Strange Memorial Match in Japan

On 28 November in Yamate, the Yokohama Country & Athletic Club won the MacFadyen Cup, beating the Tokyo Crusaders 18-14 to do so. The cup is named for a New Zealander Gareth MacFadyen who died in bizarre circumstances four years ago.

MacFadyen, a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch, went from New Zealand to Japan in 1996 and played rugby there, amongst others for Tokyo Crusaders and for the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club.

In Auckland before Christmas in 2000, MacFadyen attended his firm's "Hawaiian" Christmas party or which went horribly wrong. A partygoer, a friend, the worse for liquor, thought it a prank to set his grass skirt alight. MacFadyen died as a result of his 95% burns and the prankster was sent to two years in gaol.

Four months later the two clubs met for the first of the Gareth MacFadyen Memorial Trophy matches, the fourth of which happened at the end of November 2004.

The Crusaders won the first match and presented MacFadyen's mother Sue with his No.8 jersey. The club now plays without a No.8 jersey.