Schoolboys' grundy run banned

NZPA | Monday, 12 November 2007

Cold water has been poured on the country's only sponsored high school grundy run.

Year 13 students at the town's Marlborough College traditionally storm the field of their female counterparts clad only in their underwear for an annual grundy run.

But the principals of both colleges have this year banned the event.

"It has not been an event that we have condoned for many years," Marlborough Girls' College principal Karen Stewart told the Marlborough Express.

"Both colleges met and discussed it and we decided that it could cause possible damage to property, among other things."

The "other things" included dangerous driving and obscene behaviour.

"At this time of the year we should be getting them ready for exams."

Boys' college principal John Rodgers confirmed he had asked the boys to refrain from taking part.

"The simple reality is that it's not possible to organise an event like that without destructive behaviour being a part of it.

"We have made a simple request to them, and they have been told they are not to be absent from school."

But several students told the newspaper they planned to press ahead and had even secured sponsorship from underwear brand Jockey; each boy would be sent a pair of underpants.

"They were the only school in New Zealand to approach us, and that was one of the reasons we couldn't refuse," Jockey Men's New Zealand product manager Amanda Carmichael said.