers worldwide. Particularly in the past 12 months. Opening for Otago versus Auckland, State Shield (domestic one-day) final, March 2008: 170 off 108. Opening game of the IPL for Kolkata vs Bangalore, April 2008: 158 off 73. And so on.

Except Baz had a problem. Should Otago knock over the hated Cantabs this Sunday in the domestic Twenty20 final - which would require the fucking rain to stop fucking raining for at least three fucking hours (you'd think they'd need some sun for pitch prep, but Otago groundstaff have been on this particular bus before and know ways and means around these things) - and, less probably, should the showboating pack of preening nancies that constitute his IPL team actually turn up and win the tournament, Baz might find himself triple-booked for the Champions League T20 tournament nominally scheduled for October this year, having scored a mercurial ten off eleven for New South Wales in his only game for them, their victory in the Australian T20 final.














Pitch: a tent

Of course this would require a bunch of other variables to fall into place, each even less likely than the Knight Riders (who the fuck comes up with this shit?) winning the IPL:
(1) The organisers successfully figuring out a time to play the tournament
(2) The organisers successfully figuring out a place to play the tournament
(3) The organisers successfully figuring out whether they'll let the winner of the NZ T20 comp into the tournament
(4) The organisers successfully figuring out how not to get their arse sued off by UEFA for using the name 'Champions League' to describe the tournament
(5) The organisers successfully figuring out how to tell their arse from their elbow without reference to an anatomy textbook

All that being taken as read, Baz would then have to ditch both of his Australasian provinces, including the one he was born in, and play for the gold-plated arsetards of Kolkata. Which looks mercenary as all fuck until you figure out every other bastard is in much the same position. Even Andrew 'Anyone who's not as fucken Austrayan as me is fucken un-Austrayan' Symonds, who made a very passionate and equally very drunk radio argument against McCullum's signing for NSW as it would disadvantage local players - the same way him playing for an English county or an IPL side would prevent a local player there from getting a run, but fuck 'em, they're un-Austrayan - would have had to ditch his beloved Quoinslaaaand in favour of his IPL outfit the Dickhead Chargers (a name which in itself reminds one of former Quoinslaaaand capt'n Jimmy Maher's infamous on-air reference to other models of Valiant) as IPL sides get first dibs on players as part of their fuck-off-ridiculous contracts.
















A dickhead's Charger

Anyway it's a problem we hope he has to deal with, as it'll mean the big O has given the hated Cantabs the big Arse in Sunday's game.

Then again, presumably if it's rained out we win as hosts...

Send 'er down, Hughie!

The Doctor is OUT to work on his raindance.
Working pretty fucking decent so far.

Colour of a two cent piece: dirty f--ken copper

I watch a lot of sport. Possibly an unhealthy amount, but it's how I ended up being such a cast-iron, Teflon-coated genius about it all, even though I'm as buggered as anyone else trying to figure out why AC Milan want to sign Becks full time (seamless segue from Part One of this evening's rant... John Wayne Bobbitt style, you can't even see the join!) And of all the sports I've had the chance to watch in person, it's cricket that I've most enjoyed watching live - though that Ukrainian honey wrestling shit that gets advertised on pay-per-view might be worth looking into. But as for the allure of live cricket - 'what's the point?' you might ask (if you're mentally bereft.) And fair enough, it's several hours sitting on your arse waiting for something, anything to happen, only to discover not a fucking thing actually will - much as per the old man's film review of The English Patient. But what that leaves out is the fun of the game itself, the fun of watching a large and lively crowd entertaining itself when the former wanes in intensity, and of course, the fun of sitting in the sun for seven hours drinking beers until you, your mates and assorted noble-hearted volunteers have assembled a beer cup snake that reaches all the way around the ground, out the gate and halfway to the 'Gabba busway stop.
















