T-shirt news: gifts and grabs

Friday 03rd of February 2012 04:22:19 PM

‘Little Master’ Sachin Tendulkar donated a T-shirt which raised more than 1.1 lakh rupees, (around £1,400) at auction in Gujarat. The total raised by the auction will be used to fund education for girls. While Tendulkar has been less then impressive in the recent Australian tour, this didn’t seem to sour people’s interest in the auctioned T-shirt, which is a commemorative garment from the 2003 World Cup Final (in which his best efforts were also defeated by the Australians!) The T-shirt has been received by the lucky, anonymous, bidder.

Novak Djokovic has a habit of throwing clothes to the crowd but the Djoker’s most recent largesse, during the Australian Open Final, has caused a controversy. A fourteen-year-old girl thought that Djokovic was tossing her one of the four shirts he wore and discarded during the final in which he defeated Rafa Nadal, but mother of three, Yael Rothschild, grabbed the shirt in mid-air, before it could reach the teenager’s hand.

Ms Rothschild defended her actions by saying ‘such is life’ and that many people were reaching for the T-shirt she was lucky enough to grab. She went on to say she thought the girl had managed to grab several items such as a sweat band, towel and shoe, but the teenager countered that she had taken along items that members of her family had obtained during the previous year’s final and that the towel wasn’t a players it had been given to her by an official.

The use of sporting clothing as commemorative token is not new – racing silks are regularly framed by owners and trainers to celebrate a big win in flat racing – but the market for sporting memorabilia has surged since 2008, as the internet and mobile phones allow individuals to prove the provenance of items given (or taken) during international sporting events.

Clare Hansen

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