Mark Roberts remembers the moment clearly. The Liverpudlian was 28 years old, living in Hong Kong, doing bar work. One night, early in 1993, a group of animated men entered the bar, roaring about a woman who had just streaked at the Hong Kong Sevens rugby semi-final. Roberts didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. “I went: ‘Fuck off, anybody can streak.’ I was drunk. So the owner goes: ‘OK, big mouth, you streak tomorrow in the final.’ I went: ‘OK’, but I had no intention of doing it.”
He got home at 4am and fell asleep on the sofa fully dressed. “Next thing I know, my friend Harry is banging on the apartment door, saying: ‘It’s time to go to the sevens.’ He said: ‘If you don’t open the door, I’m going to kick it in.’” Harry whisked him off to the stadium bar. For Roberts, there was no way out.
