Round 16 August 9th 1986
A1 Griff’s Greek Goners
Adelaide Uni 9.12 lost Greek 10.9 (Weigall Oval)
Goalkickers: Tasker 2, Cooke, Eaton, Foster, Hall, Huston, Moy, S Parker
Best Players: Williams, Moy, James, Kenny, Keynes, Hall
Uni’s seven week winning streak is over. The wheels are well and truly off the Griff bus and I’ll be surprised if he sees the season out after losing to the mid-table crucifix divers. The garlic sauce went well with the well onioned lamb wrapped in pita bread at half time. Unfortunately, I’m talking about the players long break repast, courtesy of the home side’s generous catering, not my mid-game snack. A clever ploy by the Greeks, they slipped out to a five goal lead early in the third term, as the Uni boys spent most of their time seeking out sloppy souva seconds rather than their opposite number.
The double chance is now looking shaky, even though the Uni best players were filled with hard units and skipper Mick Kenny this week.
A8 Glamour Side
Adelaide Uni 17.15 def Gaza 6.5 (Klemzig Oval)
Goalkickers: Burfield 4, Lee 4, Graetz 3, Maddern 3, Hansen, Stewart, Goose
Best Players: Lange, Hansen, Graetz, Doran, Burfield, Lee
I might have to give Young Maddern a portion of my sesquicentenary grant, his weekly words saved me a trip down North East Road.
Coach’s Notes: It is the day after Prosh. The Derro, Flasher and six other blithered players arrive at the intellectual wilderness of the North East. Two never make it. Flasher is woken up when he is punched in the mouth in the third quarter and asks whether the Second World War is over. The Chinaman marks his own kick and from 20 yards puts it through for a goal. The Jerk is unable to communicate with his ruck man Irish Stewart. He is feeling sick – the repair bill for Irish’s new Alfa Romeo which he miraculously hit (given the complete absence any other vehicles in the vicinity of Park 9) after practice on the Thursday before is $468. Not daunted by that experience, he has gone on an alcoholic rampage that fated night and is arrested for stealing pot plants. On the basis that he will plead guilty to the charge, the police decide to forget the other misdemeanours – urinating in a public place, being a jerk and making love to a horse. Cousin Nick Raschella plays and gets a kick.
A9 Sty Council
Adelaide Uni 22.19 def Burnside Kensington 1.1 (Park 9)
Goalkickers: Ball 6, Leyland 6, Schwerdt 3, Marinoff 2, Priest 2, Wachtel 2, Fulwood
Best Players: Leyland, Heath, Davidson, Ball, Stendt, Fahey
Well I never. Despite the Council denuding the denizens of the leaf, they still managed to enrage both their payroll-officer-sons-of-AMP-agents opposition and the man in white (with black socks and St Vinnies white Converse hi-tops). Not content with fifteen of the best from the little blokes, the big blokes went bananas after conceding what turned out to be a solo Burnside goal, abusing the scrawny Mitsubishi spare parts storeman, after he awarded a dubious free. From the sidelines (or maybe it as the half-forward line), Uni’s well-oiled bunch of followers gave him heaps of polysyllabic vitriol, which he neither understood or accepted.
Having overseen half a dozen of the A9’s games already this season, the stumpy umpy reached the limits of his patience. After the scuffle, he called an early halt to the final quarter by grabbing the Ross Faulkner, deviating to clock one of Sty’s vocal mates, twice, before jumping into his amber Datsun 120B en route to Amateur League House to hand in his whistle and his votes.
Fortunately, one of my younger colleagues Chris Kenny, a tree hugging dog fancier, had been dispatched to kick start his new found calling at Park 9. He spent most of the game on the far right wing, but saw enough of the incident to lodge this report. I doubt whether we’ll be hearing any more of him though, there aren’t that many Australian gooses that would employ him, mark my words.
Gordon “Glendi” Agars
About Mark 'Swish' Schwerdt
Saw my first SANFL game in 1967 - Dogs v Peckers. Have only ever seen the Dogs win 1 final in the flesh (1972 1st Semi) Mediocre forward pocket for the AUFC Blacks (1982-89) Life member - Ormond Netball Club -That's me on the right
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That newspaper clipping is priceless!
Umpire dials Spectator. You don’t see that every day. And I had a front row seat.
As you would expect our backline and their forwards had a bit of energy to burn as the ball had only been down their end once all day and it wasn’t going back again. The umpire had the ball back in the centre and was taking little interest in the melee that persisted in the goal square. He took one last look and was about to bounce the ball and get on with it. Good idea.
I prepare to take the ruck. Just my opponent between me and the goals at the other end. Let’s go.
