Lip stud knocks girl out of soccer match

Gemma Baylis

Schoolgirl Gemma Baylis was sidelined by her own jewellery stud at a soccer game last weekend - until a fan with a pair of pliers came to her rescue.

No matter how hard she tried, the Hastings sixth-former could not get the chin-piercing device out from inside her lower lip.

So Baylis found herself warming the Hawkes Bay bench in her team's match against Tawa, in Wellington, during the Central Women's League encounter.

"I was quite brassed off," the 16-year-old said with a laugh last night.

"I could not unscrew the ball at the end of the bar. It just wouldn't come off."

The referee would not let her on to the field because soccer rules state that players must not wear jewellery that might cause injury to the player or others.

This season the whistle-blowers have been stringent even in men's games, insisting that wedding rings be taped.

What compounded Bay women's coach Glen Kastrinos' problems was that he didn't have any substitute players, so 10 of them had to rough it out.

Baylis spent the entire 45 minutes of the first half trying to be rid of the "Librette piercing".

A despondent Baylis, watching her side trailing 2-1 at halftime, gave up midway through the second spell.

But as luck would have it, "a guy from the Taradale Football Club" turned up to watch and proved a winner.

"He went to his van and came back with a pliers to cut the ball jamming the bar at the bottom of the piercing inside my bottom lip," Baylis explained.

Despite her 10-minute presence on the left wing, Baylis could not reverse her side's 2-1 defeat.

If her teammates were annoyed - and Baylis believes they were disguising it with laughter - they certainly didn't show it in the changing room after the match.

- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY