Lockett to Winmar

Winmar to Lockett.   Lillee to Marsh.   Just saying it sounds beaut.   In footy, in my generation, it was “Winmar to Lockett!” Oh, yeah!   Winmar. To. Locket. Just to hear those words again.   Before my time it was Farmer to Goggin. We are all history, or soon will be. I would [Read more]

Fitzroy: Part I

Fitzroy Pt. 1   Lou barracked for Geelong and had a wicked laugh. All bongs and cackles. I’d had my wost year ever, at the club I liked least, and had qualified for reserves finals. Fuck the ‘locals first’ policy. I played a corker. We lost anyway. The season was done. As planned, Lou and [Read more]

Now He Can Play

Now He Can Play.   This happened on one of those beaut days, down in the rolling Carlile Valley, where Otway sometimes play their home games. Mid-season, usually, to get away from the mud of the mountains and let the ground mend. Carlile is the bush. Nowhere, in the best way. It doesn’t even have [Read more]

You Know

You Know.   Every time I, or a team I coach, make it into finals, about now, when the time is right and the steel has to come out, I tell this story to the squad. Because it was true. Because it hurt.   It was my first year at the club. We had only [Read more]

Characters III: Almost Everybody Loved Brauz

    Almost everybody loved Brauz. I did, in spades. He was a freak of a player. CHF. Strong, like Ablett Sr. Could leap and kick like Ablett. Run and hit packs like Ablett. He had natural power. Head-to-toe. And never trained and was always on the grog. He would win any 400 race, but [Read more]

The Grass Is Always Greener

Embarrassing Football Moments No. 3,204   The Grass Is Always Greener.   I played a lot of footy with Brendo, many years ago. Better than that, we were mates. It was good to come home for a few days. To catch up. He’d done well in the years I’d been away. Worked hard and used [Read more]

Characters II. The Local Variety.

    The first character I ever saw in footy was at my first club. Andy had long, thin hair, a mo, three stops on each boot, as many teeth and played on the wing. If the niggle was up, and he gave away a free, he’d stand the mark, the ball between his legs. [Read more]

One Point

    The Ressies had it in the bag. The mob we were playing had to beat us to take our spot in the finals, but didn’t. On a day forecast for rain, the clouds danced over the mountain without stopping to even look. Hell, it wasn’t weather, it was scenery. Under that, on the [Read more]

Characters. Part I.

Characters Pt.1.   Lenny Hayes has it. I’m sure. He plays with it, in a way that defines a person. Character. What a jet! I’d be stoked to meet him. Just to say thanks. But there is character, and there are characters. The game needs ‘em. I need ‘em. On the footy field, in my [Read more]

A Lovely Bullet

    I met her up in the mountains, which was rare.   She was tour guiding while I rebuilt the forest floor, in the middle of winter. Head-to-toe in mud. She didn’t care. Come autumn, the girls from down in the Bay had arranged a female footy match to raise money for something. You [Read more]

What Makes Them Tick?

    Cameron Ling seems like a top bloke. That counts. In my books, anyway. He used to surf Joanna Beach, and Castles, where I lived. I’d see him with his mates, up on the ridge, at the tavern, being Cameron. No tags on himself. I wonder what he thinks before a game? Does he [Read more]

Anticipation

I’ve been looking forward to this game all year. I cut a few extra loads of wood on Friday, finishing past sunset, just to be tired. To sleep early, but couldn’t. I should have gone to the pub, done my routine. Watched some AFL while nursing a few beers, letting small Friday talk bounce off [Read more]

Football’s Not Everything

    Murder was a talented kid, and trouble. A ratbag, a thief. Chockers with personality. I wasn’t wide-eyed, but I liked him a lot, anyway. Maybe because when I was a kid I was a bit of trouble. Maybe just because.   There doesn’t always have to be a reason.   He could play [Read more]

Thriving on pain

They. Are. Freaks! Most all of them! I only started watching because of sleep problems. In the midnight, in the bush. And then I was interested, and then I was hooked. The cyclists of the Tour de France rolled and whirled across and up my telly every night. They pushed through pain, they went past [Read more]

Knights vs Van Der Haar

These are the things I’d pay good money to see. Goodes on Pavlich. Judd and Barlow, toe-to-toe, kick-for-kick. Pendlebury and Hayes. Both of them tackle as much as they win the ball for themselves. Goddamn, I loved it when Pike played on Hird. Total opposites, in every way. Both proud men. How clever was the [Read more]

Airports and Grunt

    The road must have been in a safe seat. It was shit, but in a good way. Thin, with narrow shoulders, ebbing and flowing through a bumpy patchwork of tar repairs, but, suddenly, it bent and rose across a railway track and smoothed out into a town that was more like a village. [Read more]

Football Memories

      We were engaged. Work wise, her heart was tough, leather. I loved her for that. The way she had dreams. In life it was porcelain. I was in love with that, too. With keeping her safe. I had only ever taken her to one match, when I was still in the bush. [Read more]

Football fact 1,000,000,072: Guy McKenna was tops!

by Matt Zurbo Not enough people give backmen their due. We get all wooden over anything with the name Ablett in it. Hell, if Dick Smith wants to keep us buying Aussie, he should brand Ablett soup! There have been songs written about Carey and Lockett. We all know how grouse Judd is! What a [Read more]

16 Makes Bad Maths

    Last week I ran out for my 500th, under the mountains, which felt right. They wore the rain like a goddamn hat. My home was buried in black clouds, as if there was a ceiling above our match. But, down in the valley, from the east, the weather wasn’t that bad. It’s great [Read more]

Otway

History is a (not always pretty) Beautiful Thing.   Rory Harrington was a part of a Juniors team I coached eleven years ago. He was always going to be a dairy farmer like his dad, and his dad’s dad before that. School was just killing time. While the other kids dicked around during study periods, [Read more]