Guitars, mace, and a burnt rule book | #159
Also, PC's first celeb crush 👉🏽👉🏽
Hello friends
Trophies are the ultimate symbol of victory. Most sporting contests have a traditional ‘cup’ design as a symbol for the victors. Some controversial symbols exist - such as the the Venus Rosewater dish handed to the women’s winner at Wimbledon which symbolizes that women had more domestic duties at home than anywhere else.
Or the burnt-bails-in-an-urn that Australia and England compete for, but the MCC gets to keep regardless of the result.
This week’s newsletter, we decided to take a look at trophies and some of them that are rather unusual.
Things we learnt this week 🤓
India might be struggling in the World Test Championship final at the second time of asking, but the World Test Championship is one of the few tournaments that does not have a traditional ‘cup’ design trophy but gives out a mace to the winners. But why a mace? According to the designer Thomas Brown, he was inspired when seeing a cricketer grab a stump as a souvenir after a close game. As the stump was waved aloft it occurred to Brown that a Mace could stand out against a typical cup design and be something different. Was this design a mace-take? We’re stumped as well.
The Memphis Open was a tennis tournament held in Memphis from 1975 to 2017. Till 2015, they gave out the traditional trophy, but in 2015 the tournament organizers had a brainwave - How about a non-traditional trophy? How about getting Gibson involved and asking them to make a special guitar? Gibson was on board and they made 4 guitars to be given to the winners. Memphis Open also had other connections to music - the tournament logo is in the shape of a guitar pick. Before every match, a coin shaped like a guitar pick is flipped at midcourt to determine which player serves first. Ideal trophy to write a love-all song.
And speaking of the Ashes, lets not forget the English and Australian women’s teams. The first women’s game between Australia and England took place in 1934, and till 1998 they weren’t even competing for a trophy. In 1998 a new trophy was created in a ceremony at the Harris Garden inside Lord’s. It included a bat signed by the two competing teams, a copy of the Women’s Cricket Association (WCA) constitution, and a burnt rule book all sealed in a 300-year-old yew tree trophy. In 2013, the trophy got a makeover with the original trophy mounted in the center of a larger frame.
From IWTK, with love 💌
Priyanka Chopra had a secret crush on someone. You won’t believe who it is. We also do clickbait sometimes.
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Only In India 🇮🇳
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