Author Archives: Mickey Randall

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How football cost us the 2005 Ashes

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2005

Like a crazed nymphomaniac I could not get enough of the punt.

It was perfect to be an Australian in England when we won the first test by 239 runs. My local friends conceded glumly that the 2005 Ashes were gone. Smirking, I imagined how I’d spend my bodyweight in pound notes when we won our tenth consecutive series.

On the morning of the second Test in Edgbaston our summer guests and we take a day trip to Amsterdam. Anne Frank’s House is affecting and crowded. We visit Nieuwmarkt- zigzagging about the canals and museums, and enter the heart- or is it groin- of the Red Light district with its prostitutes behind windows. Tragicomically stricken with zero speech filters, my mate Bazz hollers across to his wife, ‘Hey Annie!’ He then suggests. ‘Pick out which hooker you’d like to join us for a threesome.’

Late afternoon at O’Reilly’s pub near Dam Square, and the stumps score blazes from a TV screen. Over 400 English runs in a day! Ponting had won the toss, and bowled! I then learn that McGrath, fresh from a man-of-the-match, nine-wicket bag in the Lords test, was a late withdrawal. He injured his ankle playing football! At silly mid-off! And Ponting strangely, unknowably, elected to bowl. Shaking my head, I think I must be a passive coffeeshop smoke victim. Despite the last wicket heroics from Lee and Kasprowicz, Australia is defeated. Arguably, football cost us this match, and the Ashes.

Boston made me a fan of three things: New England clam chowder, the Red Sox and naming beer after national idols. The Barking Crab restaurant faces the old Northern Avenue Bridge in the downtown area. Its shanty-like setting appeals to sailors and Harvard professors, and we devour the tasty seafood. The billboard declares, ‘It’s the best place in Boston to catch crabs.’

T-shirts pronounce there are two baseball teams to support: the Red Sox and whoever beats the New York Yankees. Catching a few innings in America’s oldest continuously operating tavern, The Bell in Hand, converts me. Baseball and cricket are both beautifully hypnotic. Both anchor a country’s summer.

Named for Declaration of Independence signatory, Sam Adams lager encourages me to ask why Australia fails to similarly honour their icons. I’d love to be at the altar of my Sunday pub ordering, ‘Two pints of Dennis Lillee, a jug of Gough Whitlam and a bottle of Bon Scott, thanks.’ Boston’s illustrious baseball history provides a captivating context for the fourth Test at Trent Bridge. In this pre-smart phone universe I frequently visit the hotel’s business centre to check the scores. Flintoff stars again. We’re down a test with only The Oval remaining.

Ashes tickets are as rare as sunburn in Sheffield but, back from North America, we score a pair for the Saturday. Taking the Northern Line to the ground, I’m struck by the blissful civility of those waiting to gain entrance. I’m also struck by the industrial quantity of wine and beer allowed. Adelaide Oval banned BYO decades ago. After lunch the Barmy Army is amply lubricated. Many ditties on their hymn sheets simultaneously tease and glorify Warney. Set to the tune of “Amarillo”, I enjoy

Show me the way to Shane Warne’s Villa

He’s got his diet pills under his pilla

A dodgy bookie from Manila

Nursey’s on her mobile phone

Rain restricts play to only fifty overs, but Langer makes his 22nd century, and Hayden achieves his first ton in a year. After tea, with vino bottles spread about like a berserk Neapolitan wedding, I’m startled by the tidy conduct of the Vauxhall End supporters. The gasometer looms benevolently. The Oval is festooned in Wolf Blass advertising and I’m homesick for Australia and the Barossa.

I dreaded going to school on Tuesday September 13, 2005. The previous afternoon England reclaimed the Ashes for the first time since 1989 and I, as fortune would have it, was teaching just north of London in St Albans. Over the next weeks the banter I had as the conquered Australian in a country celebrating a gigantic sporting triumph, was good-natured. Mostly.

As they had not been born the last occasion England defeated us in cricket, I helpfully suggested my students at Nicholas Breakspear Catholic School (named after the only English Pope) should enjoy the victory. ‘You could be grandparents the next time this happens,’ I lectured. Freddie Flintoff celebrated like a Viking and on the first morning after, Mike Gatting asked him whether he had had anything to eat. ‘Yes,’ replied Flintoff, ‘a cigar.’

