NEWMARKET HOCKEY DAD BRINGS MEGAPHONE TO UNDER-13 GAME, REFUSES TO LEAVE WHEN ASKED
The umpire is 16. The megaphone is loud. The dad is unrepentant.
A Newmarket hockey dad turned up to his daughter's under-13 match at Lloyd Elsmore on Saturday with a megaphone he borrowed off a mate in Penrose. He used it for the full 60 minutes.
The dad, Hamish Petherbridge, 44, an accountant from off Remuera Road, denied he'd done anything wrong. "I'm supporting my kid. If the umpire can't take feedback at volume she shouldn't be holding the bloody whistle. It's a sport, mate, not a fucking library."
The umpire, aged 16, told a tournament official she could hear Hamish "from the carpark, through earmuffs". A green card was issued. Hamish escalated.
Other parents had driven over the bridge from Birkenhead specifically to avoid a morning like this. "He called a 13-year-old defender a lazy unit through the megaphone," one mum said. "Her grandmother was standing right there. Her grandmother is on the board."
A Counties Manukau Hockey spokesperson said megaphones were "not banned but now under urgent review". Hamish was asked to leave the turf three times before he went, still talking into the megaphone, all the way back to his Amarok.
Hamish's daughter, asked for comment, said she was getting the bus home.
The dad, Hamish Petherbridge, 44, an accountant from off Remuera Road, denied he'd done anything wrong. "I'm supporting my kid. If the umpire can't take feedback at volume she shouldn't be holding the bloody whistle. It's a sport, mate, not a fucking library."
The umpire, aged 16, told a tournament official she could hear Hamish "from the carpark, through earmuffs". A green card was issued. Hamish escalated.
Other parents had driven over the bridge from Birkenhead specifically to avoid a morning like this. "He called a 13-year-old defender a lazy unit through the megaphone," one mum said. "Her grandmother was standing right there. Her grandmother is on the board."
A Counties Manukau Hockey spokesperson said megaphones were "not banned but now under urgent review". Hamish was asked to leave the turf three times before he went, still talking into the megaphone, all the way back to his Amarok.
Hamish's daughter, asked for comment, said she was getting the bus home.