What came next for the 'Geordie Pantsman'

Shields Gazette

We speak to Gary Craig, onetime Guinness World Record holder for wearing the most pairs of underpants at the same time. Gary talks TV appearances, recovery from a heart attack - and gravy wrestling.

Transcript

00:00Hello, it's Gary Craig, a.k.a. the Geordie Pants Man,

00:03former world record holder for wearing the most pair of underpants at one time.

00:07I can't believe it was 2010.

00:09I mean, 15 years ago and still get people bumping into us in the street

00:13and making jokes about how many pairs of pants you're wearing a day, Gary.

00:17You know, 15 years on, it's unbelievable.

00:20Almost as soon as I took the record,

00:21it was taken off as primarily by an American woman,

00:25and I was agreed with that straight away

00:27because she put on 249 pairs of women's knickers,

00:31and I'm sorry, but they just don't have the same thickness and waistband

00:34that a pair of underpants have got.

00:35Every so often, I might go back to it and look at the Guinness records

00:39and see if there's still a record for it,

00:41and for some reason or other,

00:42it seemed as though they'd kind of lost interest in it at all.

00:45I had already been getting quite a few different little telly invitations,

00:49so I'd been featured on Have I Got News For You on BBC.

00:53I'd taken in a couple of cooking-related programmes,

00:56so there was a Great British Taste Tour,

00:57which only did one series,

00:59but I managed to win £1,000 off that.

01:02I was on Britain's Best Dish,

01:06presented a pair of Britain's Best Dish underpants to Mary Nightingale,

01:11did reasonably well in the competition,

01:13lost on a 2-1 vote.

01:14The main thing was that I got myself on Rude Tube,

01:16which was where I came up with the idea of setting the record in the first place.

01:21I was on an Ultimate Champions episode,

01:24and I was on the Christmas Best Most-Watched Clips of the Year,

01:29only at number 94,

01:30but, you know, still another claim to fame.

01:32Because sometimes the TV people,

01:34they don't like you to appear too often

01:36in case you become too well-known,

01:37and then people are thinking,

01:38oh, hang on, I've seen this guy just the other week on such and such a programme.

01:42So it took a little while,

01:44but then the TV started to come back,

01:46and I don't know whether people necessarily know,

01:50but quite often the TV companies approach you

01:54if they think you're a good sport,

01:56I would say, if you're keen to maybe take part.

01:59So I got approached for a programme on ITV called Cannonball,

02:04a pretty extreme sort of water-based competition that was held in Malta,

02:09and basically I was in competition with a bunch of 20-odd-year-old six-packs.

02:16One guy, I think, is trying to become an Olympic sprinter.

02:20This was a sort of standard of athleticism that my opponents had,

02:25and he has me at around the age of 60

02:28trying to compete, as I say, with these water sports.

02:31I somehow managed to wangle my way to the final,

02:33and even though I didn't win, I kind of became the people's champion.

02:38And while I was away, one of the guys that I met,

02:40a guy called Brian Gumley,

02:42he gets involved in all this sort of madness.

02:45Anything that's gone wife-carrying,

02:50anything you can think of that's a bit daft, he'll have a go at it.

02:53And it was him who invited us to think about

02:56the World Gravy Wrestling Championships,

02:58because he takes part every year.

03:01And as it happened, I'd had a heart attack,

03:05for various reasons I'll not go into.

03:07I'd had a heart attack, and I was recovering from that,

03:10and I was fine.

03:13And I basically thought,

03:15am I going to spend the rest of my days

03:17worrying about when the next heart attack's going to come along?

03:20Or can I test myself, and can I just see?

03:24Can I push it?

03:24How far can I push it?

03:26Without dying, preferably.

03:29And so the World Gravy Wrestling Championships came along in 2022,

03:34and I volunteered to take part as the Geordie Pants Man.

03:39And the gravy wrestling itself was just fantastic.

03:42You were taken down into the basement of the pub,

03:45into this dirty, horrible little changing area

03:49with one shower for the 18 people

03:51that were taking part, men and women.

03:52There was only one changing room and one shower.

03:55And just got changed in there.

03:57I bumped into this guy who thought he was sort of

03:59Stone Cold Steve Austin from the wrestling world.

04:03And he put the fear of God into us,

04:05telling us that he would be taken seriously.

04:09He said, some people don't, they take this as a bit of fun,

04:12but he wanted to win.

04:13And I'm thinking, this is not really what I wanted to hear

04:16on my first visit to gravy wrestling.

04:18I thought it was just going to be a bunch of jovial little people

04:21like myself who just wanted to have a bit of a laugh

04:24and wanted to entertain the crowds.

04:26At one stage, it was supposed to be very limited contact.

04:29You were warned at the start, it's all for fun.

04:32If you start getting aggressive,

04:33they'll just take you out of the arena altogether.

04:37There's a proper referee there, proper referee.

04:40But one thing that is proper is the gravy.

04:43Honestly, it's the most horrible, thick,

04:46Lancashire gravy, lumps of fat and all sorts in it.

04:50And to be honest, once you start the fight

04:52and get in the gravy, you're blinded.

04:55You've got a coating of sort of fatty gravy

04:57over your eyes and your face.

04:59And you can barely see who you're fighting with,

05:01never mind throwing them around and kicking them

05:03and all the rest of it.

05:05But no, I had great fun.

05:07I was throwing him out the ring

05:09and then sliding out after him and sitting on his head.

05:12And then he would drop kick me.

05:15And even though there wasn't supposed to be

05:16any bodily contact or any aggression,

05:18he actually hit us with both feet and knocked us flying.

05:22I like gravy on me dinner, but not on meself.

05:27I don't mind eating gravy,

05:28but I don't want to wear any more of it ever again.

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