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October 31, 2024 13 mins

We spoke with G Lane, the head of the ACC, about the remarkable events of the past decade.

We chat the ACC's latest book: Almanack - A Decade of New Zealand Sports.

  • Discover the early stories that shaped the ACC.
  • Uncover the controversy surrounding allegations of match-fixing.
  • Plus, a cheeky mention of Ben and a not-so-fond memory!

In addition, Mike offers Megan a crash course on cricket to prepare her for an important interview next week! 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This show would Ben podcast. Hey, that's us broad to
you by Hello Fresh the Experts and Tastes that kiwis
love Mike Lane or g Lane as he's known in
the ACC Welcome along.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Great, have you, good morning, It's good to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Now now you can add a published author to your
listen of achievements.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Right, well, published author.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
I don't know, but we've got our ten year Almanac.
Ten years ago the a SEC started in a caravan,
a borrowed caravan at McLean Park, broadcasting on iHeartRadio for
the very first time.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
And we're still here ten years later.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
Is that ten years here? Well?

Speaker 5 (00:33):
And so the almanac, this is a collection of all
the footage and photos that you have.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Some stories, some stories, it's the origin story of it.
There's also a lot of oral history in there. So
basically everyone got interviewed from the original seven with the
around the several incidents that happened from being thrown out
of the World Cup to all sorts of other things
that happened, landing in a helicopter and a ground unauthorized,
and basically it's everyone's different version of those stories as well.

(01:00):
So the oral history is quite amusing because how Lee
Heart remembers those stories is wildly different from what Jeremy
Wells remembers to what Jason Hoyt, who doesn't actually remember anything.
So there's a lot of oral history around there. There's
also touches on all the sporting moments in the last
ten years he's been you know, a couple of Rugby
World Cups, couple of Cricket World Cup.

Speaker 5 (01:19):
How did you get kicked out of the Not to
spoiler alert, but how did you get kicked out of
the Cricket World Cup.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Well, we got accused of stealing a drinks trolley and
driving it at the Gatorade drinks trolley, driving it on
the field during a game, and interviewing players unauthorized during
a game.

Speaker 6 (01:34):
Yes, well there's accused, but accused.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
There was elements of truth.

Speaker 7 (01:38):
Did you die?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Leehart was on the drinks trolley and the interview, and
he did go on the field and he did have
a conversation with a couple of players.

Speaker 5 (01:46):
But.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
We got the end of it.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
The story got so wild by the end of that game.
And this was the two thousand and I think eleven
World Cup. It got so wild by the end of
it that were got accused of match fixing and talking
to the players about what doing and it was got
it went crazy podcast. It spiraled out of control and
we couldn't control it. And in the end everyone panicked
and they threw us out, even the parent company it

(02:12):
looks after us, they panicked as well because they thought
they were going to get their rights pulled. And we
just got booted to the cub game like at the
end of the game, and you explain it.

Speaker 6 (02:21):
It's it's it's all in the book.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
It's all in the book.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
It's a great conversation I have, which was the head
of radio at the time, who rang me at after
the game. I had thousands of misscalls on my phone,
you know when sony miss calls, you just lost track
of him.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
And I rang him back and his first words.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Were, please tell me you you didn't do it. And
I went, oh, we did some pretty terrible stuff today.
You know, we had all sorts of stupid you know,
I guess the commentator's paranem and terrible stuff. And I
said and I said that, and he goes what And
I went, oh, was it this?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
And he goes no, I said, well, what was it then?

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Because they are the two worst things we did today,
and he goes, you stole a drinks troll, you drove
it on the field. Interview players iced see have thrown
you out.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
We're a big trouble by. But I went, oh, okay,
we did do that. We didn't do that anyway.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
It was probably the making of us, actually, because the
next week we broadcasted again. We just went loud on
the ground, but we did it from the caravan circling
the ground and had three times the audience. Then after
that it was ten times the audience, so people got
to know what we were doing.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
It must be really stoked with how it's so taken
off from, you know, a humble beginnings and now you
know you've got you're doing a sky Sport you know.

Speaker 6 (03:23):
Gave it to Halves reboot, you got a book out.
It's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
You're commentating games on sky Sport and all over the place.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
It's good.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
I mean, it's good that we've got there as an
option because I think we a lot of people take
sport too seriously, because sport ed ins essence is entertainment.
You should be entertained by sport. And I think there
was a while there where sport was taken far too seriously.
And I'm looking at rugby here, and you weren't allowed
to have fun at the games.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
You were allowed to have fun with the game. You
weren't allowed to, you know, have a laugh or take
the pass anything like that. It was all very serious.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
So I think this is it's been quite refreshing to
do this. I think there is people who enjoy sport
as entertainment. We always say that we are entertainment at
the expense of editorial integrity. So we're never going to
be on the Herald, We're never going to be on
TVNZ one. Apart from the BlackFlash, we're never going to
be that mainstream. Were always the alternative names and the title,

(04:13):
you know, and it's an alternative to the mainstream, and
we have a bit of fun, we laugh.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I mean, it's not everyone's cup of tea.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
Well, speaking of speaking of, we've had some complaints come through,
not to this show, but news talks.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
Here be Jason pine the Sports here we go mac Hell.

