David Boon has revealed the biggest regret surrounding the moment that arguably every sports fan recognises him for.
The man more commonly known as “Boonie” thrust his name into Australian folklore when he downed an absurd 52 beers on a flight from Australia to England in 1989.
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While Boon’s Test career saw him register 21 hundreds, it’s his half century of beers that took his star to new heights.
In a recently resurfaced clip from an interview that took place in late 2022, Boon opened up on the infamous flight and the impact it’s had on his life.
“What I won’t deny is that we had a beer,” Boon says on the BackChat Sports Show.
“But to be perfectly honest if it was that many, how the hell would I know.
“I do know the exercise was initiated by Terry Alderman and he was the one that initially gathered information and was in charge of the whole thing.
“Then my mate Geoffrey Robert egged me on … I had drinking partners throughout.
“Terry didn’t drop out that many before I managed to do whatever it was.”
It was then that Boon changed his tune and turned serious as he opened up on the biggest regret he had over the infamous moment.
“But mate I’ve got to be brutally honest here, I won’t deny it happened … we all do stupid things in our lives and I’ll finish by just being serious,” he said.
“You have fun you do something and then you think ‘shit what about the ramifications to everything else’, to your family to your children.
“It caused some crap over the years and it’s something that I regret … a lot. Can’t deny it but I do regret it. And I was stupid to be able to do that when you’re in the public eye.”
Boon has long said reports over the tally of what he consumed have been nothing more than fabricated stories, although his teammates swear it happened.
Geoff Lawson says he was keeping score on airline sickbags and Dean Jones previously claimed to have paced Boon through 22 beers, just the other side of Singapore.
The late Jones said he fell asleep before he was woken up to thunderous applause and an announcement from the plane’s captain saying that Boon had reached 52.
“I know there are plenty of stories flying around about me that have been greatly embellished over the years,” Boon said back in 2006.
“But that’s how it is … we played our cricket in an era where blokes learned never to let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
Boon has remained heavily involved in the sport since he announced his retirement from international cricket in 1996.
The 62-year-old has been an Australian selector and an ICC math referee, but it’s in his home state where he’s worked the most.
Mr Boon has served on the board of Cricket Tasmania since 2014 and held roles as the Manager of Media and Marketing and the General Manager of Cricket.
In September 2022 he was named as the Chairman of Cricket Tasmania, taking over from Andrew Gaggin.
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