Playing sports
Imagine being 12 years old, bored at home and finding loads of old sports equipment in the garden. This is what happened to young Ollie Hicks-Sandri, when he decided to go playing sports. The New Zealand tween wanted a ball to play with in the school holidays so that he could practice playing basketball before going back to school and his father told him to try and find one in the garden. Upon going into the garden, he came across 58 balls in total, mostly basketballs.
With three boys, sport plays a big part in the Hicks-Sandri household. Balls would frequently go missing, so the family would buy new ones. Over the years, this meant that a lot of balls added up around the garden. It was a still a surprise for Ollie, however, to find so many balls in his garden, from the last few years.
Putting the basketballs to good use
The majority of the balls cost around $30 to $50 each, so the family spent quite a lot of money on them over the years as the brothers grew up playing sports. But as Ollie’s father Brad Sandri said, ‘The balls are cheaper than an X-Box console’ – and undoubtedly better for your health too.
Most of the balls were in fairly good condition, and were given away, or used at coaching sessions. A keen budding sportsman, Ollie coaches girls’ basketball at his school, and so the basketballs found were easily put to use. Alongside basketballs were rugby balls, so there was plenty of variety in the find, that could be used in future.
Local reporters spoke to their neighbour, Linda Murray, who was certainly used to her neighbours playing sports over the 18 years that they’ve lived near each other. According to Murray, she had a positive relationship with the family and had often handed them back balls that had travelled into her garden. She wasn’t surprised to see that they’d found so many balls in their garden. Have you ever found anything interesting when playing sports in your garden? Let us know! And then, go to our homepage for more weird stories.
