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Otago Daily Times
04-05-2025
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
Great bloke, top groundsman 'hard to come by'
And he did a lot. The 61-year-old was posthumously awarded the Souter Trophy for groundsman of the year at the Christchurch Metro Cricket Association awards. Georgieff died in December after he was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer in February last year. Heathcote Cricket Club president Ralph Bungard accepted the trophy on his behalf. 'It's a nice recognition and shows the important impact he has had not just for Heathcote, but Christchurch cricket in general,' said Bungard. Georgieff's brother Nigel said he would have appreciated the award but it would not have been what mattered the most to him. 'He was more than happy to see the results of people playing good cricket on a good wicket.' Bungard said people were 'pretty torn up about' Georgieff's death. 'He's such an important part (of the club), not just as a character and an individual but an instrumental part of how the club operates. 'Like any club, we're reliant on volunteers and when you get someone like Roger who's passionate about the club, they're hard to come by.' When Georgieff learnt of his diagnosis, he realised he would not be able to continue his work as a groundsman. He put together a detailed ground management manual for the club to use after he died. It included a day-to-day guide on irrigation, rolling, pitch repairs, end of season repairs, even down to marking the pitch and putting the stumps in. 'He demonstrated to us what the standards should be for a ground like ours in a premiership competition,' said Bungard. He was born and raised in Heathcote Valley and joined the club in 1971 for the school boys team and went on to play for various senior teams. Georgieff stayed on as head groundsman for the club until the time of his death, a position he held for 42 years. 'In his last few months he was still physically showing people how to do the groundwork. That was incredible on his behalf,' Bungard said. 'He was just so passionate and would always be there if anyone needed advice. 'He absolutely loved the club.' Georgieff was made a life member of the club in 2005. His passion for community sport extended beyond cricket as he was a team manager for the Sumner Rugby Club for 12 years and chair of Canterbury United football for five. Sumner's opening game of this season was dedicated to Georgieff where a moment of silence was held in his memory. He also served as chair of the Christchurch Suburban Cricket Association from 2000-2012 and played a major role in combining it with the CMCA. He was made a life member of the CMCA in 2016. He worked as head of procurement at MG Marketing for Summerfruit NZ, of which he was made a life member for his 30 years of service. He was husband to Janine Gemmell and father to Zach, Nicholas and Dan Georgieff. Said Nigel: 'If you are going to do something, you put your heart and soul into it and Roger was never one to sit back and watch, he was always one to get stuck in.' Fittingly he spent his final day watching the Heathcote premier side play on the pitch he spent more than four decades curating. Said Bungard: 'It was a moving day. I think he liked the fact that he could see his legacy and how strong it was.' It was his final chance to say goodbye to the people from the club that meant so much to him. Said Nigel: 'He's made life long friends at the club and that was really important to him.' The following day he passed away through the assisted dying process. Just under 600 people attended his funeral, a testament to how many he affected. Said Bungard: 'There's a massive amount of people in the cross section of communities that he touched.'
The Independent
23-02-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Cambodian toddlers killed by grenade buried since civil war
Two children in Cambodia died after a rocket-propelled grenade buried since the civil war blew up near their homes. The children, a girl and a boy both two years old, died after coming across the unexploded ordinance near their homes in rural northwestern Siem Reap province on Saturday. The province's Svay Leu district was once a battle site for Cambodian government soldiers and Khmer Rouge fighters in the 1980s and 1990s. Parents of Muo Lisa and her cousin, Thum Yen, were reportedly working at a far when the toddlers came across the grenade and it detonated. Experts from the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMCA) determined afterward from fragments that it was a rocket-propelled grenade. 'Their parents went to settle on land that was a former battlefield, and they were not aware that there were any land mines or unexploded ordinance buried near their homes,' CMAC director-general Heng Ratana said. 'It's a pity because they were too young and they should not have died like this." He said one child was killed instantly while the other succumbed at the hospital. "The war has completely ended and there has been peace for more than 25 years, but the blood of Cambodian people continues to flow because of landmines and the remnants of war," Heng Ratana told AFP. The blast took place after Cambodia was forced to partially suspend demining operations in the aftermath of US president Donald Trump 's freeze on foreign aid for 90 days. Heng Ratana said Thursday he had been informed that Washington had issued a waiver allowing the aid – $6.36m (£5m)covering March 2022 to November 2025 – to resume flowing. Cambodian deminers are among the world's most experienced, and several thousand have been sent in the past decade under UN auspices to work in Africa and the Middle East. Some four to six million land mines and other unexploded munitions are estimated to have littered Cambodia's countryside during decades of conflict that began in 1970 and ended in 1998. Since the end of the fighting in Cambodia, nearly 20,000 people have been killed and about 45,000 injured by leftover war explosives. The number of casualties has declined over time, but there were 49 deaths in 2024. Last month, two Cambodian deminers were killed while trying to remove a decades-old anti-tank mine from a rice field.
