NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather forecasts

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Budget 2025
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
    • Cooking the Books
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • What the Actual
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Sport / Football / English Premier League

Paul Lewis: Vegetable-hurling habit simply good, healthy fun

Paul Lewis
By Paul Lewis
Contributing Sports Writer·Herald on Sunday·
6 Oct, 2018 04:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Steve Bruce was sacked after cabbage attack. Photo / Getty Images

Steve Bruce was sacked after cabbage attack. Photo / Getty Images

Paul Lewis
Opinion by Paul Lewis
Paul Lewis writes about rugby, cricket, league, football, yachting, golf, the Olympics and Commonwealth Games.
Learn more

COMMENT: It's been a long while since I enjoyed a story as much as this week's cabbage attack on Aston Villa football manager Steve Bruce.

Villa are a big club with a rich history in English football; a fan in the stands biffed the cabbage at Bruce after they continued their poor form in the Football Championship, settling uncomfortably in 13th place. It's unlikely they will be returning to the Premier League any time soon.

Bruce was fired a day after the cabbage attack, giving rise to some significant questions: I mean, how many people take a cabbage to a football match? How do you hide it, for a start? It doesn't fit up your jumper. If it's discovered by the bag-searching security folk, do you say: "Oh yeah, just been to Tesco's"?

But, more importantly, maybe New Zealand (where the fan base can be a bit, well, staid) should harvest a whole variety of vegetables for those days when frustrations need to be released.

In fact, we could almost invent a whole new coded world of vegetable insults that could be slung at errant coaches and players. We're looking at you, Michael Cheika ...

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Like a kumara, as in "suck the kumara" - a wonderfully illogical piece of New Zealand slang that means to suffer an abject failure or disaster, even. These could be thrown at coaches or players who have had a bit of a disaster of a match - though it wouldn't be as serious as the dreaded cabbage attack which has now come to preface an imminent sacking.

Brussel sprouts - with olfactory properties resembling, ahem, human emissions, they are ideally sized missiles and could be directed at those who have stunk the place up. Memo refs, assistant refs and TMOs ... duck.

Chokos would be reserved for teams which snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Get it? They choke - and are then subjected to a barrage of chokos. Leeks could be used (in spite of their association with Welsh rugby) for peppering a team with a leaky defence.

We can rush quickly past beetroot (far too many possibilities there for a family newspaper) but rhubarb has potential - particularly for coaches who talk a load of old baloney and who would then be visited by the embodiment of "talking rhubarb [nonsense]".

Former Springboks coach Allister Coetzee would have been ideal for this, though All Black coach Steve Hansen probably qualified when, the other day, he mused about the government giving lots of money to New Zealand's top brand.

Discover more

Football

Ronaldo ready to play for Juventus amid rape allegation

06 Oct 04:00 PM
Football

Neville on sacking of Mourinho: It's rotten

06 Oct 04:00 PM
Football

Football: Mourinho's defiant show

07 Oct 04:00 PM

But in case you think I'm talking rhubarb, the noble art of vegetable throwing has a proud tradition in sport and English football in particular. For this we can thank Chelsea.

At Stamford Bridge and some away venues, the Chelsea fans throw stalks of celery on the pitch, accompanied by a mildly pornographic song whose lyrics shouldn't be repeated here.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The origins of this strange missile are cloudy but the practice has been around since the 1980s. In 2002, four Chelsea fans were arrested for celery tossing at Villa Park but got off when their lawyer argued that celery throwing had been a Chelsea tradition for at least 20 years.

Matters came to a head in 2007 when, during a Carling Cup final, Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas complained about being pelted with celery stalks when taking a corner. In another irony, Fabregas now plays for ... Chelsea.

The club then released this statement: "The throwing of anything at a football match, including celery, is a criminal offence for which you can be arrested and end up with a criminal record. In future, if anyone is found attempting to bring celery into Stamford Bridge they could be refused entry and anyone caught throwing celery will face a ban."

Don't you love it? Still, we shouldn't be too scornful of New Zealand fans' rather pallid record re such things - after all, one strange person at a World Cup tie involving the All Whites and Chile a few years back allegedly hurfed a car door on to the Auckland pitch.

I'm not even sure it's true. There's no documentary evidence and, if there's photographic proof, I've been unable to find it.

Don't think it'll catch on, though, even if it is more than urban legend. Not like some of the inventive tossing from the north - like the bombardment of hundreds of small plastic pigs that delayed the start of a Coventry v Charlton match a few years ago, the Mars bars thrown at Tottenham's Paul Gascoigne (he loved them and had a tendency towards chubbiness ).

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Though we should draw the line at the severed pig's head thrown near Portugal's Luis Figo after he committed the sin of transferring from Barcelona to Real Madrid.

But cabbages? Aston Villa may just have started something ...

Save

    Share this article

Latest from English Premier League

English Premier League

Palace stun Man City to win FA Cup for first time

17 May 07:03 PM
English Premier League

Chris Wood's teammate placed in coma after colliding with post

13 May 11:39 PM
English Premier League

Wood scores again, Forest owner confronts manager after draw

11 May 06:07 PM

The Hire A Hubby hero turning handyman stereotypes on their head

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from English Premier League

Palace stun Man City to win FA Cup for first time

Palace stun Man City to win FA Cup for first time

17 May 07:03 PM

Eberechi Eze scored the winning goal with a superb volley in the 16th minute.

Chris Wood's teammate placed in coma after colliding with post

Chris Wood's teammate placed in coma after colliding with post

13 May 11:39 PM
Wood scores again, Forest owner confronts manager after draw

Wood scores again, Forest owner confronts manager after draw

11 May 06:07 PM
Arsenal v PSG: Gunners fail to fire a shot in Champions League

Arsenal v PSG: Gunners fail to fire a shot in Champions League

29 Apr 09:06 PM
Gold demand soars amid global turmoil
sponsored

Gold demand soars amid global turmoil

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP