THE PUBLISHER
The Cup is Coming Home is owned by Moodie International, a London-based publisher owned by Martin Moodie.
Like 98% of New Zealand males, Martin is a former All Black trialist – in his dreams. His career peaked in the early 1960s when he was top try-scorer in the Sumner Under 5 stone E team in Christchurch, though he did briefly play for one of the worst senior rugby sides in Canterbury rugby history – Merivale-Papanui – in the late 1970s, scoring a total of two points across four games, with a conversion from in front that hit the left hand post and ricocheted over off the crossbar.
There, playing full-back and colloquially known as 'Merivale Moodie', he managed to mark (though not touch) occasional All Black fullback Richard Wilson, boasting that he had out-tackled him on the day – probably because Wilson's team, Christchurch, won 33-0. Other All Blacks to cower in the presence of Martin's ten-and-a-half stone frame included Murray Davie and Billy Bush.
Having emigrated to England in 1987 – the first and only year the All Blacks have won the World Cup – so he could star in a lower grade of rugby, Martin enjoyed a twilight summer to his career, playing fly-half (first five-eighths) for Twickenham Bulldogs, a social side whose only pre-qualification for selection was the ability to smoke a packet of Silk Cut and sink a pint or three of Guinness – before the match.
By this time, professionally, he had moved into the duty free publishing industry, based on his mistaken premise that 'duty free' meant he wouldn't have to do any work. Sadly mistaken, Martin has spent the subsequent 20 years building up a successful independent publishing business in the aviation sector.
In 1999 he was publishing the 'Cannes Daily News' at a duty free trade show on the French Riviera, when the All Blacks – hot favourites for the World Cup that year – visited the town to relax in preparation for their forthcoming quarter final. Photographed with Tana Umaga and Christian Cullen, he very sadly claimed to his readers to be a shock selection in the All Blacks quarter-final line-up. Given what was to happen in the subsequent semi-final against France at Twickenham, he may as well have been.
That loss, and all the others at four-year intervals since 1987, have instilled in Martin a deep sense of yearning for a revisting of those halcyon days of triumph. Each time his hopes, along with his countrymen and women, have been thwarted. Next time though, it's going to be different. In 2011 the Rugby World Cup is being brought back to New Zealand - and this time it's staying. The Cup is Coming Home is dedicated to that 24-year journey.
THE EDITOR
New Zealand writer and editor Marty Braithwaite is one of only six males in contemporary New Zealand history never to claim to have been an All Black trialist – let alone an All Black.
That said, Marty’s rugby career was moulded during the great Hawkes Bay Ranfurly shield era of the 1960s, highlights including being awarded the Napier High School Old Boys Club 9th Grade Best Tackler’s cup circa 1966 and starring in a midget-grade curtain-raiser to a representative match, the details of which have been lost in the ravages of time.
Years later, Marty resumed his career by accidentally wandering onto a rugby field in his newly adopted home town in North Canterbury, playing second grade in a cowardly but successful attempt to avoid the menacing first division competition dominated by what was then the bulk, and we mean bulk, of the All Black forward pack.
Later followed a very brief career as a schoolboy team coach at Sydenham Rugby Club in Christchurch, peaking with the good fortune of a competition-winning side one year only to plummet to the wooden spoon the next.
An ability to so rapidly turn a winning side into a losing one has undoubtedly significantly enhanced Marty’s potential for a future All Black coaching role and this possibility has certainly not been ruled out.
Importantly though, it also provided a profound insight into the fickle and political nature of the great game and qualified him to write about rugby with every bit as much authority as any radio talkback caller.
Dismayed at a slump in the form of his local club team, Marty departed New Zealand in late 2008 only to end up watching half of the last All Black World Cup squad earning vast amounts of money propping up (and we’re not just talking Carl Hayman) club rugby in the United Kingdom and Europe – .
More recently, he was inspired by the experience of seeing another North Canterbury export, Robbie Deans, pitching a young Australian Wallabies team against a vastly more experienced English side. The astonishing sight of Deans’ young charges conceding two penalty tries in one game, but still winning convincingly, was a reminder that every one of those teams which has rubbed the noses of the All Blacks in defeat during the last five world cup campaigns is eminently beatable.
It is this conviction (allied no doubt to a few others of a more legalistic kind) which has brought about his return to New Zealand. Just as Marty has returned, so too will the Rugby World Cup in 2011. It has, as the old saying goes, been a long time between drinks.
THE ARTIST
The drawings that dominate The Cup is Coming Home are the work of Murray Webb, New Zealand's leading caricature artist. Based in Dunedin, his usual subjects are sports icons.
Before turning his hand to drawing, Webb played first-class cricket for Otago as a tearaway fast bowler and represented New Zealand in three Test matches from 1971 to 1974.
Widely considered to be one of the world's finest practising caricaturists, Murray's work is published in a number of New Zealand newspapers.
 |
LEROY G - IRISH CORRESPONDENT
Based in Stillorgan, the southside of Dublin,
Leroy G is a former member of his local village's under 7 Irish Dancing 'C' team, since when his sporting career has been strictly downhill, and we're not talking skiing.
Now a youthful 46, Leroy was destined to commentate on the seedier side of the beautiful game as his father used to refer to him as 'the unhappy hooker'. His penchant for verbosity, cliche and double entendre are qualities that he feels will stand him in good stead for the literary and punditry challenge over the coming months....
A part-time chocolate salesman, Leroy has a soft centre when it comes to things Irish, especially its national rugby team. Leroy is convinced that Irish coach Declan Kidney's stake on Ireland won't turn pie-eyed and that the Rugby World Cup in 2011 is indeed coming home – to Ireland. Clearly these are the ramblings of a deranged man...
