Canberra Raiders mascot Victor the Viking with ‘The Lime Green Suit Guy’ Christopher Veilands in 2019. Photo: Supplied.
He’s a man who has gone above and beyond for the Canberra Raiders time and time again, and 2022 will be no different for ‘The Lime Green Suit Guy’ Christopher Veilands, who is set to donate his beloved green suit to help celebrate 40 years of the NRL club.
The Canberra Museum + Gallery will hold a special exhibition, ‘Canberra Raiders: 40 years in the Limelight’, in early 2022. The showcase will celebrate the Canberra rugby league club’s history on the field, as well as the significant community contribution made by the Raiders during the past 40 years.
Some people may know Christopher from seeing him donning his lime green suit at Raiders games, as well as from his victorious appearance on Hard Quiz with Tom Gleeson on the ABC.
The idea for the suit was birthed more than a decade ago when Christopher was walking through a Canberra shopping centre with friends and he passed a shop selling a lime green suit.
“Someone said, ‘You should get one of those suits,’ and I said, ‘OK,’ and it has gone from there,” says Christopher.
There have been a number of different iterations of the green suit since that day.
“You go in and out of your size – some good times and some bad times – and you’ve just got to adapt to it,” says Christopher.
While there was a level of notoriety attached to being ‘The Lime Green Suit Guy’ prior to his appearance on Hard Quiz, that changed quite dramatically after the episode aired in July 2020, when he won with the Canberra Raiders as his specialty topic.
“It used to happen a little bit before Hard Quiz where people would come up and say, ‘Can we get a photo?’ says Christopher. “But now everyone knows me as the guy with the green suit from Hard Quiz so I do get stopped a lot.
“I’ll be walking to the ground and you can hear little kids going, ‘I wonder which team he supports.’ It’s just little things like that. People come up and want photos with you, and it’s a really good conversation starter with people when you go to away games, as well.”
The exhibition at Canberra Museum + Gallery will display Christopher’s beloved green suit, as well as the Hard Quiz mug he received upon winning the episode.
The exhibition will also feature plenty of old-school Raiders merchandise and iconic photos.
For Christopher, it means he’ll start the Raiders season without his beloved suit.
“From the time I don’t have it, during the time of the exhibition, I’m just going to turn up as a normal spectator which should be an interesting experience if people are expecting me in the suit,” he says.
Despite the Raiders’ underwhelming 2021 season, their superfan is optimistic about what season 2022 may hold for the men in green.
“I think our major problem last year was our halfback,” says Christopher. “Between the three of them – George Williams, Sam Williams and Matt Frawley – we never really had any stability, and each player had their own strengths and weaknesses.
“I’m really excited to see what [Jamal] Fogarty brings. He’s learning from one of the best halfbacks to play the game in Ricky [Stuart, coach].
“I’m excited for the year. We’ve got more depth in our forward pack and hopefully we can get through the season without too many injuries and we can make the grand final again.”
The Canberra Raiders: 40 Years in the Limelight exhibition will run at the Canberra Museum + Gallery from 26 February, 2022, until 21 May, 2022.
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