Speaker 8 (04:29):
Yeah, they Piney. I'd like to talk about the Sky
TV commentary last night. I thought it was an absolute
bloody disgrace and there are three clowns on there were
embarrassment through everybody.

Speaker 6 (04:40):
Embarrassment to everybody. That's fair. I think it's a fair call.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
That's a fair call.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
I mean, why wouldn't you be Mac, God bless Mac.
A lot of people stumble across us, right, Yeah. However,
there is a group of people, and these are great
New Zealanders who stitch up their parents and grandparents and
come over and change their skybox so when they turn on,
it automately goes to Our commentary is normally around that,
normally on Skysport.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Nine, which is eight channels away from Skysport one.

Speaker 5 (05:08):
As far removed the original bookcart.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Correct, but this particular one Mac, this was an all
black game, or it may have been the Super Rupy Final,
I can't remember. But the at the time the Olympics
were on, so the Olympics took up all the other channels,
so we were on sky Sports Select, which is actually
before Skysport one.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
So Mac obviously just been to one channel. But God
bless him, he listened to the whole He stayed with it.
We get some great complaints hate watching it.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Yes, it's just the ideal audience.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
It totally is.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
And some of the text messages we get hilarious of
people who go to their parents' house or grandparents and
watch the rugby with them and put our commentary on
and then they just video the grandparents going, that's pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
The Alternate College and collect of the Almanac is out now.

Speaker 6 (06:02):
First time makes you to look at it.

Speaker 7 (06:07):
You found yourself straight away.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, I was maybe be a little locked through, and
I was like, oh, there's a little blurb about each
each person as well, which I hadn't sanctioned.

Speaker 6 (06:14):
But that's all right.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
To be clear, no one said anything. If anyone was
going to sanction it, it wouldn't have because.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Someone else at the building that wrote a book the
other day there to get suffering past lawyers and all sorts.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
One person who's not happy Jason point, all right.

Speaker 6 (06:28):
Well it's so bad.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
That's this.

Speaker 6 (06:29):
He's been boys the creative pulp sport.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
John I'll been at ten being commentates on cricket as
into the party in the New Zealand general election and
has previously been arrested.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Nothing else, We don't.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
No one needs any more details.

Speaker 7 (06:41):
It's he loves that I was.

Speaker 6 (06:48):
Anyway, he hasn't been, Yeah, appear in the book.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Just you know.

Speaker 5 (06:53):
He definitely would have made some edits today.

Speaker 6 (06:56):
Great honor to be in there.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, there is one killer story in there that every
name is redacted. Yeah, that's for a reason. Yeah, okay,
all right, right in the middle there great gifts.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Imagine they're heading into Christmas as well too. You know
people are listening right now with partners into sport and
all sorts of maybe they're into sport.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
Great, great gifts, great stocking stuff as we like to
call it, because it's one of those books you can
just chuck in the toilet. You can pick it up
at any chapter. There's no real chronological quarter. It's ten
years of sport, but you can pick it up anywhere.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
You'll mate Daniel Vittori, who you know, legendary black cap
but now coach as well.

Speaker 6 (07:31):
He's got it's actually quite good. As the quote on
the on.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
The Daney, Now this seems almost like a surprise, it's
actually quite good.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Well, it was like Hamilton's old slogan, you know better
than you think. That was more than you expected, more
than you.

Speaker 6 (07:47):
I wasn't expecting much, but it was more than that.

Speaker 5 (07:49):
Now, being the cricketer for Seronado that you are, Mike
Lane and with the almanac out now, almanac or almanak.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
That's a great question. It's been it's been thrown around almanac.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, okay, so.

Speaker 6 (08:00):
There's the what is that?

Speaker 7 (08:01):
Is that a word?

Speaker 8 (08:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (08:03):
A sporting Well yeah, I guess it is only an
associated with sport. You have a sports almanac, a history
of yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Ok So there's the alternate commentary collective Almanac or almanac
out now, and there's also another book that focuses heavily
on cricket as well as well. Now this is called
all Out, and I'm going to say who it's from.
It's from a black Cap, now, Megan, and next week
you're going to be interviewing this black Cap.

Speaker 6 (08:25):
So this is your research right now.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
If Mike Key, you can pass it across to Now
we thought you'd taken moment because it's surprising you. You've
got to interview this person in the studio, former black Cap.
But you can ask Mike any cricket questions now to
get his knowledge.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Good looking is he.

Speaker 9 (08:41):
He's yeah, he's very good looking. So he doesn't play anymore.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
Well done, he doesn't play for the black Caps anymore,
but he's actually still playing cricket.

