Still looking for that special calendar for the year 2000? Maybe pro wrestler Bill Goldberg on the cover of the WCW one won't do it for you, but Australian soccer star Amy Taylor certainly draws attention. Taylor, who has breasts as big as soccer balls, appears nude on the cover of a calendar featuring naked Australian soccer players. Female of course.
The print run for the controversial nude calendar, featuring women from the "Matildas" soccer team, has increased by 900 per cent in the wake of huge media coverage of the provocative pictorials.
''The original plan was for a low-risk run of 5,000 copies, but we've gone up to 45,000 and it hasn't even been launched yet,'' said Warren Fisher, chief executive of the Australian Women's Soccer Association.
On that basis the calendar will outsell the original Golden Girls calendar, which set the benchmark for such publications. The Golden Girls is believed to have sold 40,000 copies in two years, but such has been the impact of the Matildas calendar that the publisher is considering printing up to 70,000 copies.
Not only does the calendar contain three full-frontal shots of individual players, but a pictorial of two teammates together is certain to generate even greater comment.
''The reason this calendar is generating such amazing interest is that each of the 12 players are expressing themselves individually, there is nothing contrived about it at all,'' Fisher said.
''It is important to point out that although the publisher came up with the idea, it was the players who took it to the next step.
''They have all had the final veto on the images, and they are happy with what they are presenting. They are 12 different people who just happen to be playing together in a team called the Matildas.''
Fisher praised the ''courageous'' decision of the AWSA board in unanimously backing the project.
''When the original approach was made by the publisher, they could easily have taken the conservative approach and said no,'' he said. ''But when the players showed such enthusiasm for it, the board was prepared to support it no matter what the reaction might be. It has become a collaborative project, and to me the board has been courageous on the issue.''
The players involved are Traci Bartlett, Cheryl Salisbury, Taylor, Alison Forman, Sharon Black, Alicia Ferguson, Bridgette Starr, Sunni Hughes, Katrina Boyd, Kim Revell, Sarah Cooper and Traci McGovern.