I trudged the campus handing over cash to numerous colleagues. I also gave each horribly happy Englishman a letter.

Dear Sir

On behalf of the Australian cricket team I’d like to offer my congratulations on a highly deserved victory. It was a most exciting series.

With the Ashes now completed, I can reveal that the ICC, ECB and Cricket Australia were engaged in top-secret talks over the past months. If Australia had won and made it ten consecutive triumphs, then all future Ashes would have been cancelled and a more competitive nation, officially sought to play Australia every two years.

So whilst cricketers from Italy and the Shetland Islands are disappointed, I for one am pleased that, at least for the next encounter, the Ashes will continue.

Your colonial servant,

Ricky Ponting

oval

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Dangerfield and the Rickenbacker guitar

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RSL

 

Patrick Dangerfield is the opening chord of A Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles.

George Harrison’s Rickenbacker strum is pop music’s most thrilling moment, and Adelaide’s most dynamic midfielder also electrifies. Both are anticipation and frisson. Dangerfield exhilarates just like The Fab Four’s two and a half minutes of frenzied, intoxicating genius. Both are astonishing illustrations of their respective art.

It’s a Mother’s Day game so I offer to listen to the footy via a radio app. The wife urges me, “to watch it live, so you’ll appreciate it better.” Radio streaming is brilliant, and one morning I found a local Mandarin station. Despite having limited Chinese I quickly establish that the show, certainly called the Wacky Breakfast Zoo, features a zany guy, a straight guy and to use media industry jargon, a chick. Sound familiar? Doubtless, there’ll soon be a Black Thunder stalking my Singaporean street, giving out icy cold cans of Coke and Whispering Jack CDs.

The Sydney Showgrounds arena is fetching in the autumnal sunshine, but the wood chopping at the Royal Easter Show makes more happy noise. Iconic Tassie axe man David Foster would have been terrifying in a forward pocket, and I once saw him departing the Adelaide Show in a 4WD, fresh from dichotomizing a feeble log. Struggling to mount a speed hump, his car appeared to have been assembled around his singletted bulk. Like the Bluesmobile outside the Cook County Building on Richard J Daley Plaza, it would surely disintegrate.

The Crows and Giants begin before lunch Singapore time. I’m at The Boomarang Bar, and not wanting to evoke the ancient Barossa rule of, “One at 11, or eleven at 1,” I get a frosty pint. With a cornucopia of splendid Australian beer from which to choose, Boomarang’s management could have Coopers Sparkling Ale, Little Creatures or Fat Yak as their ambassadorial lager. No, Pure Blonde is on tap. It’s like Phil Tufnell being Wisden’s Cricketer of the Century. Still, come June I’ll be watching the footy back in wintry Adelaide. A glass of Dutschke GHR and a boisterous fire will then suit.

GWS. The acronym suggests a K-Mart quality law firm to which Dennis Denuto of The Castle might have aspired. GWS, I’d also argue, could be a mildly exotic skin infection. I can hear my GP grimly saying, “I’m afraid you have GWS.”

And Giants? The Icelandic nu-folk listening, hipster marketer obviously said, “Greater and Giants totally share a ‘G’ and that is, you know, like, alliterative, so let’s go with that.” However, I hear you retort, your team is mascotted by a hostile bird, best known for Graham Kennedy’s 1975 infamy. Faaaark.

The dazzle from the empty orange seats is as sorry as the AFL’s probable excuses for the attendance: catastrophic competition from Mother’s Day luncheons, the eight race card at Gunnedah, Col Joye headlining the roast and three veg fixture over at the Rooty Hill RSL. In a pulsating heartland of three million people, that only 5,800 bother is alarming. GWS will be successful eventually, but I think they should become successful elsewhere.

With a population of over eighteen million, that Los Angeles has not hosted a NFL club for nearly two decades might indicate a vast community is not itself a guarantee of football permanence. Green Bay is a small municipality by American standards, and its team continues to thrive. Similarly, supporters in Tasmania, Cairns or Darwin would have attended a Crows and Giants encounter with an increased and vociferous presence.

