In 2004-2005 I wrote a stand-alone column in a New Zealand sporting magazine called 'Player'. I was absolutely delighted with my idea for the column getting accepted:- 'The Rogues Corner'. It was to be all about sports-people who had reached global infamy for their sporting talent, but were also a bit troubled and/or naughty.

It was a bit more orderly and edited than my earlier web stuff which was pure writing anarchy and a bit sloppy.

I know my old boss Jim Boult (currently Mayor of Queenstown!) was a fan!

There was only one to kick it all off.....

DAVID BOONE - 52 NOT OUT

Extreme excellence and extreme hedonism in sport are like petrol and water. They’re just not meant to mix. But some very special individuals have risen to conquer seemingly insurmountable odds and excel – simultaneously – in both.

Here at Rogues Corner we’ll be performing a monthly doffing of the PLAYER cap to those special souls whohave inspired awe with their sporting greatness while behaving like utter rapscallions.

One illustrious sporting rogue pretty much chose himself to kick off our sports varlet hall of fame: David Boon. Why? Well, because of one particular record achieved by the cricketing legend from Tasmania.

Boon is one of Australian cricket’s favourite sons. His batting prowess was awesome. He made more than 7400 test runs in 107 tests averaging 43.65, with 21 centuries and 32 half-centuries. In addition, he played 181 one-day matches, averaging 37 and scoring just under 6000 runs. Yep, despite being short and rotund, he really was one of the world’s most prolific, consistent and successful international batsmen.

But his most famous knock is 52 made in 1989 ...52 cans, that is. Unbelievably, Boony consumed this monstrous amount of beer on a flight between Sydney and Heathrow en route to England to compete in the Ashes series. Of course, he subsequently denied the
incident ever took place and he apparently “‘never set out to break the existing record” (held by Rod Marsh, 46 cans, 1983).

The Australian Cricket Board worked furiously trying to keep the whole matter under wraps. But there were way too many witnesses, particularly the main sell-out,

Dean Jones, who sat next to Boon on the flight and later roomed with him on the tour. Jones had taken his dad’s advice to sit next to Boon, so as to soak up as much cricketing information and advice from him as possible. Some chance.

The other stool pigeon was veteran Geoff Lawson, who claimed to have kept the score on the back of flight sickbags. Airline staff, far from discouraging this laddish behaviour, must be credited with keeping count early on (the tradition was apparently as entrenched with flight staff as it was with the team). 

Like true professionals, they kept the supply coming as Boony mercilessly punched through the cans, “well on target” on the first leg from Sydney to Singapore.

Twenty-two beers down and his walrus moustache now well soaked, Boon started dispensing advice to Jones as the next flight left Singapore. Jones, however, was
fading fast after his relatively modest consumption and retired to the upper level of the plane to sleep.

The keg-shaped Tasmanian was settled into a steady rhythm and without Jones he still had great support from team-mates Mark Taylor, Carl Rackemann, Merv Hughes, Geoff Marsh and Tom Moody.

Some eight hours later, Jones was jolted from his sleep by a tumultuous eruption of applause as the flight captain congratulated Boon over the loudspeaker for decimating Marsh’s 46-can record with the new total of 52.

Furious team manager Bob Simpson turned “purple with anger” and Jones cheekily suggested to selector Laurie Sawle that he send Boon home so Jones could bat in his place.

Just thinking about it makes us at Rogues Corner feel bloated. Over about 24 hours, Boon averaged at least two cans an hour, every hour. And before boarding at Sydney airport, he’d had a few which didn’t count.

Lawson hilariously lamented that his greatest regret was that he never rescued the sickbags upon which he’d kept the score. “They would have been worth a fortune,” he correctly noted. “You can imagine Tony Greig selling replicas of them, summer after
summer.”

Despite his intake, Boony somehow “kind of managed to walk” unaided from the plane at Heathrow. He successfully refrained from chundering and/or falling over (as opposed to Marsh, who in 1983 was rolled off the plane on a baggage trolley).

There was still the British press conference gauntlet to run, however. Mercifully, although the Aussie media had been tipped off about the record, they made a collective pact not to question the near-comatose batting stalwart. 

This protection and the sheer miracle that the British media pack failed to notice the wobbly little Tasmanian (much less smell the alcohol fumes wafting from his breath and pores) saw him escape scot-free.

Boony then pulled off the unthinkable: he went straight to a sponsor’s cocktail party with his team. Incredibly, while there he chewed through what must have been the three ugliest pints of his life.

Back at the hotel, a boozy Boon lapsed into a 36-hour comathon, snoring like a tortured walrus. He slept right through the team’s first two training sessions.

Jones later recalled that Simpson suggested that “when David [wakes] up he should come and have a quiet chat with me”. Already on probation (along with a chastised Merv Hughes, who had leaked the story in a few interviews), Boon was fined $A5000 by a furious Simpson. He came within an inch of being sent home but luckily for the rest of the team he wasn’t. 

Dried out, Boon went on to average 55 and make more than 1500 runs for the tour, helping Australia reclaim the Ashes which they held until earlier this year.

Despite countless attempts by professional sportsmen and heavy boozers alike, there are no reports of the record being beaten. English rugby player Mike Tindall apparently came close to 50 cans while flying back to London from Sydney after the World Cup win.

David Boon, Rogues Corner salutes you