Suddenly a spectator appears in the centre and starts berating the ump. I had time to suggest to my opponent that he remove his supporter. He denied knowing the guy. I didn’t recognise him. So, probably just one of those guys you see yelling at trees outside a pub? Harmless enough?
We were considering what to do about it when the tirade ceased and, as requested by the umpire, the spectator turned to leave the field. Problem solved?
Not quite. Suddenly, the umpire rushes past me, bounces himself into position behind the spectator, winds up his right arm, and (allegedly) delivers a huge round house from behind. In what suddenly becomes slo-mo I see small objects flying from the impact zone – in that instant I assume it to be teeth but later turn out to be the sun glinting off the remains of the (alleged) victims spectacles.
The ump has dropped the ball in the attack, never breaking stride he scoops it up, mutters something about the game being over, and runs straight off the park.
Utter confusion ensues.
Questions for Rulebook: Would you have handled this differently? What should the umpire have done?
So, I hear on Melbourne and Victorian Radio that there is a coup brewing at the Queen’s Head. Chocka, Bob Neil and Ox Ravesi all got a mention. Did anyone see them leaving via the laneway at the side?
What a debacle of a match that was! From memory, the Amateur League penalised Adelaide Uni for ‘not providing a safe environment’ for the umpire because the guy he dialed was as skinny as a rake and wearing glasses but admitedly voicing his opinion of how bad the umpire was, so clearly an immediate threat to his safety. As a result we were docked the winners points because of it. I guess there was always a faint chance Burnside Kensington could have staged a remarkable comeback and kicked the 24 goals required to win in the remaining 5 minutes of the match!
So, did the SAAFL hold a full enquiry at Amacha League House? It was 30 years ago, whether or not it was an alleged strike should have been resolved. Would the ghost of A.F. Statton know?
Hey Big Jim, you answered before I’d asked the question! ESP
Gordon entertaining as always love the a grade report.I remember the prosh day side of things and can take a lot of the blame for all of us having monstrous hangovers as you bought beers and food and were given raffle tickets to use for the purchase well doesn’t every one have spare raffle books in there bag ?
So obviously we didn’t pay for a thing and yes the umpire did pay the mark to the chinaman from his own kick.I remember at HYB that night that the umpire was well and truly the main topic of conversation and
At the races while I may have been tempted to belt a player or spectator I surprise surprise just use plenty of voice and generally win a war of words,in the case above I would not have continued the game until the spectator was off the ground and I wouldn’t have belted him
Swish I missed the 1986 season because I was working overseas until late in the season.
First week back I decided to go and watch the Sty Council who I had been hearing so much about.
In the first quarter right in fact of the spectators on the wing at Park 9 the ball went out of bounds just in front of Sty. There was a Burnside Kensington player right behind him who ran full pelt into Sty’s elbow as Sty pulled up.
It took until the last quarter for a group of the Burnside players to decide to attempt to exact some revenge on Sty and they gang tackled him. One of the spectators ( a mate of Sty) ran onto the ground accusing the umpire of failing to protect Sty. Having delivered his message he then turned and started to walk back off the ground. The umpire then ran after him and dialed him from behind breaking his glasses and extracting blood. Without breaking stride the umpire with ball under arm headed for his car and drove off.
Yep, the bespectacled slighlty built spectator was clearly an immediate threat to the umpire’s personal safety so as he walked off the ground after saying his piece the umpy saw fit to literally king hit him from behind with no warning and then immediately piss off from the ground never to be seen again. An obvious case of typical Uni intimidation requiring the loss of points from the game!
While I hadn’t met that spectator prior to that game, I did get to know him a bit afterwards. I think there is scope for arguing that the umpire got it about right. Sorry Sty.
Bespectacled, slightly built Adelaide crazy person? I guess it had to catch up with me sometime. Still It worked for me and Burnside in ’86. Now that the precedent has been set I might try it again Friday week against the Hawks at Subi. God knows my Eagles need the points.
Might have to use a different line on the umpy though. It was only when I said “you are a worse maggot than Rulebook” that he thumped me back in ’86.
Thanks Gordon, after 30 year that week has finally come back to haunt me again!
Milts the underground reporter,bloody Uni thug supporters,well played,PB.Jerk I remember that week well it was actually a achievement to hit,Irishs car at least you celebrated it in fine style things like this cab only happen at the worlds greatest fc
Thanks all, especially for the eyewitness accounts.
It turns out that Chris Kenny is Mick Kenny’s cousin and one of my Twitter buds remembers him training with West Adelaide in the mid-80s.
Technically, I think the match was awarded to Burnside, but I was more worried about whether my three goals would still count, such was my team-oriented outlook back then.
Gordon was probably too engrossed in his dolmades to notice Keg Foster’s selection in the A1s.