Viceroy Cup, Hong Kong 1993

Whilst in the pub on the night of the 7's streak, Russ, a friend and journalist in Hong Kong, told me that there was a football game in a couple of days, again in the Hong Kong Stadium, between South China and Instant Dict (I kid you not!), in the quarter final of the Viceroy Cup (the Chinese equivalent of the F.A. Cup). As I was still caught up in the euphoria of the first two streaks, I told him I would be interested in streaking again and he then said that he would tip off the press.

I went to the game with a friend, Jimmy, but had no tickets. When we got there, we 'blagged' the womble on the gate that one of the players was supposed to leave tickets there for us and, after a bit of banter, were allowed in.

We sat halfway up at one end of the ground and I noticed that it was a crowd of around 25,000 Chinese, (there wasn't an Englishman in sight), and didn't know how they would take it. The atmosphere wasn't the same and I didn't want to do it!

A couple of days previous, it was a crowd of 60,000 party animals who all felt like family; today I felt like I was waiting on death row! Jimmy said to me that if I didn't feel like doing it then I shouldn't, but I'd told people that I would and felt as though I had to keep to my word.

As the players were coming off at half time, I took my shoes, socks and top off and ran down the steps towards the pitch. As I jumped over the advertising boarding, a Chinese steward tried to stop me, so I shouted in the only Cantonese that I knew, "Have you seen my cat?" and sidestepped him.

This boy had the makings of a showman right from the start!

I got onto the pitch and lay down in the box as I kicked off my jeans. The entire crowd went quiet, they must have wondered what the hell was going on, as they had never seen a streaker before. This didn't deter me, and I set off to do a length of the pitch and finish the job that I'd started. When I reached the goal, I threw myself in the net. 

The moment I "scored a goal".

By this time the crowd were loving it and when I stood up, the goal mouth was surrounded by people, who I thought were police at first but turned out to be photographers, so I went into "automatic silly pose mode" and made like a duck. When I looked around, all the Chinese police (the police at the 7's were mostly English) were just stood there with their mouths open catching won tons, not knowing what to do. So I took off to do another length of the pitch. When I reached the half way line, every copper for miles, including a SWAT team, Jeremy Beadle, Vanessa Feltz and the cast of Cats were after me!

The crowd were relishing this, as they'd never seen Cats before and as I ran they screamed even louder. Recognizing this as a warning (MAN ON !), I looked behind me and saw the biggest Chinese guy I have ever seen try and rugby tackle me. As he did, I jumped to one side and he went flying into the mud. He then thanked me, as it was going to do his complexion the world of good!

I reached the other goal and threw myself in it and waited for the inevitable. I was immediately grabbed by six policemen and one shouted in my face, "You crazy? You crazy? You have big penis?" To which I replied "You must be joking mate, have a look at the size of that!" then put my arms in the air!

V for Viceroy? V for Victory!

They then made a cordon around me and for a second  I thought they were going to sing 'ring a ring o' roses', but sadly no, instead they marched me off. The policeman in front of me was stomping so hard that he, accidentally, broke one of my toes, but I was enjoying the crowd reaction too much to be bothered about a bit of pain. I was then taken to the charge room where I put on the excuse of having drunk too much. I hadn't, but didn't know how the police were going to be with me so feigned drunkenness.

As I sat there, in a room full of Chinese police, one came over and screamed something in Chinese to my face, then turned around and started laughing with the rest of them. Not knowing what was going on, I carried on pretending to be drunk until Jimmy brought my clothes in for me. After I dressed, I was taken to the police station and sat in an interview room. The interviewing officer came in and started to take down my details. When I told him, he then said to me ''You Mak, me Hokaman. I call you Mak, you call me Hokaman'', then shook my hand.  We were on first name terms already! He then asked me why I did it and I told him it was to give everyone a laugh. He agreed that it did, but what he said next knocked me for six. "You very tall, you run very fast, why not you join Hong Kong police?" Was he having me on? I've just been arrested for streaking and he's asking me to join the force! I explained to him that although I appreciate the job the police did, it was not for me and he genuinely looked disappointed! He was being really nice to me and then asked me to draw on a piece of paper a map of where I worked. When I asked him why, he said ''me, my  friend, we come find you, buy you drink!'' Now he wanted to be my mate! This was great! I'm starting to enjoy myself even more now!

As we spoke, the Chief Super came into the room and chatted to Hokaman in Cantonese. He then turned to me and said "You Mak?" to which I nodded. He then said "Very good. Very good!", laughed and shook my hand. This was incredible! Even the top dog thought it was great. I've finally found my vocation in life! To give everyone a laugh!

I was charged and bailed to appear in court the following week. As I left the police station, every policeman smiled and waved at me. I felt as though I'd made new friends. And I had!

When I appeared in court, I was put in front of a magistrate who said to me, "I'm sick of these streakers, we had a few at the 7's and now we've got you at the football". Little did he know that I did it twice at the 7's as well. I was fined and bound over for 12 months and told that if I appeared before him again in the space of that time, I would be sent to prison. Oooh!!!

Roll your own!

I was then led off and fingerprinted. The whole experience had been truly fantastic and had cemented my reputation on the island of Hong Kong.