working code for listing unique values of custom field

    <h1>Judges</h1>

          <?php

// The variables have not been adequately sanitized to protect against SQL Injection attacks: http://us3.php.net/mysql_real_escape_string

    $hostname = "localhost";
    $username = "wp_test";
    $password = "45455c45hbg";
    $database = "wp_test";

    $link = mysql_connect("$hostname", "$username", "$password");
        if (!$link) {
            echo "<p>Could not connect to the server '" . $hostname . "'</p>\n";
            echo mysql_error();
        }else{
//          printf("MySQL client info: %s\n", mysql_get_client_info());
//          printf("MySQL host info: %s\n", mysql_get_host_info());
//          printf("MySQL server version: %s\n", mysql_get_server_info());
//          printf("MySQL protocol version: %s\n", mysql_get_proto_info());
        }
    if ($link && !$database) {
        echo "<p>No database name was given. Available databases:</p>\n";
        $db_list = mysql_list_dbs($link);
        echo "<pre>\n";
        while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($db_list)) {
            echo $row['Database'] . "\n";
        }
        echo "</pre>\n";
    }
    if ($database) {
    $dbcheck = mysql_select_db("$database");
        if (!$dbcheck) {
            echo mysql_error();
        }else{
            // Check tables
            $sql = "SELECT Distinct `meta_value` FROM `wp_postmeta` WHERE `meta_key` LIKE 'judge' LIMIT 0, 30 ";
            $result = mysql_query($sql);
            if (mysql_num_rows($result) > 0) {
                echo "<ul>";
                while ($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)) { ?>
                    <li><a href="<?php echo esc_url( home_url( '/' ) ); ?>judge/<?php echo "{$row[0]}"; ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
                    <?php echo "{$row[0]}\n";
                    echo "</a>";
                    echo "</li>";
                }
echo "</ul>";
            } else {
                echo "<p>The database '" . $database . "' contains no tables.</p>\n";
                echo mysql_error();
            }
        }
    }

?>