Pink. It's gay-as, unless you're an European footballer, apparently... in which case it's still gay-as, but you don't give a toss since you're just acting that way to get chicks

Even Americans, who don't 'get' cricket - and those that do are likely to 'get' something else, i.e. fifteen to twenty in medium security white-collar prison - have baseball, which generates much the same dynamic in terms of sporting experience: sit around all day, drink beer, eat processed animal extract, shout 'encouragement' at people paid orders of magnitude more than you do to hit a ball with a stick. As HG Nelson would have said, it's as simple as buggery and twice as attractive.

Except that in recent times, going to the cricket has engaged Defcon Suck. Oppressive security and ever-present fat sweaty coppers, the banning of chants (particularly about aforesaid fat sweaty coppers), beachballs and Mexican waves, paying five bucks for a warm plastic cup of factory-processed midstrength piss, AND losing to the Jaapies and the sheep-shaggers... bugger this for a game of soldiers, as Rommel would have put it. More critically, the modern design of stadia - and the requirement, in Australia at least, that they be all-seater and designed as much for AFL football as much as cricket - means that crowd-friendly bastions of the past like grassed hills and shady trees have gone the way of full-strength beer and going out for a hit on the outfield at lunch and stumps. Except in Adelaide, where it's still half-past 1976 and has been for thirty-three years and counting.

So if you had to design the ideal cricket spectating venue, I reckon it'd need the following:
- Some sort of 'hill' for pissed bogan yobs like Your Correspondent to congregate for the drinking of ale and the offering of encouragement to players and fellow spectators alike - preferably grass verges all around, village green style
- Small boundaries, for high scoring
- Lots of trees and shit around, for aesthetics as much as anything
- Limited security (limited in number rather than mental ability, preferably)
- Full strength beers
- Plenty of burnt animal extract in all permutations of serving contexts (in a bun, on a stick, encased in pastry, and all combinations thereof)
- A home team that doesn't suck the big one

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... the University Oval, Dunedin.

Yeah, it's slightly smaller in diameter than the spa on a NBA player's motorhome, and it doesn't have floodlights, and the land it's on was an inlet of Otago Harbour not much more than a hundred years ago, making the water table only marginally below that of the turf - contributing to the loss of a couple of days in November's test against the Windies after a week of solid rain just refused to drain, giving big-mouthed Auckland media fucktards free range to sledge the hell out of the place.















The University Oval in characteristic pose


But toneless, gormless bleating from soft JAFA metrosexuals aside, the Uni Oval (or the 'Varsity Oval' as the locals quaintly call it) from a spectators' POV, has and is everything you want in a cricket ground.

A hill? Aside from the heritage-style grandstand and a temporary stand left over from the test, it's all grass verges.

Small boundaries? Can't get 'em much smaller, it's gobbing distance from the fielding restriction circle to the rope as it is.

Scenery and greenery? In abundance.

Security? Fuck all, and they're more likely to start a wave than punt you for it.

Beers? Well, in the early years, it was BYO - with a big Liquorland neatly parked midway on the walk from campus to the ground, in the midst of the student ghetto with student-friendly beer prices to match - so you could literally rock up with as many beers under your arm as you cared, sit yourself down and watch the game. Otago Cricket have wisened up to this now, but even so, twenty bucks for a six pack of cold cans (as per yesterday eve's domestic Twenty20 match) ain't bad by 'venue' standards. And, yes, they're full strength.

Animal extract? Fuck it, they let the local takeaway vans who do the local farmers market roll right in and serve the masses - and these aren't your greasy, nasty chip vans, these are professionals. Full scale coffee cart making decent flat whites to go. Euro-style bratwurst hotdogs with all the shizzle. Cambodian Khmer satay. Whatever you want. Name it.

And the home side? That'd be the Otago Volts (shit name, good team.) 2007/08 domestic one-day champs, beaten finalists in last year's T20 and in this year's one-day comps. Five or six current or recent BLACKCAPS in the side - both McCullums, Ian Butler, Aaron Redmond, Craig Cumming, Neil Broom - plus English T20 madman Dimitri Mascarenhas, who hits sixes for fun. T20 this season: played six, won five, lost one, top of the table.