Speaker 6 (08:53):
First thing, how would you pronounce his name Neil Wagner.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
I don't know about it. Is it Wagner or is
it I don't know. We call him Neil Wagner, and
I don't know if that's correct.

Speaker 9 (09:09):
Am I going to look like a dick if he
comes in and I'm like, good morning, Neil Wagner.

Speaker 7 (09:14):
You're laughing.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Don't call him.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
He's generally known as Wagner. But there is a it
is contentious of Wagner.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
But you're right. He doesn't play anymore for the black Cats.

Speaker 9 (09:24):
So did he have a nickname when he was playing,
like Wags Waggles?

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, weggs now at first?

Speaker 3 (09:29):
I mean, cricketers aren't overly creative with nicknames.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Sticking on the end short it's one.

Speaker 5 (09:35):
Of your guys calling cards? Is the great nicknames you
make for players? Did Wags have an acc nickname?

Speaker 3 (09:41):
And it was Wagner? And he's got a very double
O seven look about him.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Is so he'd make a great James Bond.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
He's he's quite aggressive on the field, nicest guy you'll
ever meet when you meet him.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Quite relatively short and stature.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Hintsy was quite a difficult bowler to face because he
was quite short, but he banging into the pitch, but
on the field very passionate, and some would say he
almost had a few anger issues. But I've always o
reckon a good line of questioning me to go down
that does that translate into any other part of.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Your life on the golf course in the kitchen?

Speaker 9 (10:21):
So I'm going to bring up that he's reasonably short,
has got anger issues.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
And yeah, yeah, are you German?

Speaker 6 (10:30):
Those are the three leaders from South Africa? Right?

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, He's originally said now lives in paper Moore. He's
got a young family and Pa lives out there. He's
got living the life out there at the Mount.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
Any technical questions?

Speaker 6 (10:43):
Yeah, but how long.

Speaker 7 (10:44):
Did he play for?

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Oh and about probably up to ten twelve years?

Speaker 5 (10:49):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Okay, but he the match?

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, like he didn't really play a lot of white
ball cricket there more what they do different like a
one day?

Speaker 6 (10:58):
Yeah, one day?

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Well red ball specials, so what white balls? What they
used for one day is and t twenties but red ball?

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Question? What color balls do you prefer?

Speaker 6 (11:07):
Yeah a good question, great question, great great question.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Another one, do you prefer grass on the wicket or not? Okay,
another way yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
Yeah, when playing cricket, win playing cricket because more grass,
the more see movement you get.

Speaker 6 (11:21):
He likes to bang it into the workt too.

Speaker 7 (11:24):
So he was a bowler whereabouts in the batting order?

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Was he very much?

Speaker 7 (11:28):
Because the back is not good a ei.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
The last if Trent Bolt was playing. So he actually
wasn't bad batsman.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
You know, he actually had good technique and he's actually
not a bad little tail ender.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Neil Wagner, nice guy. You'll really enjoy interviewing him.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
Okay, he's got dangerously blue eyes, piercing blue eyes.

Speaker 7 (11:48):
You keep going on that as good l want to
be here.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Is there one question you know from one of your
times this putting on the spot here but obviously got
a book out and you've like commentated many great moments.

Speaker 6 (12:01):
That he's been part of.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Near Wagner, is there one question that would really make
Megan feel like she's watched that game?

Speaker 6 (12:07):
Particular game like a Test Championship or something.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
I think the pink Ball Test and Eden Park was
a particular highlight for me when they had England on
the ropes and Neil Wagner was pretty much running in
from the boundary because it was so short, short boundaries
there and we were playing Wagner.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Classical artists at full volume.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
It was one of the most virbrant moments when he
was steaming in the last over and he snicked one
of the English players out.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
It was one of the greats.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
But I'd have to say it was that if I
think it might have been at base in Reserve where
he got a wicket offers last delivery to win the
Test match, caught down league side.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
It was one of the great moments.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
So if you can say that, would that be the greatest?

Speaker 9 (12:51):
I w off the last ball to when they were
caught down and he was caught down lea side.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Just say, does the Basin Reserve whole special memories for you?

Speaker 6 (13:01):
Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
You've had a lot of magical moments. When you can
you sum up a couple of them. One of the
two most highlights is it the pinkball Test and neat
and Park.

Speaker 7 (13:11):
Caught down leg side.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
So what we're gonna do is gonna say you're We're
going to say at the start you're a big fan,
and then at the end John and I will come
in and go did you know that Megan has never
watched cricket in your life.

Speaker 6 (13:21):
We'll find out again.

Speaker 7 (13:22):
You need me. I'm like, I'm free to commentate.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, yeah, more than welcome.

Speaker 6 (13:27):
We'll put it in the book.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
That's the way it works, Gelane Mike Lane from the
Alternate Commentary Collective.

Speaker 6 (13:40):
He's got a new book out, The a c. C. Almanac.
Thanks so much for your time, appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Thanks
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