Almanac (Local) Footy: The One Percenters

 

 

 

Lately, I’ve being coming to match day at Otway with a tear in my eye. Rock up, there are cars everywhere.

E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E! Around the oval, under the gumtrees, along the gravel track, around the netball courts. There are Under 10s playing. Under 14s getting ready. Under 18s arriving. The stuff of life! Youth! Youth and their families. Otway represents a vast mountain range. A land of mists, hard yakka, often forgotten people. Of little money. We can’t buy premierships. The club’s only hope, in a challenging landscape of AirBnBs and the rich turning farms into weekenders, of diminishing locals on the land, is to breed loyalty.

With youth we have a future. With youth, it’s not just about footy, or netball, it’s about a place to belong, to meet, it’s about community.

This Saturday, I did my canteen stint, watching game after game through the corner of my eye, until it was my turn to step out and have a crack, then slipped back into the masses, watching the end result, the seniors. Jacquie Langley was there the whole time. Showing me how to make people coffee, doing this job, that, manning the scoreboard, later still, working the bar, running a few raffles.

Short, limping Jacquie, from Beech Forest, up on the ridge. 61 years old, two jobs, with eight kids here and there, grandkids everywhere. I didn’t give it much thought, never do. Jacquie is simply always there. Always helping. Doing the little things.

We played the top mob in the MacGoos, losing, but held our heads high. My opponent was the son of an ex-teammate. Doggy Middleton was a ripper! Funny, no bullshit, could play. Had passion, but never took anything too serious. A perfect bush footballer. Who loved the shit stir, and still does. Dishing it out, receiving it. Give good, get good, always. Doggy, his wife, in-laws, a whole mob of them, parked on the fence, doing it easy, giving it to me every time I got near it. Cracking jokes, laughing like drains.

The best!

When his boy got moved off me, it was my turn. “Hey, Middleton, come back!” “Over here mate!” “Come on, brother!” “Where ya going?” It was just a size match-up shuffle, but I milked it. Obviously any son of Doggy is also a ripper, and can play, too.

All of it, bush footy. Beautiful.

Next day, I stopped by the oval to pick up something. This weird, quiet green greeted me, an empty oval, an empty gravel car park, that, not 24 hours ago was overflowing with people who might go decades without seeing each other, but for football.

Everything still. Almost.

Jacquie was there, moving bins about, opening them, putting the recycle into bags that she then crammed into her clapped out paint-faded sedan, so full; there was barely room for her in it.

“What’s going on, Jac?” I asked.

“Standard Sundays,” she told me.

She limps her way around the oval, getting all the bins. Taking the recycle to town, 20 minutes down the road, to make some money for the club.

“How much do you get?” I asked.

“About $64,” she laughed. “But it’s money.”

The club offered for her to keep it. She laughed at that, too.

“I stop at Love’s Creek to let the wasps out,” she smiled at me.

I hate seeing someone putting in when I’m not, so asked; “What about the rubbish around the oval?”

“Yeah, I’ll get that later.”

“Be buggered if ya will, Jacqu,” I said.

I was sore as hell from carrying several injuries and being old and stupid. The best Sunday recovery, for me, I’ve discovered, is work. But I just couldn’t be bothered going back into the bush this Sunday.

“Then grab a bin by the dunnies and off ya go,” she told me.

Someone had probably done a sweep before me, it wasn’t so bad. Lots of lollypop sticks, a few alcohol cans. My recovery session was one lap long, and took about an hour. All the while, Jacquie was sorting through rubbish. Filling her second load for the day.

We talked more when I was done.

She starts at the club on Saturdays at 5.30am, and doesn’t finish until the place shuts, last out. On function nights, that’s about midnight. Thursday nights she’s there, too. Again, the bar, the raffles. Thursdays and Saturdays, the only two nights she has off from milking. A job she’ll go to after this.

“I love timekeeping,” she says. “For a few hours I’m safe from other chores. It’s simple.”

I could run a list of people I worship. The behind the scenes gears that keep it all going. Sheryl Mahoney, Denise Robins, Rodney Pearce, so many. Names that mean nothing to you, but you have your own versions of.

The best speech I ever gave in football, I gave to every generation of kids I coached, several times. I’d lazily walk them out into the middle, still in ‘civies’, once or twice a year, before pre-game tactics, or warm-ups.

“Take a second, look around. How lucky are we to live here? Who’d be anywhere else? You live in the best country in the world, at the best time in history to be alive, about to play the best sport there’s ever been. Your parents buy your kits, get you ready, bring you here, people volunteer to goal umpire, run your water, clean the place, mark the boundary, man the gates. A whole community shifts into gear… so you can play football. Be kings…! The best sport, the best country, the best time in history to be alive. All for you! Kings! And all you have to do to seal that victory, is know it. All you have to do to give it worth, is run out and, win or lose, give it everything!”

It’s a double-edged statement. When I think of it these days, I think of Jacquie Langley. Of her having just finished a 14-hour shift at the club the day before, there on her own, sorting through rubbish bins for recycles, cleaning the canvas for next week’s families, supporters, netballers, footballers…so the Otway community can have its centre. So we can run out and be kings and give it everything!

People like her are the face of footy. Not Daicos, not Fyfe. It’s 1%ers. Which, as any decent coach will tell you, are the most important things in football.

Thank you, Jacquie.

 

You can read more from Matt Zurbo 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