Almanac (Footy) Life: The Colts of Traralgon

Gather Ye Rosebuds, Colts of Traralgon

 

Ride boldly… and never fear the spills

 

As a teacher, I’m in the business of working with those on the cusp of adulthood. It is a privilege to be a witness to their final moments just before they step into their destinies – for good or ill. To be engulfed and revitalised by their coltish energy, year after year. Be they future footballers, dancers, plumbers or hairdressers. Builders, bakers or boilermakers. COVID has muted their dreams somewhat. But there is something innately optimistic about colts in the early days of spring. They can’t help but hope and believe in their dreams. It is a time in one’s life where it is okay to let the pony have its head and gallop freely.

 

The Traralgon Football Club thirds were once known as the colts. It’s an apt term. Banjo Paterson’s colt from old Regret, apocryphal or not, inspired a ride that turned older riders from near and far into adventurers again and a stripling into not just a man, but a legend. The seventeen-year-old thoroughbred Bernie Quinlan, who was a premiership colt for Traralgon, arrived in the VFL and drew immediate comparisons with none other than Mr. Football himself, E.J. Whitten.

 

Late last year, as we had what proved to be temporary respite from the COVID lockdowns, I finished my jog with a lap around the Traralgon Showgrounds Oval as the Traralgon thirds team, the striplings, were finishing their training session. It was one of those soupy early spring evenings with a thick warmth in the air that hinted at summer. The sun was setting low over to the west of the ground, the Traralgon Creek side. Long and distorted shadows, made by the team as they trained, spilled across the length of the entire oval and beyond. The modern-day colts, reigniting themselves and our town as the long shadows of the departing day flickered and heralded the end of a lockdown and the dawning of a new season. I love this part of my town. The road to Traralgon South, and the forests that once sustained our entire economy, sits to the south and runs into the Showgrounds like a critical artery into the very heart of Traralgon. The home of the Maroons. This oval, where future VFL/AFL stars Jack Scott, Kelvin Templeton, Quinlan, the Cordy brothers, and Tim Membrey once learned how to gallop and soar as their modern-day contemporaries were on this particular night. But it’s also where lawyers, doctors and industry leaders once played junior netball and football. It’s the place where they watched the annual Apex club bonfire and fireworks and where they exhibited artwork in the Traralgon and District Annual Show. It is the heart of our town.

 

As a year twelve teacher, you ride the bumps and hit the troughs with the students. But at this time of year, with their results imminent, you step back and feel a sense of awe at what may unfold for them. The impossible becomes possible when you are a coltish young adult. Mary Shelley scribbled out the novel Frankenstein at seventeen and Mozart had composed several operas by then. Boris Becker won Wimbledon when he was seventeen, and even though he had a mighty career afterwards, the game seemed to become harder for him after that. Alexander the great was a but a stripling when he started conquering. Clearly geniuses, all of them. But there was more to it than that. They accomplished the extraordinary in part because no one had yet told them that these things were difficult. And the glorious thing about being seventeen is, they wouldn’t have listened anyway.

 

One of the first proper grown-up books that I ever read was ‘The Cider-House Rules’ by American novelist John Irving. In this wonderful novel, each and every night, Dr Larch bids goodnight to the unadopted orphans in his care with the triumphant ‘Good-night you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.’ This may be a bit mawkish, but it is a line that kicks me right in the teacher every single time. Whatever happens with their results this week, I wish my coltish former students nothing but the same clear optimism that Larch imbues his charges with.

 

Most of the current colts of Traralgon don’t know anything of Bernie Quinlan. It has been many generations now. There are many who don’t even follow the footy, its cultural stranglehold over our town and our lives loosens with every generation. But I like to hope that when life leaves them sixty-five metres out from their own goals and their dreams. Perhaps with some metaphorical wind and rain bucketing into their faces, they don’t look for someone else to pass off the ball to but instead go back and take the shot themselves. Princesses and princes of Traralgon, queens, and kings of Gippsland good luck in 2022. It’s later than you think.

 

 

 

You can read more from Shane Reid Here.

 

 

To return to the www.footyalmanac.com.au  home page click HERE

 

Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

Do you enjoy the Almanac concept?
And want to ensure it continues in its current form, and better? To help keep things ticking over please consider making your own contribution.

 

Become an Almanac (annual) member – CLICK HERE
One-off financial contribution – CLICK HERE
Regular financial contribution (monthly EFT) – CLICK HERE