Last night's game was against Central Districts - Hawkes Bay, the Manawatu, Taranaki etc - who had perennially broken BLACKCAP, big Jake Oram (he used to be a soccer goalie you know) making his latest injury comeback after the shock of seeing NZ doing quite well without him following his most recent structural failure, along with perennial national team discard Mathew Sinclair who gets dropped from the BLACKCAPS as often as Oram gets injured, which is more than would appear statistically possible. But he is a big bloke and he did use to be a soccer goalie, and that counts for something. Usually cheap column inches for lazy sportswriters. Sinclair did his usual - got a start, got out, swore a lot - and Oram limped on to begin his career as an allrounder who doesn't actually bowl anymore, but used to be a soccer goalie. He proceeded to hit five consecutive sixes from five consecutive off-stump half-volleys from Otago captain Craig Cumming, and got bowled on the sixth. Otago, set 186 to win at well over nine an over, got there with an over to spare thanks to an unbeaten hundred off fuck-all by opener Aaron Redmond, who got dropped from the test side for scoring too slowly in the series against Australia. Point taken, Sir Richard.

Three hours. 39 overs. A mere 23 sixes. Some which might have even cleared the boundary at a grown-up cricket ground; others which would have been been sixes on any ground, maybe even 'hut unto the top dick of the mimbers stend' (I speak fluent Kiwese); and one which went through the window of a car parked down the street, the ground announcer offering a curt 'Yeah... thanks for coming' at the end of his apologetic announcement. Over 370 runs. Oh yeah, and seven cans of Speights... or was it nine. Hmmm. I see the flaw in that particular plan.

Anyway, as the Jam said... That's Entertainment. They did mean it ironically, but the point remains. Me, I'm just pissed off that's the last home game of the year. Unless we host the final, of course. Think we've been in this territory before...

The Doctor is OUT.

Rabid (for) Beckham

Italy's AC Milan are a pretty handy football club, all told. They're usually there or thereabouts come the end of the Serie A season, or at the pointy end of the European club tournaments. They have a squad bedazzled with serious international talent - from barely-able-to-shave Brazilian starlets like striker Alexandre Pato to 40-year-old rossoneri legend Paolo Maldini, as cool and dependable in defence as he was on making his debut for the club in the late '80s, a thousand or so games ago. They recently had the audacity to turn down Manchester City's franky ridiculous oil-fuelled hundred-million-Euro bid for their Brazilian playmaker Kaka, a man so good at football it almost makes you ignore the fact his self-appointed nickname means 'poo poo' in almost every language on Earth. Basically, they're not short of good players. Particularly young, prodigiously talented, technically gifted, creative midfielders. Home-grown World Cup winners like Andrea Pirlo and Massimo Ambrosini and the Brazilian contingent of Kaka, Ronaldinho, Emerson and Pato (OK he's a striker but usually runs from deep); backed by the organisation and structure of hard-arse Dutchie Clarence Seedorf and Frenchie Mathieu Flamini, whose summer transfer Milan-ward has been the main reason Arsenal have less backbone than a wet sockful of custard and have fallen in a big fuck off hole this English Premiership season.

So we're agreed, Milan aren't short of decent midfielders. So, pray tell, why the hell are they desperately trying to armwrestle the Seppos about getting some washed up former England captain into the squad? To the point where every second fucking football story on the internerd at the moment is about whether, why or how David Beckham will extricate himself from his binding contract at MLS joke club LA Galaxy in order to make his loan deal with i rossoneri permanent.

















Beckham had a reputation for choking in the big games

I've actually sat up (OK, got up) and watched Beckham play for Milan several times in the past month (OK, three) and, bless him, he's trying very hard not to look old and washed up. He's diving into tackles and running up and down like a man with Tabasco on his gronnicks. His involvement in the game, his 'work rate', which the English seem to rate above and beyond talent or technique in their assessment of a player's worth, has been impressive.

