I tore my thigh muscle in a practice game a few weeks ago, nursed my way through Round 1, couldn’t really train, but rolled out for Round 2, where the opposition ruckman split the injury back open at the first bounce. I played through. With about ten minutes left, I flew for a pack mark, [Read more]
The best game I never saw
April 5, 2011 by 4 Comments
Rotten, Gnawing, Lime-Green Jealousy. There had been record rainfall. You hear that a lot, but sometimes it’s true. My team didn’t make the finals, so, fuck it, a mate and I went for a drive. The car was facing east when we got into it, so we drove east. It was that simple. No plans, [Read more]
Richo
April 3, 2011 by 4 Comments
Matty Richardson is known to the people on the ridge. To every one of us. When he was in his prime – fast, unstoppable, winning matches, splitting packs, dominating the air- one of the kids from up here got cancer. Denis was the oldest of six, from a battler’s family, up in the cold drizzle [Read more]
Pre-season in the Tassie mountains
March 29, 2011 by 10 Comments
Last night was a good one. Everything that’s great about Tasmania, the Wild West down South. I’d missed my team’s last practice match and needed a run, so drove up to the mountains of Scotsdale, where a bush league was having a pre-season lightning Comp, and whored myself to the first team who needed me. [Read more]
Sid Myers rewards
March 20, 2011 by 7 Comments
It was raining hard on a mid-winter Tuesday night; the oval full of water and mud; everything well dark. The club had fallen hard. We were in what, D-division? Something involving knuckles and no hope. We’d won one game, they’d sacked the coach. Eight of us had bothered to show up. We milled around the [Read more]
The Age of Coaches
March 17, 2011 by 6 Comments
One of the beauties of Australian Rules Football, our game, is that it is a living thing. As much as some people yearn for the past, which is usually their youth, life changes, and football does too. Every decade or two a change in style or innovation has taken the game forward. Changes [Read more]
Fifteen
March 11, 2011 by 7 Comments
In answer to your question, a story… Fifteen. I never played junior footy. I was 15, skinny, and went straight to the tatts and knuckles league of a suburb that is now gone. The oval is still there, but it is now a smooth, green thing. The creek at the city end is no-longer toxic. [Read more]
Real footy: kicking game
March 8, 2011 by 9 Comments
Kicking Game. Real Footy. I met Christiano at his home after work. He was covered in dust and stank of sweat. Another day like every other in twenty years on the demolition crew. He hit Billy and hit it and hit it and hit it and hit it and okay, he was ready to leave [Read more]
Fev: the timely role mode
March 4, 2011 by 5 Comments
All the good ones are going: Martin Pike, Ben Cousins, now Fev. It’s a real shame. Not just for the colour football will now lack, not for the loss of their exquisite skills, but because they were great role models for my neighbour’s child. Real role models, from a real world. You see, someone [Read more]
Scratcher
February 23, 2011 by 3 Comments
by Matt Zurbo The oval of the Otway and Districts Footy and Netball Club was packed like I’ve never seen it for Scratcher’s 500th game. Every ex-player, all my old peers, kicking around the boundary, milling between the gums trees that surround the oval, gathering around the oil drum fires, drinking, cheering, being happy, having a [Read more]
Teammates
February 17, 2011 by 1 Comment
by Matt Zurbo I was dragged out of retirement early this year. All up I missed three gloriously injury-free games. The memory of them and my total playing absence, was sweet. But, before long I was back playing my 25th year of adult footy for the not so mighty Otway Districts Reserves. (Second last on [Read more]
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