Tom Lynch provides the best breakout performance by a carroty-haired youth since Richie Cunningham’s work in season one of Happy Days. With Arthur (Tex) Fonzarelli’s knee having jumped the shark, and Potsie (Tippett) taken by a swan on his lonely way to Inspiration Point, Lynch presents himself. When he laconically kicks his tenth, and becomes the first Crow to do so since Tony Modra in 1994, the few spectators remaining are glumly playing paper/rock/scissors to see who locks the gate.

Adelaide wins by 135 points, a solitary behind shy of their record, but I remark that it’s not a game I’d buy on DVD. All at The Boomarang nod agreement. We stroll out into the tropical afternoon.

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The Frog and The Footy

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volleys

Ordering rissoles in Bali is a sign that I need to go home to Adelaide.

It’s a Friday night, and I’m in Barb’s sports bar for the Crows season opener. With an Adelaide Crow tattoo on his arm, mine host Ian ambles by as the club song choruses from the TV. He mutters, “It’s got a good beat, but I reckon the kids won’t dance to it.” He’ll say that another twenty-one times before September. There’s a galaxy of Indonesian dishes on offer, but I inhale a plate of meaty patties, chips and veggies. The footy is streamed from Channel 7 in Perth and, frosty long necks of Bintang aside, when I find myself getting misty-eyed about the Bunnings ads, I know the score.

Then there’s the frog. He lurks in the grounds of our Singaporean condominium, and he’s seeking a mate. After dark, his thoughts turn, as Barry White may have sung, to making a little love or as HG Nelson certainly said, to “wielding the night tools.” His call is a loud, resonating, metallic honk. He honks nightly into the cruel fug. His throbbing desperation wakes me up and keeps me sleepless. Nightly. I want to escape his amphibious ardour so am heading to South Australia for a June holiday.

Despite living on the equator, I love winter. The endless summer here delivers an effortless lifestyle of shorts and swimming, but Adelaide extends her charms. I like dressing for the cold; faded jeans and my boots- indestructible Blundstones bought in Kimba twenty years back. Include Dunlop volleys and a pair of dusty thongs and what other footwear is there? The Southern Ocean often lashes its wind at us so I’m a convert to the hoodie. I’ll stick a pair of rubber boots on each of our boys Alex and Max and they’ll be right. Cousins are often among our first friends and, happily, they’ll all soon be running, yelling and settling their necessary disputes.

I’ll relax in Adelaide, but also tour the Barossa, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra – viniculturally. Confirmed by one ignoble episode, tropical life and cabernet sauvignon simply don’t combine for me. It’ll be superb to plonk down with some old winter friends from Turkey Flat, d’Arenberg and Katnook, and discover what they’ve been up to. I’m confident that every bottle will burst with stories as I sit at assorted tables with Dad and uncork some robust conversations about footy, the Ashes tour and everything else.

Winter back home often hosts cloudless, still days of pale sunshine; ideal for beach walks and parks. Blokes occasionally label their pubs; Rundle Street’s Exeter is, “The X.” The boys name their preferred coastal playgrounds- the Nemo Park, the Buffalo Park and the Rock Lobster; baptised for the B52’s song I unthinkingly played them once. They also have to climb some trees with their mates.

Enthusiastically standing on the terraces as Glenelg play at Brighton Road could placate my football pang. Contemporary AFL spectators have little opportunity to appreciate the contest, as it should be enjoyed. Standing, skilfully, allows for better talking, laughing and barracking, and also expedites what Roy Slaven described as, “drinking in concert.” Unlike modern colosseums, I can wander to Snout’s bar or the BBQ while maintaining an eye and an ear on the ball, without burrowing down a concrete hole, like a rodent, seeking a snag or a pint.

Improbable footballers such as cult Roosters full forward Grenville Deitrich charm me. Treasured exceptions who, despite their prohibitive shape, advance to a high level. Thankfully, these survive in the SANFL. Just. I favour this over the AFL as the national competition is increasingly conquered by charisma-free robots, automatons manufactured into facsimiles of footballers like an Asimov dystopia.

A fire is vital. Grumpy’s Brewhaus at Verdun boasts a German-inspired microbrewery, wood-oven and combustion stove. A golden pint of Tomcat pilsner and a few slices of Funky Chicken pizza on a Sunday and I’ll be set. I taste it all now and can smell the drifting eucalyptus smoke as Alex and Max scurry through the last of the autumn leaves on Grumpy’s lawn.

