Deep inside the Junction Oval scoreboard

When was the Junction Oval scoreboard built? What is its official name? Who rolls the numbers from inside the scoreboard? How many pulleys and panels are part of the scoreboard? Who is Julia and how old is she? What is the future of the Junction Oval scoreboard?   You’ll find the answers to these questions [Read more]

The curious charm of empty Etihad

  Interesting creature, the Foxtel Cup. A new competition, it’s a made-for-pay-TV knockout competition between sixteen clubs from the WAFL, the SANFL, the VFL and other state and territory leagues. The fixture has to fit in with clubs’ byes, availability of grounds, and Foxtel programming. That programming also calls for short quarters of about 20 [Read more]

The barren backyard

I am standing on the Newtown & Chilwell football ground, looking across the grass to my distant past. I started playing here 40 years ago – not for the red-and-black Eagles, just for fun. A kick of the footy after school at the Elderslie Terrace end of the ground with my neighbour John. Two kids, [Read more]

Foggy Fearon Footy

Last week Margaret McCarthy wrote in the Almanac about the joys of learning kick-to-kick with a group of blokes in Williamstown each Sunday morning. The thick fog at the Fearon Reserve on Sunday 12 June did not deter these early rising stars. In fact, they seemed to revel in the relatively unique conditions. (For country [Read more]

Time ticking for the Port Melbourne scoreboard

Peter Vesty is not sentimental about  his home away from home for the past 30 years, the Port Melbourne scoreboard. “I’d like to blow it up or burn it down,” he says, in-between hanging up numbers for a reserves match between Port Melbourne and Werribee. Read more about Peter Vesty and about the 80 year [Read more]

The Final Game

If you could die peacefullyon a footy ground, where would it be? Centre circle, goal square, back pocket? And wouldn’t it be handy if there was a cemetery, with headstones a bit like goalposts, just behind the scoreboard? While visiting the Oakleigh ground this week Vin Maskell met an old Devils’ supporter. More details at  [Read more]

My favourite drop-kick: part 8

  by Vin Maskell The Australian Rules Drop-Kick Appreciation Society is delighted to announce that poet, mathematician and Fitzroy fan Tom Petsinis has been inducted into the society’s Hall of Fame (Literature). Petsinis’ 2006 book Four Quarters includes the 12 verse, 48 line poem Drop Kick. It is a lovely ode to the lost art, [Read more]

Deconstructing Collingwood, part 2

Is an old VFL footy ground still a fair dinkum footy ground if it doesn’t have a fair-dinkum old-fashioned scoreboard? The Collingwood landmark what was the 1966 Victoria Park scoreboard was pulled down last January, as part of turning the ground into a community space.

Deconstructing Collingwood

Collingwood is in a re-building phase. Not the team, but the old ground. The Magpies haven’t played an AFL game at Victoria Park since 1999. Local teams, including the Collingwood reserves in the VFL, have been playing on the oval for nigh on a decade as parts of the ground have fallen into disrepair.

My (not so) favourite drop-kick, part 7

Vin Maskell hears the ugly truth in part seven of his meandering series. The train stuttered and stopped as it tried to pull out of the station. “Passengers,” announced the driver, “we’ve had to stop because some drop-kick in a red cap is trying to force open the doors.” You know the game is just [Read more]

Scoreboard Pressure, the website

Almanackers Les Everett and Vin Maskell have never met but they share an affinity for photographing and philosophising about scoreboards. scoreboardpressure.com is a fledgling website inspired by Australian Rules football scoreboards. The blog celebrates the fact that while all footy scoreboards have the same basic function, they can differ from ground to ground, and from [Read more]

My favourite drop kick, part 6

Vin Maskell continues his whimsical series. Moggs Creek, on the Great Ocean Road near Lorne, doesn’t have a footy oval. The creek doesn’t even have much water. But I’ve got an old football down there, in the three-generation family beach-house. Its scratches are not from backyard trees or goal posts or the streets of the [Read more]

My favourite drop kick, part five

The latest in Vin Maskell’s occasional, indulgent series The new edition of The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers once again records the careers of thousands of players, listing their vital statistics and describing their skills and style of play. Of all those players, going back to 1897, only 57 are noted for their talent for the [Read more]

Home sweet Waverley

What’s it like living in the forward pocket of footy history? Vin Maskell took his camera to Waverley Park to see what happens when a stadium becomes a housing estate. You’ll find the pics at: http://www.23hq.com/vinm/album/6551185

My favourite drop kick, part four

The latest instalment in Vin Maskell’s tangential series. Are the Dropkick Murphys a bunch of punk-folk frauds? None of their names are Murphy and I doubt any of their songs are about that once noble expression of grace and distance, the Australian Rules drop kick. The Boston-based band of seven sing about work and unions, [Read more]

Home is where the grandstand is

VFL club Williamstown won’t be playing at home next year due to major works on the 80 year old grandstand, and on the playing surface.The Seagulls ‘home’ ground for next year, for six games, is at arch-rival Werribee’s ground. The three other ‘home’ games will be at Torquay (vs Geelong),  Keilor (vs North Ballarat) and [Read more]

My Favourite Drop Kick. Part three.

Vin Maskell continues his occasional series Nashville songwriter Paul Craft wrote Drop Kick Me Jesus in the mid-1970s. It became a minor country and western hit for a bloke called Bobby Bare in 1976. Wikipedia describes the song as the world’s ‘only Christian football waltz’. One doubts not too many people would dispute such a [Read more]

TAB time

The spindly gait of Les, skinny, leathery Les, takes him down Pakington St to his local TAB. Les has coat-hanger shoulders, dark Brylcreemed hair, and teeth stained from 50 years of tobacco. “G’d morning’ Ron,” he says, greeting the manager. Les looks up to the boards, checking the columns of numbers and names. Dad staples [Read more]

Between a rock and a VFL grand final

by Vin Maskell After Williamstown’s lame loss last Saturday in the VFL preliminary final against Northern Bullants I went looking for a big rock. I figured if I banged my head against a big rock long enough the memory of the game would disappear. So I went down to the Williamstown ground and found a [Read more]

My favourite drop kick. Part one

My favourite drop-kick. Part one. ON MONDAY evening, 26 June 2006 I sat down to watch a profile of musician Shane Howard on the ABC program Australian Story. The program focused almost entirely on Shane Howard’s once-troubled personal life rather than on his achievements as a singer, songwriter (remember Goanna and Solid Rock?) and activist.