Gary Pitches

Surname:

Pitches

First names:

Gary

Country:

New Zealand

Clubs:

Old Boys

Provincial teams:

North Otago 1991

Biography:

1991: Wing - 2 games - 1 try (4 pts)

Total: 2 games (4 pts)

Endorsements

When the battle scars have faded
And the truth becomes a lie
And the weekend smell of liniment
Could almost make you cry.
When the last rucks well behind you
And the man that ran now walks
It doesn’t matter who you are
The mirror sometimes talks
Have a good hard look old son!
The melons not that great
The snoz that takes a sharp turn sideways
Used to be dead straight
You’re an advert for arthritis
You’re a thoroughbred gone lame
Then you ask yourself the question
Why the hell you played the game?
Was there logic in the head knocks?
In the corks and in the cuts?
Did common sense get pushed aside?
By manliness and guts?
Do you sometimes sit and wonder
Why your time would often pass
In a tangled mess of bodies
With your head up someone’s......?
With a thumb hooked up your nostril
Scratching gently on your brain
And an overgrown Neanderthal
Rejoicing in your pain!
Mate – you must recall the jersey
That was shredded into rags
Then the soothing sting of Dettol
On a back engraved with tags!
It’s almost worth admitting
Though with some degree of shame
That your wife was right in asking
Why the hell you played the game?
Why you’d always rock home legless
Like a cow on roller skates
After drinking at the clubhouse
With your low down drunken mates
Then you’d wake up – check your wallet
Not a solitary coin
Drink Berocca by the bucket
Throw an ice pack on your groin
Copping Sunday morning sermons
About boozers being losers
While you limped like Quasimodo
With a half a thousand bruises!
Yes – an urge to hug the porcelain
And curse Sambuca’s name
Would always pose the question
Why the hell you played the game!
And yet with every wound re-opened
As you grimly reminisce it
Comes the most compelling feeling yet
God, you bloody miss it!
From the first time that you laced a boot
And tightened every stud
That virus known as rugby
Has been living in your blood
When you dreamt it when you played it
All the rest took second fiddle
Now you’re standing on the sideline
But your hearts still in the middle
And no matter where you travel
You can take it as expected
There will always be a breed of people
Hopelessly infected
If there’s a teammate, then you’ll find him
Like a gravitating force
With a common understanding
And a beer or three, of course
And as you stand there telling lies
Like it was yesterday old friend
You’ll know that if you had the chance
You’d do it all again
You see – that’s the thing with rugby
It will always be the same
And that, I guarantee
Is why the hell you played the game!

By Rupert McCall

Credit: Sutton & Epsom Bs

Hi, Kerry,
Your rugbyhistory website is amazing! I don't think there is a more complete source of rugby information in the world, not just on the internet. I've recommended it to several of my rugby-mad mates, who all return with glowing reviews. Have you ever thought of joining the National Rugby Museum in Palmerston North?
If I were to make a suggestion, I would like to see the match dates & venues alongside each result. It might settle a few debates on whether X fixture was on the 18th or 19th of September 1982, for instance, or whether Team Y has played in Town Z etc. If it's too much of a hassle, don't worry about it; you've already put truckloads of work into the site already!
Thanks, Samuel

We are burying a good friend and ex-southland rugby player this Friday in Invercargill with many of the local rugby men that feature on your site (we have checked!) no doubt will be attending also. We just happened to be googling his name to see if any rugby info came up and your history site came up from that. It was great to see how many games he had played and when.
A wonderful source of information. Keep up the great work.

Kind regards,
Jo MacDonald

I have seen the development of the website http://www.rugbyhistory.co.nz/ over the past 12 months and genuinely believe it has the potential to become the online portal for rugby history and statistics in New Zealand. Outside of the Rugby Almanack there is nowhere that rugby followers can go to gain such information, and there is certainly nowhere online that comes close to the level of detail that Kerry’s website provides.

With a bit of support I think http://www.rugbyhistory.co.nz/ can become the most comprehensive rugby database in the country, and in the process protect the legacy of our national game.

Hamish Forsman
Waikato Rugby Union Media Executive & Historian

Kerry
Firstly, this is an awesome website – love all the work you’ve done. It’s a real bonus especially to those of us who never collected Rugby Almanack etc.
So awesome to see my own name in there – but you’ve missed one NZU game – I played 3 – Full 80’s against Scotland & Uruguay and as a replacement vs France in the semi final.
Every game counts when we’re old, lol!
Cheers
Pat J Stevens

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Endorsement

Kind regards,
Jo MacDonald

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Gary Pitches