The Rave

We have always loved Winton, but the good people of Invercargill are (somewhat ironically) right ‘up there’ too. Earlier this week Liz Piper, marketing manager for the Southern Sting netball team, told the Southland Times about an upcoming auction - and made the throwaway comment:

A week’s worth of digging around in Netball Southland cupboards had turned up some interesting finds, including long beige skirts that were part of the Sting players’ dress uniforms in its early years. While Piper joked she might donate them to cricket’s Beige Brigade, items that may prove more popular included tracksuits, uniforms, balls, bags, books, flags, Sting training gear and some that dated back to when Sting originated.

So we emailed her:

Hi Liz
The Beige Brigade does like pretty much everything beige, as you suggested in the paper today. Those beige skirts sound terrific, and only slightly horrific!
Cheers, Paul & Mike

She replied:

From: Liz Piper
Sent: 29 October 2007 11:03
To: BeigeBrigade
Subject: RE: There you are…
Hi Paul and Mike
They are not at all appealing, but they are on the way. All 5 so far.
Will send more if another bag turns up.
Kind regards, Liz

And we see today that the auction is all go:

STING-TACULAR
The Southland Times
Sting marketing manager Liz Piper (left) and Netball Southland regional manager Juliet Gray surrounded by a mountain of old netball uniforms, flags and equipment ready to go on sale at Stadium Southland from 5pm to 8pm today. Boxes of Sting merchandise, some of it signed, will be available, along with old Netball Southland clothing that predated the body’s recent rebranding. Unfortunately, a set of beige skirts that once formed part of an early Sting team’s dress uniform will not be available because it has been gifted to the Beige Brigade. A signed 2007 Sting dress will be available in a gold-coin raffle. “This is our opportunity to give back to the fans who have supported us through the years,” Piper said. Money raised would go towards netball development programmes.

Wonderful. We plan to wear the skirts at the Bangladesh test match in January, as playing Bangla is pretty much as close as blokes can get to playing women’s cricket.

Mike asks: “Is it just me or is Chris Cairns writing about himself in the third person?” The Herald have made a weird mistake here - the one and only Chris Cairns is writing about the next generation of fast bowlers who will replace…himself and his peers:

Another eliciting international comparison is Tim Southee, an 18-year-old all-round talent from Whangarei who casts the mind back to another player who made his first-class debut for Northern Districts as a teenager before making it big on the world stage.
While Southee does not exhibit the brashness that Chris Cairns did at such a young age, and is unlikely to match his Cairns’ test debut age of 19, he does carry a similar knack for unsettling even the most technically composed of batsmen.
“He’s perhaps not quite as quick as Hamish as far as natural quickness is concerned, but he’s got the ability to swing the ball quite late and that’s also a huge part of getting guys out,” says Johnson of Southee.

We pity the poor journalistic sould who interviewed Vaughn Johnson at length and seated an hour or two over the typewriter to pull this together.

Episode 49 of The BYC in which we celebrate the New Zealanders, Off White finds out what Symcox, de Villiers and co are up to these days, the Ruse dominates, and Nathan Astle and his book are serenaded…nail the RSS feed for the podcast here…or visit the iTunes page for The BYC.

 

 The BYC: Episode 49 of the Beige Brigade podcast [30:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Mike and George, friends of the Beige Brigade were on TV3’s new Sunrise brekky show, chipping away with host James Coleman from their icy home of Whistler, and beautifully dressed for the occasion. Mike, the English teacher, and his mate George feature, as does Keith the Kiwi. This Mike is the dude who helped out Beige Brigade honcho Mike Lane with the Pamplona, Oktoberfest and All Blacks tours earlier in ‘007.

Check out the latest Beige Brigade newsletter here, for news of…
- Edinburgh and Cardiff missions
- Crossing the ditch or heading to Lord’s?
- Disgraceful body painting
- The BYC is 48 not out
- We’ve been writing
- The Beige Brigade on Game of 2 Halves
- Some inspiration from Tokyo
- An update on the Streaker’s socks
- Mike dresses badly in a Kiwi business mag

There we are - love your work Browny, Muzza and Willie… a manic episode of the Game of 2 Halves.

One of the best blokes going around on the radio, Kent Johns, jumped at the chance to have the world exclusive of The BYC song ‘We’re Shithouse At Rugby’. (Obviously which is why he played it at the peak listening time of 11.54pm last night!) An emotional moment for our one-man Beige Brigade orchestra, Hogan. Listen here at about the 9m 10s mark…

As has happened before, the Beige Brigade lycra suuit has been indelibly burnt on the memory of someone who would much prefer to have never seen it. Mike Lane, Beige Brigade co-founder was moonlighting as a comments man on Radio Live’s coverage of the All Blacks test match in Cardiff. Jim Kayes obviously spotted him there as this Dom Post piece notes…

And speaking speaking of odd things, Radio Live’s match commentary from Cardiff had a rather beige tinge to it. One of the comments men was wearing the full - and far too revealing - Beige Brigade body suit.

You can see Mike in all his glory here and here.

The latest edition from a dreadfully wet and un-cricket like Wellington, it is the latest edition of the Beige Brigade podcast, The BYC. This week Hogan serenades New Zealand, Bux drums with the band like Ian Smith, Barry Richards gets an earful, the Ruse is back, and Mike Lane reviews Off White Thunder’s performance as a tour leader for the Beige Brigade at ‘that game’ in Cardiff…[iTunes link is here, all the episodes are here]

 

 Episode 48 of he BYC: Beige Brigade podcast [38:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week’s episode of The BYC podcast this week features an emotional salute to New Zealand, and our collective strengths and weaknesses as a nation. To listen in to Hogan’s masterpiece, chip away below…

 

 Shithouse at Rugby [1:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Nathan Bracken and an orc - sensational spotting by Cricket365.