BUT. And it's a BIG but...






















...which means it sure as hell ain't the one on his skeletal fucking missus. The Big But is this. He's quite rubbish at actually doing anything particularly intelligent with the football. His crosses, corners and free kicks - i.e. everything that he's actually being paid to do as a right sided midfielder, and more pointedly, everything Brand Beckham has historically held true and stood for, other than dressing like a ponce, getting a series of haircuts best described as 'Liberace gay', getting mispelt tattoos in foreign languages, and giving interviews like someone with a mild brain injury - have generally been underhit badly. And if not underhit, misdirected. Or both. It'd be like me turning up at work saying 'Well, I'm shit at research, but Jesus fuck I'm good at making farty sounds with my hands. Will that do?' And while I am, and do, that's not the point. The point is that for a man supposedly brought into the Milan team for his ability, he's doing a stellar impersonation of a man brought into the Milan team for, I don't know, his ability to kick-start team shirt sales.

Job done, apparently.

So given all that, why the hell do Milan actually want to hang onto their washed up old nag in preference to their packed stable of younger, faster thoroughbreds with shiny coats who DON'T have the mange?

I don't have the answer to this. Possibly because I'm not privy to Milan's thinking on the matter. But probably because I'm still hungover to fuck from the cricket last night.

Speaking of which... back in a bit with Part Two of this rant (after a seamless segue like that, how could you not be compelled to come back?)

The Doctor is OUT.

You're not fit to wear the shirt (and vice versa)

Back to what we do best. Stupid pointless crap.

A while back - on the Kiwi sporting martyrdom post, somewhere wayyyy down in the comments - it was proposed that a proper, scientific assessment be carried out on the topic of the most God-awful sporting uniforms ever to be extruded into the harsh and unsympathetic light of day, just 'cos this shit needs sorting, once and for all. Let it never be said we shirk the Big Questions here at the World of Bollocks.

This is, of course, an organic document. Feel free to identify and report examples of flagrant retina abuse perpetuated by sporting teams of your acquaintance. But for now, this is...

The World of Bollocks' Carton Of Piss:
The 24 Worst Uniforms In The History Of Sporting Endeavour
or 'What the fuck is that shit your boys are wearing?'


24. Houston Astros, mid-70s to mid-80s, baseball

Baseball offers a historic volume of win on this topic - case in point the stellar fashion accident that was the 1976 Chicago White Sox playing in collared shirts and shorts, looking like a fourth-grade school excursion gone wrong, and reportedly playing likewise - but check those Astros unis. You want Seventies cheese? I give you a veritable fondue set.

Wesley and Woody in a promo shot for the poorly received sequel,'White Men Can't Hit'

23. Stade Francaise, last couple of seasons, French top-14 rugby





These guys lose points for being awful on purpose. See also, the London Harlequins.


22. Penrith Panthers, most of their existence, NSWRL/ARL/Super League/NRL



All superbly awful, but in particular, the mighty Chocolate Soldiers look of the '80s (top left). Get smeared in the mud for 80s minutes, have noone be the wiser, and still be able to pick up bogan slappers at the aftermatch at Panthers Leagues. Bewdy.


21. Sevilla FC, 2006/07, Spanish football

After their giant-killing runs in la Liga and twice winning the UEFA Cup in 2005-06 and 2006-07, the wheels fell off the Sevilla bus in 2007-08. Was it interest from other clubs destablising their new stars? Was it manager Juande Ramos departing for Spurs? Was it the pressure of raised expectations from their fanbase?

No. It was this.

Put your hands up if you think pink is a shit colour for a football shirt

20. All AFL away jumpers, ever, Aussie Rules football

Are 'clash' guernseys so called because they clash with just about everything in the known fucking universe?












And that's without getting into some of the eye-searing hideousness seen over the years in the preseason comp. Jesus Christ.


