ZB ZB
Live now
Start time
Playing for
End time
Listen live
Listen to NAME OF STATION
Up next
Listen live on
ZB

Martin Devlin: We're now queuing for McDonalds instead of Rugby matches

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Wed, 29 Apr 2020, 1:56PM

Martin Devlin: We're now queuing for McDonalds instead of Rugby matches

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Wed, 29 Apr 2020, 1:56PM

This is a column about sport.

Well, it used to be. But there is no sport on.

So we pick and pry and puddle around for things to talk about and write about. And yesterday, for me, was a watershed moment for NZ sport - in fact for every sport played in New Zealand.

Change the name of whatever's your favourite game to "24 hour drive through" and any past problems of participation and commitment will be instantly eradicated. In generations past desperately keen rugby fans would queue overnight, in the cold, outside the ground to buy the last remaining test match tickets.

These days we awake at 4am to park up in the queue at Maccas. A friend of my eldest spent an hour yesterday in line at the Collision Crossroads branch top of the Bombays. A whole hour. Now being a teenager he's never spent  that much time doing anything the rest of us might regard as important,  e.g. study or schoolwork, but happily dug in deep to get that Big Mac gut  buster.

Other folk interviewed across Auckland told of spending $100 on a single order!! I am not joking. Three blokes attempting to crack the ton, and I'm not talking cricket or motorsport, managed to almost gorge their way to 3 figures falling short with just (and I quote) "a coupla cheeseburgers left".

An extraordinary effort after a full five weeks off without any kind of consistent or similar consumption style training. The only reason you don't polish off the  last of it is because you're about to vomit. You've dogged so much you've just about made yourself sick and you simply have to stop. However which way you look at it, it' as equally impressive as it is quite bonkers.

Now don't get me wrong, I am in no way judging our young folk. Each to his/her own regarding their freedom to spend their money however they see fit.

I guess I'm just lamenting the changes happening to our to our lives and sporting landscape because of this infernal lockdown. There was a time we waited in such desperation for the weekend's games to start. Once we gathered to yell at the gogglebox. Now we go to queue for a share box.

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you