The chainsaw packed up well before dusk, but I was already up the other side of Mt Sloak, so locked in the hubs and pushed the ute through the regrowth of an old, steep loggers’ track, looking for Sunday’s jag, thinking too much, until, before I knew it, the sun had fucked off. I had [Read more]
Saturday night footy
April 21, 2011 by 5 Comments
The years click over, but the leathery crack of a good pack mark still makes me horny. It’s only reserves now, but so what? They can hurt you, and try to hurt you, but don’t know how to be a bastard with their bodies when the ball’s in the air. I lead with my [Read more]
Fitzy and the kid
April 19, 2011 by 5 Comments
What the hell was Mike Fitzpatrick thinking? He was a mountain. Tough, no thug, just honest tough. A damn good sort of strong to be. Carl Dietrich would make the headlines, Don Scott punch out his own teammates at training. Neil Balme was crazier than any of them. He’d do more damage than the lot [Read more]
Where old footballers go to die
April 17, 2011 by 2 Comments
The ball comes in on the bounce. I’ve been killing it in the air for ours. The bald No. 13 has been killing it on the ground for his. When I squint I can imagine Martin Pike. We reach for it at the same time, knocking it on, then, in heat of moment and snap [Read more]
Rain in Tasmania, but training might still be on
April 12, 2011 by 23 Comments
I’d spent two days in Hobart drinking with a mate who has nothing to do with football or the bush, which was great. By the second day, though, I was champing to get back to the mountains and hard work. To the rhythm of small waves from every ute I pass and the chubby clucks [Read more]
Torn Thighs and Golden Boys
April 7, 2011 by 8 Comments
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]
Recent Comments