19. Washington Wizards, 2007-09, NBA

All that glitters is not gold. Some of it is the stuff they make into cheap nasty satin bedwear worn by crack whores, the Wizards, and your mum.

18. Gold Coast Chargers, 1997, ARL rugby league

Teal, purple and grey. The jersey so awful it drove rugby league out of the Gold Coast for ten years.

17. Anything worn by Serena Williams, ever, tennis



'Nuff said.


16. FIAT Yamaha 'Cinquecento' promotional colourscheme,
2007 Dutch TT, MotoGP

Even the great Valentino Rossi couldn't avoid looking like a complete twat on this dog's breakfast. He did manage to win the race, probably because he wanted to get off the thing as quickly as possible and change into something (a) less fucking embarassing and/or (b) more likely to aid his quest to pull promo girls at the race afterparty.


Then again, this is Rossi. He could turn up in a clown suit and make off like a bastard.


15. The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 1995-96, NHL

 










If the mere existence of the team wasn't laughable enough...


14. Australian Wallabies, late '90s, international rugby union























Welcome to professionalism, Rugby Union. Have a jersey that looks like an abortive SBS test pattern.

This was also the period of Wallaby history in which the technique was developed of predicting whether Matt Burke would miss shots at goal by determining whether his hair was in place or not, and furthermore which side he'd miss on by the direction his product-laden hair was pointing in. He's going to slice this one right. Burkey redefined the meaning of 'fringe player'.

Actually come to think of it the current jersey's pretty fucking horrible as well.


13. The Dutch national team, any time, any sport












Oranje. Is goed, yessh?

This particular shitty stick also gets justly pointed at anyone else who turns up to work in high-visibility jackets who doesn't drive a truck or work on a council roadworks crew - Queensland Roar, I'm looking at you - and the entire complement of Nike-sponsored teams at the 2002 World Cup who all appeared to have been coloured in with a highlighter pen (see point five over here for further exposition.)


12. Mario Cipollini, Team Saeco, 2001 Giro d'Italia (competitive doping)

















Vaguely reminiscent of a Robbie Williams music video of roughly the same era. That was shit and so is this.


11. Australian Socceroos, 1992, international football or the fringes thereof

Designed for long-term Socceroos fans sick to the back teeth of not qualifying for the World Cup since 1974. Wear the '92 jersey and throw up on yourself with pride AND practicality.














10. US Ryder Cup team, 1999, golf












Golfers look stupid at the best of times. But an outfit stupid enough to even make the late Payne Stewart look merely normal... that's some sort of achievement, sick and wrong though it is.


9. Central Vikings, about 15 minutes during the mid-to-late '90s, NZ NPC rugby

Seriously, what the fuck was wrong with people in the mid-to-late '90s?

The Central Vikings resulted from the short-term (1997-98) merger of two fairly shit lower North Island rugby provinces, Manawatu and Hawkes Bay. The merger lasted two years of the two provinces being collectively shit before they went back to being individually shit, as they remain to this day.


8. Australia, 2007-09, Twenty20 cricket





























The unitard-with-vest, as pointless as it is vomitiferous. (The outfit, not Warner.) The individual responsible for this particular 'creative concept' is currently being beaten about the head with one of D.K. Lillee's old aluminium bats. Hopefully.


7. Australia, 2005-06, Twenty20 cricket

















I guess we should be thankful for the march of progress.


6. Any Arsenal away shirt of the 90s (but particularly 1991/92), English football

























Actually, pretty much any Premier League away shirt of the '90s would do.








































































Or the goalkeepers, for that matter.






































Technically the last one isn't Premier League but it's so astonishingly crap it has to go in.


5. New Zealand BLACKCAPSLOCK, 1977-86, World Series Cricket












The uniform so heroically awful it spawned its own supporters club.

