TO THE KNOCKERS When your kid falls to the ground You don’t put him in the dock. You don’t walk away disgusted You don’t let his buddies mock. You pick him up and dust him off You whisper in his ear ‘Don’t listen to the blighters scoff Get up again and hear them cheer.’ That [Read more]
Footy Quatrains Part 2
April 12, 2012 by 4 Comments
Advice to a Young Footballer “Don’t worry what the papers say, don’t fear the words of men, in Melbourne-town the footy boot is mightier than the pen.” Jesaulenko You Beauty! If you blinked you would have missed it–– like the strike of a death adder–– he was soaring into outer space, Jenkins was [Read more]
still the crowd
April 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Good Friday – we discuss who ought to be culled Easter Saturday – we enter the game without our leader a shot at goal brings howls from the crowd – full moon no wind missed kicks still the crowd autumn night nothing much going on except Pendlebury dusk – Daisy splits the night into [Read more]
Vale Jimmy Little
April 5, 2012 by 6 Comments
I first heard Jimmy Little on the radio in 1963 singing Royal Telephone. I hated the song (which struck me as 3rd rate country gospel) but even then I recognised that Jimmy had a great voice. Royal Telephone wasn’t the first Jimmy Little song to be played on the radio. In NSW he had had [Read more]
Music and the footy – they go well together
April 4, 2012 by 9 Comments
by Andrew Fithall “I love football and I love music. But I don’t like music at the football.” These were the words of the founder and self-appointed head of the Floreat Pica Society, Steve Fahey, when I had the privilege of sitting next to him at the Round 1 Collingwood Hawthorn game at the [Read more]
down another falling
April 4, 2012 by 5 Comments
new season starts at the 10 minute mark I catch my breath first quarter the umpire plucks the ball from the clinging pack dusk deepens one more missed goal the debutant’s first shot at goal straight through the middle MCG in March Buddy’s skied hook post-high Cloke drags down another falling leaves alone inside fifty [Read more]
John Kingsmill’s 2012 Footy Diary: Week Two
April 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Sunday, 1 April 2012 Round One Week Two 3. Ben Cousins is arrested – here’s a footballer’s story that refuses to go away. It doesn’t really matter what we think. Life after footy is no easier for him than before. We’re watching him and we care but we’ll skip any further note. On Thursday night, [Read more]
Archibald Prize Entrant: Brian Bourke
March 30, 2012 by 2 Comments
Words and portrait by Martin Tighe. l chose to depict Brian Bourke in the way in which l imagine his clients saw him; a formidable barrier between a desperate defendant and the awesome power of the law, as someone between them and the iron bars of prison in some cases. Brian Bourke is also [Read more]
The Danihers
March 28, 2012 by 4 Comments
by Rod Oaten It’s a long bow to draw the Port Fairy Folk Festival with the Essendon Football Club via the Danihers but seeing Anthony at the recent Festival, as I have for the last four or five years, sparked up the grey matter and the writing bug. I’ve been a regular at PFFF [Read more]
John K’s 2012 Footy Diary
March 26, 2012 by 1 Comment
Sunday, 25 March 2012 Round One, Week One 1. The season begins, oddly, with one game for the week – the Sydney derby between the Swans and the Giants. Matty Rendell goes down for a Thought Crime; Jim Stynes dies; Jason Akermanis says that Stynes was nasty on the field. He meant that as praise [Read more]
sunlight on leather
March 21, 2012 by 10 Comments
by Rob Scott first morning a familiar scent on the breeze It should perhaps be the game at its purest. Everyone and everything is primed. Sun-tanned, tattooed and absurdly muscled players; feverish fans emerging on frenzied tenterhooks from a long summer of enforced detachment and other family commitments; pristinely manicured playing surfaces; even [Read more]
Traralgon and District Art Society and wondering about the future.
March 18, 2012 by 2 Comments
On the Friday of the last pre-season game of St.Kilda and Collingwood, I found myself journeying again with my Art Society. We had Heather, a Collingwood supporter and our organisational inspiration, a retired lawyer, life model and Rotary organiser extraordinaire, Lilian, our Glen Eira Artists Society President, designer, painter and life drawing organiser, our Treasurer [Read more]
Deeper Water
March 13, 2012 by 32 Comments
by Andrew Starkie Growing up in the south-west, Labour Day weekend used to signal the end of summer. The first icy rains and wind would sweep up from the Southern Ocean, turning the camping grounds at the Port Fairy Folk Festival into a sodden, bleak mess. This long weekend, Linda and I put the [Read more]
Tamworth 2
March 4, 2012 by 2 Comments
by Andrew Starkie Our hostess has her head on the counter and appears to have nodded off. Suddenly alert, she grimaces, runs her hand through her bed hair and focuses bloodshot eyes. Sorry darls… I’m a bit hungover…where was I? That’s right, here’s your key. Towels are in your room.
THE LITTLE DOG WHO LIVED A BIG LIFE
March 2, 2012 by 7 Comments
Our family pet dog, Spot, should’ve been the Western Bulldogs mascot. He wasn’t a bulldog – he was a Jack Russel/Foxy cross – but he thought he was a giant. He walked with a strut, which with old age became a slow, confident swagger. He was barrel-chested and mischievous and had more friends in [Read more]
In search of a winning score
March 1, 2012 by 33 Comments
By Jeff Dowsing It’s fair to say the rocky relationship between sport and music is an obvious yet strangely elusive one. Venture into any changeroom and protagonists will be plugged in, psyching themselves for battle. What are they listening to? I dare say nothing that relevant to sport. Sure, rousing abstract tunes made for [Read more]
Bring on your wrecking ball
February 29, 2012 by 10 Comments
by Rick Kane I received a text from my sister’s daughter’s husband or as I like to call him, Glenn. They live up in the dry dusty heat of Port Headland. This is what he said. “How’s life in the big V? Wish I was there right now. I bet Melbourne is getting that [Read more]
One With The Lot
February 16, 2012 by 9 Comments
I knew I shouldn’t have eaten it. The hamburger. The bloody thing nearly killed me. I was on Tavira, a minute island just off the south coast of Portugal. It was September 1987. I say just off the coast because a couple of good torpedo punts from the mainland would land on the island’s beautiful [Read more]
Lawn Bowls Poetry
February 12, 2012 by 11 Comments
John Kingsmill will be writing a series of bowling poems over the next few weeks. WEEK ONE Back to the Bowling Green after a long delay My father’s bowls are still too large in my hand. It’s only my obstinacy, I suppose, that makes me stay with them. His hands were no bigger than [Read more]
The Winds of Economic Change
February 10, 2012 by 11 Comments
These are turbulent times in the global economy. Depending on who you listen to, we are still in the midst of the GFC; or, the GFC ended but we are now on the cusp of GFC Mark II; China’s growth is either teetering or marching on; and the European sovereign debt crisis is threatening [Read more]
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