Life here in the endless summer is fine, but like gravity, winter at home exerts an indisputable pull. It will be a languid exhalation but, ultimately, I’m hoping that when I return to Singapore, the amorous frog is on his honeymoon.

fire

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Scenes from Silly Point

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southwardk

 

Waddikee Oval on SA’s West Coast reminds me of Adelaide Oval. Apart from the Moreton Bay Figs, heritage-listed scoreboard, immaculate playing surface, world class player and spectator facilities, and fetching cathedral. It’s a nasty Saturday of blustery heat and flies like blackbirds. A chorus of thudding car doors announces the arrival of the Kimba Cricket Club, skippered by Phil “Klingy” Klingberg. Fifty overs per side is scheduled so with two evenly matched XI’s, play can stretch, languidly, from noon to well beyond seven.

Klingy wins the toss and bats. Waddikee is the reigning A grade premier. They have daunting bowlers and their fielding is Ponting-slick. Ours is a gallant innings. The men of Kimba are to grind it out; David Boon style. Veteran opening batsmen, Richard “Dickie” Clements, is bold. He combats the hostility, slices some sparkling shots through slips and accumulates an effervescent 11.

The middle order is secured by Klingy with a Steve Waugh classic; gritty and rousing; especially so on two hours sleep. He piles up 13. After an epic struggle of three quarters of an hour we are dismissed. We are bloodied and bruised. Like our page in the scorebook.

Kimba CC boasts a potent pace artillery including Marc “Soup Bones” Chapman, a gaunt version of Bruce Reid, and others who make Trevor Chappell’s over-arm action seem venomous. We are exactly unlike like Jeff Thomson. Waddikee is really going to have to dig deep to get our Bradmanesque 34.

Following a hearty lunch, we stride onto the crisp outfield to warm up. This is a significant game as spots in the top four are up for grabs in the four-club competition. We prepare to defend our total. Dickie wonders how his horses are going. Badly, we discover. Needed Waikikamukau in his Randwick treble. Klingy inhales two quick gaspers. An old cricket ball is slung around, and occasionally caught. Happily, no-one is injured. Someone shouts, “We only have ten fieldsmen”. The deserter is found. Suffering in his HD Holden, Craig “Nogsy” Nielsen is rudely resuscitated and restored to battle. We warn him against operating heavy machinery and put him at slip. We slap lazy flies away. This torrid duel continues.

Soup Bones is to open the attack. He is at the top of his run. It is longer than Fred Truman used to go on holiday. The grimy north wind hollers. Trying to anchor his clown feet, Soup Bones is desperate to not be blown through the southern goals, like a lost kite.

The Waddikee batsman tweaks his box and, behind the stumps, Klingy orchestrates his field like Churchill at Gallipoli. With an old ball Soup Bones bowls a few looseners to me at mid-on. We’re hoping he can push into the cyclone and actually reach the crease. In clear anticipation of a bright new Kookaburra six-stitcher he then hurls the old ball at the fence. He is pumped up. Well, as pumped up as Soup Bones gets. He is like a man with a tiger outside his gate, he not only couldn’t relax but he couldn’t relate. Now he can. Bowling man. With the left hand. Dig! He yells out to our captain, “Hey Klingy! Where’s the new ball?”

A defining moment follows. A time when kings take actions that unite and fortify subjects. What Klingy shouts back to Soup Bones is paradigm-shifting. As captain he is a leader. A prophet.

Soup Bones repeats into the gale, “Klingy, throw me the new ball.”

Klingy calls back, “New ball? Don’t be mad. They’re worth twenty bucks! That’s an extra slab of Southwark at the wind up!”

Ten blokes nod assent. An astute decision for the old ball spends most of its afternoon sun baking on the clubroom roof, adventuring into the prickly paddocks and like a grenade, exploding among the mixed doubles on the tennis courts. It, too, travels further than Fred Truman. In my brisk spell I am lofted through the goals by the Joyce boys for four majors. Cricket balls, surprisingly, enjoyed better working conditions in Medieval Yorkshire.

Batting practise by Waddikee elongates play to 1:30. Despite commencing ten minutes late and a considerable break between innings. With vital hydration stoppages we return to Kimba in the dark. Klingy and Soup Bones invite all into the pub for some richly earnt refreshment. In the merciless glare of Sunday morning those who have to, try to explain themselves. And yet again we make our dusty ways through to our Mondays. But, of course, at season’s end, having made the finals, we relish the bonus box of Southwark.