Special commendation to the Green Horrors, the teal-and-black outfit in which the now-BLACKCAPSLOCK embarrassed themselves in the late '90s (though they did win the 2000 Champions Trophy, somehow)







4. Anyone from Super League, 1997 (again), rugby league (allegedly)











Cunts.

(Sorry, but they were, and are.)

If we have to pick one to highlight - the Broncos.
For being the biggest cunts of all.


















3. Vancouver Canucks, living the '70s dream of brown and orange well into the '90s, NHL

















Said it before, said it again. Flash Gordon at the Mardi Gras, on ice.
Cheers to Steve for bringing this to our attention.


2. Athletic Bilbao, 2004/05, UEFA Cup football


















Fuck me, you might be thinking, that's actually really awful. But it's worse than that. Someone at the kit sponsor actually drew this up, and somebody at the club actually signed off on it. Which means there are at least two absolutely batshit insane individuals at large in Europe, and have been for at least four years. I advocate evacuation of the entire continent.


1. The South Sydney Rabbitohs, 1908-2009, NSWRL/ARL/NRL

First, an admission... a statement of the bleeding convulsing haemorraghing obvious, in fact. This page bleeds coachwood and myrtle (or even red and green) and has done since its existence. But, of course, backing the Rabbitohs doesn't mean we're blind to the many and varied flaws and foibles that our favourite club struggles under. To be brief, they are two: a Narcissistic twat of an owner with a Jesus complex whose band has been compared to used food, unfavourably but accurately; and the fact we turn up to play looking like a series of Christmas baubles.

But it's not the traditional Souths jersey that's the problem here. Fuck no. When you look like thirteen of Santa's elves you need to play with more front than a Mack truck and more grit than a frosty mountain road. Google 'John Sattler broken jaw 1970 grand final' for a salutary tale of what happens when cheating silvertail mongrel scum (that'd be the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles for those playing at home) are stupid enough to underestimate the bravery and tenacity of the mighty Bunnies. And we beat the Christ out of you twunts near the end of last year, which makes us 2008 premiers by logical induction, so get fucked.

No, the traditional Souths jersey is, officially, tha shizzle. My nizzle.

But, given that no other team plays in the festive combination of lateral red and green stripes, largely because no other team would ever want to... what the fuck is the point of THIS?


















Its a Souths away jersey.

It's the 2009 one, apparently. And it's by no means the worst since the Bunnies were readmitted to the comp in '02.

The second worst, a piss-poor ripoff of the St George 'V' is one I admit to owning, in theory because it was the first shirt in which they won a game after readmission - round two, 2002, vs Canberra - but in reality because it was on special at Rebel Sport for fifty bucks because it's ugly as a hatful of arseholes. It has apparently been expurgated from the internet and for that we should be thankful.

The worst was the one at right, originally from a couple of years ago, then inflicted on the under 20s side in an act of bastardry bordering on child abuse.

So the new away jersey's not that bad. The fake Maori squigglings are a massive wank, but I guess there's a lot of Kiwi internationals plying their trade in the side and a lot of international Kiwis plying their trade in the local area (i.e. filling in dole forms), so it's a massive wank that has some vague justification.

But I return to the unanswered question: why the fuck does a team whose jersey can, by definition, clash with noone elses, need a fucking away jersey?

We managed to play Canberra at least twice a year for the best part of twenty years across the '80s and '90s without our boys and their boys getting confused as to who was who. And that included several seasons in which NRL Footy Show 'personality' and noted idiot, 'Test Match' Mario Fenech, was our captain. Who else are we going to play across the course of a year who there could possibly be a colour conflict with? Seriously, who the fuck are we going to clash with? Freddie Krueger?

Freddie had a reputation as a brutal front-row enforcer, but his ball handling skills were absolute crap

So the South Sydney away jersey wins our Shite Sports Shirts award, not because it's hideous to look at, but because it has no reason for being.*


The Doctor is OUT.

*We did manage to touch up the Panthers in Coffs though by fuckin' shitloads to not much. Yay us.