Craig Gower is alleged to have stripped naked and streaked through the hallowed corridors of The Frownlow Medal Hall of Fame in a determined attempt to see his name on a plaque beside some of Australia’s most famous footballers.
Grainy security camera footage shows a middle aged man with a striking resemblance to a man who roamed naked around a golf resort in Queensland in 2005.
The Frownlow Medal is awarded to the player whose off-field demeanour epitomises the values of the modern day footballer and draws attention to the status of footballers as role models to young Australians. It covers Australia’s four major football codes; the National Rugby League (NRL), Australian Football League (AFL), the A-League (Football) and Rugby Union’s Super Rugby competition. Kiwi international and Sydney Roosters player Shaun Kenny-Dowall won the inaugural medal in 2015, while Corey Norman from the Parramatta Eels won in 2016.
The Frownlow Medal Hall of Fame honours former players and players who received media attention in previous seasons, for similarly scandalous behaviour, and its inductees include Ben Cousins and Julian O’Neill.
Gower created enormous controversy in 2005 when he streaked nude around Twin Waters golf resort while a guest at the Jack Newton celebrity golf tournament, earning a nomination for The Frownlow Medal Hall of Fame in the process.
At the same event, he allegedly groped the daughter of Rugby League legend Wayne Pearce and chased Pearce’s son, Mitchell, with a bottle before vomiting on the current Roosters halfback. The one time Australian captain was so drunk at the event that he also argued with several guests, stole and crashed a golf cart, held a butter knife to someone’s throat, threw the knife at resort guests and fought with security staff who eventually threw him out.
The half back and hooker was fined $100,000 by the NRL and in response attacked the Panthers for not defending his reputation.
In response to this, the Panthers stripped Gower of captaincy.
However, the club stood by their man in and reinstated him as captain in 2007, despite his involvement in an incident at a bar in Sydney in which he was so drunk he attempted to kiss, then bite, a man, which started a massive brawl.
The Panthers inducted him into the club’s Hall of Fame in 2016.
When asked by the media if he was the man in the video, Gower simply replied;
“I don’t remember. I don’t remember much at all since 2005.”
He then added fuel to the rumours by stating,
“I was inducted into the Panthers Hall of Fame and that was a huge honour, but to be in the Frownlow is the greatest honour any Aussie footballer can receive,”
This honour looks likely to be bestowed upon the former hooker and halfback who was also once fined $3000 for breaking NSW team curfew and was dropped from the Kangaroos after pleading guilty to indecent exposure while intoxicated at a pub in Sydney.
Rumours are circulating that Mithcell Pearce created the recent streaking video in revenge for being used as a sick bag and because he regards Gower as a threat to his own chances of one day entering The Frownow Medal Hall of Fame.
Image:Nuna
First published in August, 2017.
The Frownlow Medal 