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From Croke Park to Vicarage Road is a one hour flight with Ryanair

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CP

Dublin’s Croke Park on the All Ireland Football Championship quarterfinal day is fantastic. During our tour of England, Ireland, France and Italy we’d see plenty of cathedrals but with O’Keefe ancestry in County Cork, this is a distinctive pilgrimage.

And while it’s Dublin and Roscommon clashing, a vivid afternoon unfolds. Taxiing to the ground, Dad and I see sky blue tops on scurrying local spectators and bright yellow on the visitors. We pass pubs like Quinns, Kennedys and The Big Tree bursting with blokes roaring and downing pints. Dad and I duck in for a lager. The Red Parrot is thunderous and frenzied but affable.

Our reserved seats are on the top deck of the Hogan stand and Dublin Bay sparkles across to the east. As the match evolves, two local supporters observe, ‘Our centre forward is too slow’, ‘We’re getting killed across half back’ and ‘the umpires aren’t doing us any favours.’ We could be at Footy Park, the MCG or Dutton Park in my hometown of Kapunda. Possessing an aural effect unlike soccer, the crescendo and fall of the GAA crowd is uplifting.

The game is attractive and fluent. The Dubs are quicker than Australian footballers, and as a matter of necessity, lithe and angular. Dublin controls the ball and the lush spaces. In the golden summery light, they tidily account for Roscommon, known also as the Sheepstealers.

Of course, the guilty were often transported to Australia. Leaving Croke Park, Dad and I evade a bony lad enthusiastically jettisoning a hula-hoop of amber onto the concourse. It is uncertain whether he is celebrating or commiserating Dublin’s victory, but there is jeering praise. We return to our digs at Browns Hotel near O’Connell Street, for an Irish music tour through Temple Bar.

I enjoy the dexterity and explosiveness the round ball allows but prefer our game’s elliptical ball. Its blissful and cruel unpredictability seems a candid metaphor for life, which is surely football’s noblest function. Additionally, our code allows and even celebrates goal scoring imprecision by permitting behinds.

How exquisite was Plugger’s famous point after the 1996 preliminary final siren? This, too, reflects an Australian ethos that speaks of our generosity of spirit and innocent effervescence.

Despite our resistance, sometimes sporting teams demand us as supporters. Southampton chose me not because of their soccer prowess but, curiously, their fans’ set list during a fourth round Carling Cup encounter with Watford at Vicarage Road. Some mates and I sit at the Away End and the singing is compelling.

Early in the fixture and expectant, Southampton praise their diminutive striker in blossoming tones

Sup-er Sup-er Kev Sup-er Ke-vin Phillips!

Still 0-0 late in a grim first half but their pride remains contagious. The contrast with the hyper-moronic, “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi” is sharp.

We love Southampton, we do!

We love Southampton, we do!

We love Southampton, we do!

Ohhhh, Southampton, we love you!

At half-time the combination of glacial queues and gastronomic judgment makes me unable to buy a cup of Burton upon Trent’s finest yeast- based beverage, Bovril. Five minutes in, they’re down 0-2 to the second division side.

Maintaining the global custom of using ridicule to try to save face, they taunt

We’re in the Premiership

We’re havin’ a laugh!

Suddenly it’s 0-3 and getting grubby. Across the autumnal air of Vicarage Road, the Saints’ choir recites the dismissive,

You’re just a small town near Luton

And then yet another Watford strike and all patience is gone, so they turn cannibal, as Bob my mate in Adelaide says, and start devouring their own

We’re so shite

It’s un-be-liev-able!

Two late consolations for the Saints and the second half, seven goal orgy is over. It is a night of dramatic tragedy on the pitch and musical theatre in the grandstands. Then, this being modern soccer, we of the Away End are funnelled, for our own safety, through a human chute of mountainous policeman.

We’re flushed out of the Vicarage Road ground and along the Watford streets to our Vauxhall Corsa. My evening is emblematic of England: startling and faintly menacing but, as always, richly engaging.

watford

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Footy’s Other Hemisphere

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423040-darren-jarman

When living overseas, footy becomes symbolic. A happy emblem of home. Like Merv’s XXXX-foamed moustache on the side of a London double-decker.

