Matthew Pritchard

For the Roman Catholic bishop, see Matthew Pritchard (bishop).
Matthew Pritchard

Pritchard at a show at National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland, Feb. 2008
Born Mathew Pryderi Pritchard
(1973-03-30) 30 March 1973
Cardiff, Wales
Occupation Actor

Mathew Pryderi Pritchard (born 30 March 1973) is a Welsh professional skateboarder, daredevil and one quarter of the Dirty Sanchez crew, who have their own television programme on MTV and also appears on Balls of Steel with Pancho as the Pain Men.

Dirty Sanchez

Pritchard is known as the founder of Dirty Sanchez, along with Lee Dainton, with whom he filmed the skating bootleg tape "Pritchard vs Dainton", where the two were in competition against each other at skating, as well as hitting and playing pranks on each other, the basis of the Dirty Sanchez programme. Dainton and Pritchard went on to appear on MTV's "Wrecked", which follows the same format as the "Prichard vs Dainton" bootleg, with more extreme pranks and stunts being played. Episodes of the show "Wrecked" featuring Pritchard can be viewed on the MTV website. Pritchard was also seen on channel four's Balls of Steel with friend and fellow skateboarder Michael "Pancho" Lock. In 2006 Pritchard, Dainton, Locke, and Dan Joyce traveled around the globe doing stunts and pranks that related to the seven deadly sins for Dirty Sanchez: The Movie.

Pritchard is extremely arachnophobic, which the rest of the team usually take advantage of by playing pranks on him involving spiders. Pritchard has been a lifelong Cardiff City Football Club supporter and regularly attends home games. Late Stereophonics drummer Stuart Cable was a close friend of Pritchard.[1]

Early career

Pritchard was born in Cardiff. He worked for Globe Shoes for six years and later designed his own signature shoe, A Sleep When You're Dead model named after his motto. Pritchard began skateboarding at the age of 15. His first sponsor was City Surf skate shop, a skateboard shop established in 1986 that still trades to this day in Cardiff city centre and Pritchard is still on the team! Skateboarding still occupies a large part of his life. He spent some time on Panic Skateboards in the late 1990s before transferring to his current team, Death Skateboards. He had a small skateboarding role in Death Skateboards recent video release, Squadrophenia.

Charity

In July 2006 Dainton and Pritchard set a challenge to skate 192 miles from Cardiff to Newquay in aid of Cancer Research Wales.

He ran the Cardiff half-marathon in 2007, raising £2,000 for Cancer Research Wales. He also ran the Cardiff marathon in 2008 after only a few hours sleep from doing a Pritchard vs. Dainton gig in Plymouth the night before, and raised £500 for Cancer Research Wales. Pritchard ran a half marathon in 2009 in 1 hour 43 minutes, raising £700 for Cancer Research Wales. He could have beaten his personal best but vomited 20 meters from the finish line, slowing him down. He ran 900 miles with his friend Matthew Ryan, raising thousands for cerebral palsy patient Elodie Wilton.[2]

In late May 2015, on a private jet flight from Amsterdam to Nevada for the popular car rally the Gumball 3000, Pritchard got drunk, stripped himself naked and marked his territory on Dolph Lundgren's feet.[3]

Stabbing

On 7 September 2009, Pritchard was attacked with a knife in a supermarket in Toftwood, Norfolk, suffering serious stab wounds to his neck and chest.[4][5] Police later confirmed that a man in his 40s, Mark Edward Smith, had been arrested on suspicion of the stabbing. Pritchard had been stabbed in the neck when he intervened in a dispute in a shop, a court has heard. Pritchard had asked Smith to show some respect because there were women and children around. He told the jury that he "just grabbed him by the waist and by the arms and pushed him out of the shop. He slashed down my neck. It all happened so quick." The preliminary hearing took place in early December 2009 where Smith pleaded not guilty to the stabbing or having a knife and he stated that he acted in self-defence.

On 18 February 2010 the jury was discharged due to a legal issue with a juror. The judge decided the accused would not get a fair trial with only 11 jurors instead of 12. A decision would have been reached on Friday 19 February had the jury not been discharged. The jury heard that Pritchard described himself as more or less a stuntman and the judge had described the thought of his stunts as "giving him a headache".

On 13 August 2010, Smith was found guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and on 27 August was sentenced to five years custody with time already held in remand to count towards the sentence. He is to serve no less than 1 year and 11 months from the date of sentencing when he will then be eligible for parole.

References

  1. ↑ Bevan, Nathan (2009-04-05). "Stuart Cable reveals all about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle". Wales Online. Retrieved 2010-06-07.
  2. ↑ http://sidewalk.mpora.com/news/pritchard_and_dykie_run_john_ogroats_to_land_end.html
  3. ↑ http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/is-this-the-most-debaucherous-flight-ever/news-story/311dfa386a1e6dccdb120dc4a0d19989
  4. ↑ Hall, Sarah. "MTV star stabbed in Norfolk attack". Retrieved 8 September 2009.
  5. ↑ BBC (8 September 2009). "Dirty Sanchez man stabbed in shop". BBC News. Retrieved 8 September 2009.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/12/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.