2001 was a highly memorable year for me, what with Liverpool's "Fab Five", establishing this website to give NZ women's soccer a presence on the net, and realising a long-held personal ambition of seeing Roxy Music live in concert. Normally, the realisation of such goals happens once in a while - you're lucky if you achieve one per year. So it goes without saying that, with about sixty hours of the year left, I was delighted to realise another such ambition, one which came about purely by chance. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a big Anna Kournikova fan - as much for her tennis prowess as for her more easily visible attributes. But there's another reason, too. In early 2001, I sent a photo of her in action with s.a.e. to the hotel

at which the players were staying during the Australian Open in Melbourne, marked for her attention and requesting her autograph, all the time thinking, as you do in such circumstances, that the likelihood of my ever seeing it again was as good as none. So guess what appeared in my postbox some four months later? Signed as well. R-E-S-P-E-C-T - big-time!! Needless to say, I was delighted to get the quite unexpected opportunity to have a quick chat with Anna at the ASB Bank Tennis Centre in Auckland on December 29, 2001, as she signed a cap, poster and the following photo (acquired from Newsphotos) for me following a photo-shoot with Jonah Lomu for Adidas. She really is a class act - and Mama Mia!! Is she gorgeous or what?!?!