Singapore’s Boomarang Bar is one of those Australian themed-pubs that is both brilliant and dreadful. It shows AFL, NRL, and the races from Randwick and Flemington on big screens. It’s at Robertson Quay where the river is muddy and languid; it could pass for the Yarra.

The crowd is older than the backpackers at the Walkabout pub in Shepherd’s Bush, and mercifully, there is no Barnesy banging out over the thick, hot air. It’s Saturday afternoon, and the Crows and Hawthorn are underway in the preliminary final.

This Asian city’s mostly shy and undemonstrative so it’s exciting to see some punters in Hawks and Crows guersneys. Brash tribalism is rare here. There’s banter between the fans. “Ball,” intermittently choruses out across the quay. The footy is electrifying. The Hawks threaten constantly, but we persist.

We know that it could be Tippett’s valediction. He monsters Schoenmakers and with Walker, combines for eighteen contested marks. It’s close. Back home in Adelaide, my mate Bob texts. It’s too tense, too pulsating for him. He wants a personal media blackout.

Bob was in Edmonton in 1997, for the Crows’ first flag. It was a primitive world. Footy was inaccessible. No social media. No streaming. Many, like me, were sans mobile phone. During GF week Bob instructs me not to inform him of the result. With the discipline of a Roman soldier, he avoids it.

Then, at 2.30pm Saturday, Alberta time, to guarantee the authentic Australian experience, he and his friends watch a VHS recording of the game over a BBQ and beers. And like us seventeen hours previous, underground in Grote Street’s Players Bar, he is bewitched by Jarman’s sublime clinic, and Macleod’s exquisite poise and poetry. We love Bruce McAvaney’s climax: “Jarman. Jarman. That will do. That. Will. Do.” Bob rings after their final siren, waking us, in Glenelg, to our glorious and groggy Sunday morning.

With only the grand final telecast in Canada, he tells me he followed the Crows’ campaign on the internet. In ’97 this meant reading the footy online as an underling at AFL house, typed the action on their rustic website: Smart handballs to Bickley. Bickley kicks to Ellen. Essentially, it is a three-hour telegram. Like listening to Bradman’s 1948 Invincibles in the farm kitchen.

At the Boomarang Bar, we’re a disparate group. Like us, Annie is from Adelaide. She is avid; she streams 5AA’s call of practice matches. Nathan is from Tassie and loves the Hawks. His fiance, Alison, is from Vancouver. At half time I ask her, “Are you growing to love our footy?”  She replies that she’s, “Getting there.” As Adelaide and Christchurch are sister cities, our Kiwi friend Ariana supports the Crows.

In 2004 we were living just north of London in St Albans. I’d taken my Sherrin, and would occasionally have a few dobs by the Roman walls in Verulamium Park. Back home in the Barossa, Mum and Dad taped the Crows’ games, and mailed the wins to us. They saved plenty on postage that year.

My friend Barry, from Harrow, records the grand final on Sky Sports, and I enjoy Port’s triumph. Whilst I love beating Port in the Showdowns, I am an atypical Crows fan who barracks for them when they play interstate teams. It’s a residual from the State of Origin glory days of the 1980’s.

Barry’s an Irishman, and his Catholic passion is exceeded only by his worship of Wealdstone FC. I’m with him in Wiltshire by Salisbury Cathedral for the 2005 season closer when the Stones score in the last minute to avoid relegation by a single goal. In reverential electronic whispers, he texts me one fucking goal three times the following Sunday. Returning to Adelaide, Barry gives me four shares in Wealdstone FC. Every year I am posted the annual report.

Johncock puts us up with seconds left, but then the Hawks pinch the prize.I t was a tremendous contest and, wretchedly, the Crows fourth consecutive preliminary final loss. Annie and I agree that we’ve done well, and next season our youngsters like Dangerfield, Sloan and Walker will improve. Bob and I text. Mum and Dad message their pride. We take comfort in the future.

We leave the Boomarang, and walk home along the muddy Singapore River.

