Almanac Footy: Harry

 

 

Harry

 

Season’s over. Done and muddy at the end and dusted, without any September action.

 

Goddamn it!

 

Finals, or bottom of the ladder, I miss footy in the off season, and mourn the last training run. Always.

 

This year, I write a little piece to my teammates about the importance of hunger. Of peaking with footy fitness in the last home-and-away, even if we have no hope of playing finals. Of going for a run on during finals on Thursdays, even if we’re not in finals. Of going to finals to watch other teams shoot for glory. Of stoking the fire and jealousy towards those who did make finals.

 

So we might have hunger it takes to play finals.

 

 

 

The Otway Under 13 netballers made the elimination. They’re training on Thursday. I knock off early and take my daughter over to give her a taste of rarefied air. The electric atmosphere that comes with finals. I watch her watching them, how determined they are, how much taller they walk, the purpose with which they and their coaches go about it, hoping it inspires, then drift back to the footy oval.

 

   Winter has saved its worst for early Spring. There’s been little rain this season. The ground is lush green and soft despite the three-day storm we’re in the middle of, not much mud anywhere. A number of juniors are about, having a goof-around kick due to their sisters over at the netball. These boys are too young to have a proper kick with in the rain. It feels awkward.

 

 

 

  Harry’s out there, the Under 15s full back. A good solid kid, who has a good, solid kick and plays good, solid football. We lob a few at each other, then the senior full back arrives. Rory got the thing I’d written.

 

   “Yeah, the season’s still going…,” he tells me, easily.

 

   My hammies are shot to hell, running is hard, but stuff it. Like the besotted teenager in love with footy, I blame all my injuries on work, and pick up the pace a little.

 

   The club footies have limped across the line. Too easy, I pull my 700^th game match-day ball out. It’s golden! Shape still perfect, just enough wear to be soft into the mitts. And, with the rain and drizzle, becomes waterlogged in seconds.

 

   “Hey”, Rory stops, the pill in his hands. “I don’t wanna screw it up. This ball’s important.”

 

   I steal it off him and go for goal. It skids through, before continuing on, heaving and hoeing along the gravel carpark.

 

   “Footies are made to be kicked,” I tell him.

 

   To do less would deny the substance of how I got it. Never kept a single trophy. Not a medal. I just love kicking footballs.

 

   We break into a ripper two-way kick, nothing big, nothing over 40metres. Just easy 30 metre lobs out in front of sideways leads. Rory has a beautiful kick on him, and my hammies can handle this distance. It’s magic. We’re both good at the run-onto-it kick, even if mine loop a little, and, between us, find the sweetest thing in football; rhythm.

 

   Harry joins us, which is a private joy. Three generations of Otway, in the rain, easily kicking and leading a week after our seasons ended. This Heaven!

 

   It lasts forever. Forever!

 

   The air goes dark, then light, and back, as rain turns to drizzle, to clear sky and back. We kick as if time has no meaning. We ¾ pace lead until knackered. There are three glorious things in football; the clunk of a good mark; the crispness of putting a ball out in front of someone just right, seeing them run onto it; running onto a perfect kick, and arching through the ball into delivering it. I will never get sick of any of them! Ever!

 

   The world turns darker still. Hard rain starts belting down. We keep kicking. There’s a patch in the sky where the sun is setting above the valley wall, all pale with drifting mists and water. It lights up the rain, all of it. Fat, heavy drops white with light, in a white corridor, framed by black clouds, and a silhouette of Harry, turned to shadow by the sun behind him, the kid, the future, marking and playing on, kicking from the centre, across the oval.

 

   Soon, we goad Beau Perkins to join in, all 11 years old and likeable and goofy. The son of one of the club’s greatest ever players, its best ruckmen, and his wife, a fine netballer. Both tall, perfectly built sportspeople. Beau has the genes to play AFL, if he wants, but at the moment is just happy flopping about, killing it in the Under 12s, and kicking the ball by himself for the hours until home time, having shots forever.

 

   His dad was my best ever teammate, a mate for life. We shared the ruck, we took ‘em apart, our small pose roamed the ranges after games, lost down logging coupe tracks, one adventure after another. He had a big heart, and big work ethic and a love of live, and still does and always will. Always!

 

   Beau waits for me to stab the pill to him.

 

   “I never once kicked the ball to a stationary target,” I tell him.

 

   “It’s true, drives his teammates after training nuts,” says Rory. “If they want to have shots at goal, he just waits in the goal square until they lead for him”.

 

   Beau leads straight at me. Straight! No left or right. No easy lobs, no angles. Then does it for the next kick, and the next. Wherever we are, whatever the situation. Straight! At! Me! The ball’s soaked up the Franklin, yet he never goes for a chest mark. Out front, out front.

 

   This 11 year-old.

 

   What a privilege it is to kick with him and Harry, and Rory, and be a part of this football/netball club. The glory of Aussie Rules, a week after our season’s over. These teammates! An honour.

 

   Another kick. Beau leads straight at it.

 

   It makes me happy; for him and his parents and football.

 

   Finally, I pull the pin, and hour and forever after we started, and gather whatever senior footballers are milling about the rooms, to go as a group and show our support for the netballers.

 

 

More from Matt Zurbo HERE.

 

 

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