The Sydney Nick-Name War Infographic

I was a London resident when I originally wrote this in 2010, but being a Sydney resident now, I suppose this is local history.

©2010 James Mathurin

Infographic - Youngest Case of Steroid Abuse

The infographic of this 2003 record.

©2013 James Mathurin

The youngest case of steroid use

The youngest case of steroid use in a sporting event was when Anwar al Hadat was found to have used the banned steroid Nandrolone, in the three-legged race at his Turkish school’s Sports Day in 2003. He was aged 6 years and 122 days at the time.

Hasim Uyger, father of one of the other boys at the sports day, who lost out to al Hadat. Interviewed when news of the doping came out he said,

"How do I feel? I felt excited at first, that maybe I had seen a great athlete of the future. Now I feel disappointed that my boy was robbed of third in the sack race."

 Photograph by bgrimmni.

 ©2012 James Mathurin 

The Great Sydney Nick-name war

In Australia, in 1920, Sean McGrady, a renowned knife-fighter was so in demand by rival gangs that their assurances of money, power and women became so evenly matched that the only way of settling it was for each gang to use the local newspaper under their control to run a competition asking readers to send in nicknames that McGrady could have.

In a move that stunned both the readership, and the gangs in question, McGrady  was, according to friends, so impressed by the entries on either side that he decided to start his own gang, instead of joining the others, so that he could hand out the nicknames to members of his new gang. This instigated a period of violent conflict between the gangs, which came to be known as the Great Sydney Nick-name war.

McGrady's new gang came to include members like Eyebrows McGhee, the Doyle brothers, Patches and Six-Toes, Seamus The Hat, Mike "Bollock-Punching" Thomas, Trousers McGoldrick, Patrick Three-Hats, Sausages Hoolihan, 3-Card Monty O'Hanlon, Devilled Eggs O'Connor, and his sister Devilled Ham, Toe Caps Pritchard, Meat Hook O'Shaughnessy, Pickles McGuinness, Five-Beers Burlington and Terrence 'Stinky' Calhoon.

 McGrady (fourth from the right, seated on the car), pictured in 1921, with several of his lieutenants. Photo from the SMA archive.

©2010 James Mathurin