Taking a look at recent, positive, uplifting, news stories and yarns, from New Zealand and all around the world, to bring a smile and a bit of cheer.
World Cup medal connects player and fan
This is a rather special story concerning a Rugby World Cup final, an All Black, a young fan, a winner’s medal, and a surprising friendship. Dial the clock back ten years and we are at the end of the World Cup final at Twickenham, England. The All Blacks have just beaten Australia 34-17, players are celebrating on the pitch and one young fan manages to get through security and close to All Black, Sonny Bill Williams. In an act of incredible generosity, Williams takes his winner’s medal from around his neck and gives it to 14 year old Charlie Line.
Since that time the two have forged a bond, Williams turned down Charlie’s offer to return the medal soon after the final and All Black and fan have spent time together occasionally, visiting each other in various parts of the world. Now, the medal that created their connection is to be auctioned to raise money for a charity they both believe in.
“But Line says he and Williams plan to put the medal up for auction and donate the proceeds to charity – revealing his dream would be to do it at the 2027 Rugby World Cup. The charity the pair are closest with is called Bhubesi Pride Foundation (BPF), based in Malawi, which empowers disadvantaged children in Africa through sport, education and leadership.
““They built a community centre with a big rugby pitch that brings kids aged 6 to 18 in. They play a couple of hours of rugby a day where they learn obviously all the values of rugby and sport, but then afterwards, girls and boys get a class on how to make reusable sanitary pads, how to start a business, sexual-health reproductive rights and then they’ll get a meal,’ Line said. (Source: “All Blacks: Teen who stormed Twickenham after 2015 Rugby World Cup win to auction Sonny Bill Williams’ medal,” by Benjamin Plummer, October 29, www.nzherald.co.nz).
5 stars – at the time Williams courted some controversy for gifting his medal, but when you look at what the act created and what it will now do for charity, I think it was one heck of a fantastic act! Total upside!
Surfboard crosses the Tasman – then gets returned
A surfboard that was lost 18 months ago in Tasmania was recently found by a kite surfer in Raglan and even more incredibly – is being returned to its owner across the ditch.
“New Zealand-based French surfer Alvaro Bon was kite surfing in Raglan on the North Island’s west coast on 15 October, when his kite caught in the water and he began drifting out to sea. As he was being pulled out in the currents, he noticed something shining in the dunes at the northern end of the beach. ‘I let go of my kite and started paddling towards the [beach] … and that’s where I found the board.’
“The board sat in his garden for another few days until the smell of the rotting barnacles and mussels compelled him to clean it up. ‘I really started paying attention to it and realised there was going to be a story behind it and should look for the owner.’
“Bon posted pictures of the board and a message seeking help to identify the owner in Australian and South African surfing groups on Facebook, and went off for a surf. By the time he checked his phone two hours later, the posts had blown up, with surfers across the globe speculating over its origin and ownership.Among the thousands of messages was one identifying the board’s owner as a man called Liam, who had lost it during a boat trip off the coast of Tasmania – around 2,400km from Raglan – on 10 May 2024. Bon and Liam were soon put in touch. ‘Liam couldn’t believe it,’ Bon says. ‘He told me that was one of his favourite boards … and he was really missing it.'”
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