Remember November: Andrew Ettingshausen's Penis

Football scandals are all so tawdry these days, aren't they? Just this week, Joel Monaghan quit the Canberra Raiders in disgrace, after a picture of him drunkenly forcing a dog to lick his beef Schmacko hit the public sphere. But back in the early 1990s, it was another footballing willy that stroked, sorry, stoked the fires of public imagination. And in hindsight, the whole affair seems rather, well, classy.

Andrew Ettingshausen was a rugby league footballer who played for the Cronulla Sharks, popular with football-lovin' ladies due to his clean-cut buff good looks. In 1991, Australian HQ magazine published a photograph of Ettingshausen having a post-game shower, showing off an entirely different sort of tackle.

Ettingshausen took the magazine to court for the unauthorised use of his image, and was eventually awarded a $350,000 damages payout (reduced to $100,000 on appeal). Sure, there were plenty of jokes around at the time, but compared to gang rape and bestiality scenarios, a bit of locker room lollybag action seems downright charming.

Ettingshausen must be pleased his controversy happened in the era before widespread internet use. Even though there would've been tight restrictions on what happened with his own "packing the scrum" photo, you'd think it would turn up in a quick Google Image search. But no, surprisingly, type in "Andrew Ettingshausen shower photo" and for some reason you get that Brendan Fevola snap of Lara Bingle's Golum impersonation.

ET himself now runs a fishing and adventure website/TV series. As a kid I never saw the offending photo, but maybe his new career can give me an insight into what thrilled everyone so much at the time:

It was *this* big.