For many years – decades now – football clubs at the elite levels have sought more access to ovals in the off-season, pretty much telling various cricket clubs to play elsewhere. On distant grounds. Out of the way.
There were other factors at play too, but in district cricket in Melbourne, these days known as Victorian Premier Cricket, Collingwood Cricket Club merged and moved to Camberwell in 1996, South Melbourne went to Casey around the same time, and Fitzroy found itself in Doncaster 30 years ago. Richmond said goodbye to Punt Road Oval in 2012 and headed out to Glen Waverley, followed a year later by North Melbourne merging and basing itself in Greenvale. Footscray Cricket Club at least stayed in its own postcode, shifting from the Whitten Oval to the Mervyn G. Hughes Oval.
The relocations of these clubs struck me as yet another example of the Australian Football League flexing its considerable muscle, stomping all over the suburban sporting landscape.
(And don’t get me started on how the AFL, in concert with a limp mainstream media, dominates/floods/invades the sports pages in the so-called off-season, leaving scraps – in brief items – for news on Sheffield Shield games.)
But it’s not all one-way traffic. Football does not always get its own way.
Last Saturday morning I was having a kick with a mate at a local ground*. Ten in the morning. Sun shining. Excellent surface. Nice soft breeze. Two blokes in their 60s kicking a small Sherrin (a Lyrebird) back and forth. One of us wearing second-hand boots, the other a pair of runners. I was wearing an old cricket cap to keep the sun out of my eyes. Twenty metre kicks from the forward pocket to the top of the goal square. Maybe 30 metres if we were game enough, good enough. Neither of us trying to emulate Malcolm Blight or Joe Daniher. No goalposts anyway. Fair enough. It is cricket season.
Two friends with seniors cards trying to be kids again, trying to stave off the inevitable.
In the middle of the oval some men were preparing the turf pitch for the day’s play. Rolling, sweeping, brushing. Knocking in the holes for the stumps. Painting the crease lines with one of those frames. Dedicated club members.
My mate and I kicked the Lyrebird back and forth for a while, occasionally jogging (certainly not running!) and calling for the ball. We were a long way from the centre-wicket area.
With much of the pitch preparation done one of the volunteer curators began walking off the ground.
Towards me.
“First game of the season?” I said.
“No, we played last Saturday.”
“Oh. You’ve got good weather for the game.”
“Yeah. Now. Look,” he said, glancing down at my feet. “You can’t wear footy boots here. Not on this ground. Not during the cricket season.”
“Oh.”
He nodded to his right. “You can wear boots on that ground.”
“Oh. I see.”
The lesser oval. The junior ground. The rougher surface.
“It’s a council rule. The boots.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Yeah.”
I can’t play footy – even our very gentle kick-to-kick – unless I’m wearing boots. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be true. You’ve got to have some grip on the grass, even it’s all in the mind.
The curator had a point. Driven by a passion for his turf, and a lifelong love of cricket.
And I’m probably being a hypocrite by playing kick-to-kick during the cricket season. But it wasn’t as if my mate and I were a herd of buffalo, of bison, of buffed fair-dinkum fit young footballers in ridiculously early pre-season training, stampeding across the centre-wicket area.
So, next Saturday morning?
Maybe the junior oval. The other ground. Out of the way.
*No, Smokie Dawson, not the Fearon!
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About Vin Maskell
Founder and editor of Stereo Stories, a partner site of The Footy Almanac. Likes a gentle kick of the footy on a Sunday morning, when his back's not playing up. Been known to take a more than keen interest in scoreboards - the older the better.
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Appalling Vin. These local Councils are so full of themselves it’s not funny. Power crazy boneheads.
You can’t wear footy boots but they let dogs run rampant leaving barker’s eggs everywhere.
Good luck.
Thanks Dips. Boneheads indeed. Yes a few unleashed dogs were in the vicinity. (Don’t get me started on dogs. And certain dog owners.) The kick-to-kick I was having with my mate on this particular ground was only the fourth or fifth time I’d played there. So to speak. Whereas there were no problems at all during the 20 years of the Sunday morning ritual at the Fearon in Williamstown, much of it in the off-season. Indeed, I can still picture Smokie rolling the pitch while I was jogging by taking a stab-pass from Bruno or Rodger or JD or Paul….Cheers!
A great little read Vin. On AFL flexing – attended a fab launch last night at Reading of a book called The Football Wats by a (younger than us) writer from Yarraville about VFL /VFA. Was an excellent discussion with Gideon Haigh. You may have encountered at Queensclif Lit fest. If not highly recommend
Vin Dips nails it absolutely ridiculous full of his own importance
The book that Jane references in her comment is The Football War by Xavier Fowler. https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-football-war-electronic-book-text
Looks Interesting. My belief is that State Leagues will disappear back into community/amateur leagues once the mooted AFL Reserves competition arrives. European soccer has “the squeezed middle” with clubs outside the top levels struggling to survive. Australian football will follow as the AFL swallows all the available $’s.
Onya Vin. Keep wearing your boots. As an accredited grumpy old man I’d just tell the council employee to fk off.
Start a revolution Vin!!!
They might take my boots, but they’ll never take my freedom.!!!
I have it on good authority that he was jealous of your 50 metre drop kicks and left foot reverse torps….
Very nice yarn Vin ????
Trouble maker
All I can say is those insufferable groomed-grass-loving cricketers have made an enemy in me!
I enjoyed the sense of shame you almost portrayed. And rightly too. Playing kick to kick while the pitch was having its face put on? Appalling.
Seriously, though. Enjoyed this very much. The placement of the line “No goalposts anyway” was superb.
A nice little caption of club relocations in Melbourne. Now that the old VFA is now the VFL, I’m wondering how many footy ovals at that level no longer have cricket played on them. The only ones left in Adelaide are Woodville, Prospect and Glenelg.
Wearing your cricket boots to kick the footy after September on a cricket ground should be mandatory!