A Queensland park cricketer in charge of organising a team bonding session has instead been forced to apologise for a lewd and misogynistic group email that fell into the wrong hands.
Club secretary and self-appointed “head of social events”, Will “Boozy” Burton, sent a group email to his Western Burleigh Bears teammates in an attempt to organise the team’s first bonding session of the year. The premise of the event involved each player chipping in $10 for pizza and “bevvies”, with the plan being to kick on afterwards to some form of licensed venue.
However, Burton was unaware that the club’s email distribution list also contained two women’s teams that play for the Bears – including his daughter Cheryl, a nuggety left-arm seamer – and a number of ex-club players who have matured since their playing days and now frown upon such sexist comments.
The Public Apology has obtained the contents of the offending email – which has since undergone a rigorous spell and grammar check – and has deemed it in the public interest:
Hello fellow Bears!
No one really needs an occasion to have a few beers after cricket, however I felt it was a great opportunity for the club to have its first social night for the season this coming Saturday night. In previous seasons we haven’t really made the effort to socialise as a whole club. It will be a great opportunity to get to know everyone, reflect on the season’s performances to date, talk smack, enjoy each other’s company as well as raise funds for the club we all love. Beer and spirits will be cold and reasonably priced. The plan is to start at the club for bevvies and a bite of pizza which will cost you $10… and then you have the opportunity to go home or kick on to the decided venue in the city – or the [Fortitude] Valley – to chase tail. It will be a night not to miss. Make sure to bring your cash and drinking boots. GAME ON!!!!
Burton apologised for his actions at an emergency club meeting last night. He has stood down as social organiser and will undergo a one-week booze ban – win or lose. He said he regretted inserting the phrase “chase tail”, but defended his right to do so.
“Yeah, I debated whether to put that in, but I figured that, shit, this is a men’s cricket club! What else are we here for other than to bask in the company of like-minded men, play a bit of cricket and go out every Saturday night to ‘get loose’?”
Former club captain Wesley Andrews, now 64, was included in the group email. He slammed Burton – and the Bears – for the sexist remarks and called for an overhaul of the club’s mailing list. “Those girls are all somebody’s daughters,” he roared. “Back in my day it was a gentleman’s game; now it’s just a bunch of rowdy corporate blokes looking to blow off a bit off steam on the weekend! What kind of example does this set for the younger blokes in the squad?”
The Public Apology can confirm that several other Queensland clubs, having caught wind of the scandal, have imposed a blanket ban on rude group email exchanges. However, some park cricketers are hitting out at the new policy, saying that it represents a crackdown on free speech.
“I work at a cubicle all week from 9am to 5pm and come Thursday, I want to start tossing offensive chain mail around to mates,” said one Southport player on the condition of anonymity. “It’s fucking bullshit!”
“There’s nothing more joyous than a late afternoon email exchange between mates. Plus, it’s not like we actually ever pick up any of this so-called ‘tail’… it’s just a bit of a laugh!”
The unnamed player did later confess, however, to “shagging” a 40-year-old woman on a hen’s night that he met at the Caxton Hotel when he was 22, after a tough two-day fixture. “The high-fives I got from my teammates at the Tuesday training session made it all worth it… you know, these bonding sessions bring us all closer together!
“I’d hit a ton earlier in the day, we’d won the match, I ‘copped a root’ – mate, it was the perfect day.”
Meanwhile, Burton’s teammates have backed the loquacious middle-order batsman, with left-arm orthodox tweaker Warwick Farmer telling The Public Apology that it was in fact one of the tamer group emails that he had seen during his time at the club.
“You should have seen the last bloke, Skippy, who used to organise the piss-ups before Boozy,” he said.
“He’d make all sorts of references to women’s anatomy and tall tales of his weekend conquests at sweaty suburban bars – but in his defence he was very selective with his email list.”
By Dave Edwards with staff reporters