Players who have a taste for fashion (30 May 1999)

30 May 1999

Players who have a taste for fashion

Trevor Chesterfield

CHELMSFORD (England) - One of the more intriguing questions to emerge about the South African World Cup team on the day they lost to Zimbabwe is what do Herchelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis and cat walk queen Kate Moss have in common? If we are to believe the stories, and a couple of the players have almost shyly confirmed it, the London agency Storm Model Management, who have put Ms Moss on the front copver of some of the top glossy fashion magazines, have signed up Kallis, Gibbs, Shaun Pollock, Mark Boucher and Gary Kirsten.

Well, fancy that now: five of the country's top sportsmen sharing the same fussy management as Elle Macpherson and Eva Herzigova. While their batting, if not bowling, was far from as sharp as it should have been against Zimbabwe, the South African quintet might become a bigger hit in areas areas as foeing from their playing fields as Paris, Miland and Madrid.

The five young guns, represented by Simon Chambers with the fashion company, said the modelling contracts would not interfere with there World Cup demands.

They are here to win the World Cup, which means that modelling appearances could be limited, but I am doing what I can to help arrange this, Chambers has been quoted in two British newspapers.

Perhaps with tongue in cheek, Caprice, the Wonderbra model, and a World Cup "ambassador" said that when the tournament's players' uniforms were modelled last September she found the players had been quite at home on the catwalk. Perhaps the money and the attention might have turned their head slightly, but you can guarantee their coach, Bob Woolmer, will get them back to earth and into the nets as soon as possible to shake off the disappointment of their defeat at New Writtle Road on Saturday.

Source :: Trevor Chesterfield