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Sporting scandal, stupidity and hilarity are routine yet never tiresome. Presented here is part one of some of Australia’s most treasured moments, from a proud, distinguished (yet also sometimes inglorious) sporting history.
John Hopoate
Much as professional wrestlers possess ‘signature moves’ – the Iron Sheik’s ‘Camel Clutch’ or Mr Perfect’s ‘Perfect Plex’ – NRL winger John Hopoate will forever be remembered for simply ‘The Hopoate’.
Enlivening a dour 2001 match, Hopoate attempted to insert his fingers into the anus of opponents not once, not twice, but thrice. I’m not sure what school (if any) Hopoate attended, but seeking to minimise his reprimand Hopoate’s judiciary defence included argument that he merely sought to perform hijinks of an innocent schoolyard ‘wedgie’.
Victim Peter Jones unsurprisingly declared “I think I know the difference between a wedgie and someone sticking their finger up my bum”.
The asinine act was refined to the more sterile and understated charge of ‘unsportsmanlike interference’. Receiving a 12-week suspension, the incident would more dubiously acquire Hopoate a lifetime of infamy.
Upon his sacking for an unrelated incident, Hopoate perhaps wisely took up professional boxing where the use of gloves inhibited any further misuse of his digits.
Wayne Carey
If indecent assault and the mocking of a woman’s breast size on Melbourne’s notorious King St weren’t enough to already give indication of salubrious character, Wayne Carey came to be defined by a Dangerous Liaisons-type moment at a teammate’s party in 2002.
Instead of the French royal court of the cinematic version, AFL football’s own monarch ‘King’ Carey proved there are better ways to ingratiate yourself to both your team and best mate than being busted cavorting with said best friend’s wife in the bathroom.
A disgraced Carey resigned the club, moving to Adelaide, while aggrieved husband and best mate Anthony Stevens would take over as captain.
Proving that sport can elicit drama to rival any theatrical script, the following season Carey would line up against his old team mates. Before a chorus of boos and invective that would make even a Queensland truckie weep, Carey proved how nauseatingly dominant a player he was kicking four goals to defeat his former side.
Fine Cotton
The ‘Fine Cotton Affair’ was an episode replete with the bumbling and buffoonery commonly found in the plot of B-grade 80s comedies (minus the gratuitous boobs and lewd dialogue, but with extra equine).
Not much of a horse, let alone a racehorse, Fine Cotton was arguably only a poor finish or two away from being retired to the glue factory.
During the 1984 race season a syndicate plotted to capitalise on the gelding’s inauspicious record by substituting him for the considerably more capable runner Bold Personality. Only problem being that not only were the two horses different colours but Fine Cotton also possessed distinct leg markings.
The inept application of hair dye was reported to not even have convincingly matched their body colours.
Further, failing to remember to dye its legs, a shoddy white paintjob was hastily applied to Bold Personality. Beginning at odds of $33, Fine Cotton was backed in to $4.50. Despite suspicions and speculation, the fake Fine Cotton won the race before the shoddy attempt at employing a ‘ring in’ unravelled.
Fine Cotton’s trainer was eventually arrested after months of hiding as some of the industry’s more known personalities were also implicated.
That underam ball: The Chappells
Depicting something as cricket’s most shameful moment in a sport tainted by a succession of match-fixing scandals and the inducement of episodic mass boredom is a big call.
During a 1981 one-day fixture, New Zealand batsmen Brian McKechnie required six runs on the final ball of the match to salvage a draw.
Australian captain Greg Chappell instructed younger brother Trevor to roll the ball underarm along the ground to prevent any decent flight of a hit.
Conceding the inability to score the necessary runs, McKechnie insipidly placed his bat in front of the slow moving delivery.
Clad in what appeared to be pyjamas composed of filthy two shade of brown, McKechnie recreated a petulant child on the playground, throwing his bat in the air with disgust.
New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon lambasted the Australians as tensions between the two nations resembled the zenith of Cold War hostility, the poor sportsmanship nearly precipitating a Trans-Tasman war.
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