0003_Boomarang

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snakes and ladders

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snakes and ladders

she tackles my football daydream with

“stop and look back at what you nearly stepped on.”

thoughts on my team’s blossoming

and withering are benched

i pivot

crow black eyes    green trunk

carpet python resting

like a ruckman in the forward pocket.

behind the grand final scoreboard at

freeling oval in ‘74

desert boots    golden breed windcheater

boys zip and thrill    dropkicks spinning

my lyrebird footy flees under

a pine tree’s eager arms

the snake

shadowed and coiled within scoring distance

i scamper and

scoop the ball as

kingswoods and valiants strain at the railing

mutton-chopped and ankle-booted

kapunda bombers   seize the cup         (since poisoned)

victory delivered    the king brown (a collingwood 6-footer)

slithers under memory.

snakes are singular

signs of premiership fortune

reptilian omens

handballed by sporting gods

cold-blooded tipsters

my weekend torment is torniqueted

hibernation ceases

this september.

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five visions of captains & cricket

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five visions of captains & cricket

davo drops a catch at cover

the bespectacled batsman edges

to 8 & our oval shrinks like

grandma’s backyard

at dusk he’s dismissed

on 295 & davo is still shouting

a wicket or a run

barossa grand final   last delivery taunts

the nervous bat     keeper & slips yell & rush

as the ball (eyes shut)  magically squeezes

between middle & leg & escapes to the fence

we remain stumped

i’m a very handy cricketer

boasts the burly minnipa policeman     i can’t

bowl   bat   or   field   but

i live right behind the town oval

in the pub & around an autumn bbq

these worn yarns   treasured old mates

slap our backs & cackle

raw appeals startle the afternoon breeze

baggy caps dusty   prickled outfield brown

cricket     rich as a sepia photograph

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crutches

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swinging metallic crutches

and his narrow frame form

a pendulum as he

steps… stops…

steps… stops…

along jetty

to palm-tree square

 

empty trouser fabric pinned neatly

in a flat rectangle

his remaining leg suffers the weight

of this hollow world

 

a blast beyond nightmares

in a jungle

thousands of miles

and years

from this twinkling esplanade

 

refusing to rest

on a peeling bench

a solitary soldier

and his crutches funeral- march toward

a darkened room where

 

sleeping

he escapes the landmine’s orange anger

and wishes

he only

lost a leg

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london & you

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london & you

lost and excited along oxford street drinking in the colour and the promise on our first morning

in boxy bunks chatting in the dark like teenagers in orbit (the toilet flushing next door)

offering vegemite to europeans as the summer sun pushed in the hostel kitchen window

you sending home emails from the smoky lounge and me delighted by your wit and exuberance

blitzkrieg chunks and holes in cleopatra’s needle and putting our astonished hands into the cold wounds

ending an exhilarating first day with you proudly sipping a shandy in soho’s white horse pub and then

dipping hungrily into the rock ‘n’ roll guide to london after you, always knowing best, insisting on this gift for me

piccadilly circus to ourselves at 7am, jet-lagged and euphoric; awake since the 4:30am sunrise

like peering into cupped hands at a secret, mesmerised by the sutton hoo in the british museum quiet

a tiny squirrel in greenwich park and our pure delight as it scampered

you photographing me on the lords dressing room balcony, knowing I’d treasure the image

your hysterical laughter as I kept jumping at the spider web display in the museum

our soft afternoon calm, strolling by the round pond in kensington gardens

the abbey road pedestrian crossing and despite my tantrum and the traffic you persevering so the moment was caught

hot drinks huddled among the pigeons in the trafalgar square grey breeze

your pink thongs slapping and dashing up the theatre stairs as shrill bells ring for mamma mia and

chasing the yeoman warder’s baritone as it animated history and myth at the tower

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golf at clare

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clare

 

golf at clare

for bazz, hen, klingy and maurie

 

buggy tracks and shoeprints darken chilly fairways

dense valley morning sliced by birdsong

excitement strides to the first tee

on the last putts weary exhilaration

 

conversation surges but every shot accepts an anzac dawn hush

chattering carts explore thirsty creeks

and admire vines swollen with shiraz

balls freeze towering above the seventh green

 

like bungee jumpers, scores dive and climb

our girls happily skirt the eighteenth

and birdies and bogeys echo as

golf tales bubble over laughing beers

 

lake

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Roxy

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Roxy

How do you farewell the family member who’s been with you faithfully, happily, trustingly for over sixteen years? The girl who went from the Barossa to Gawler to Kimba to Port Pirie to Adelaide to England to Glenelg? I don’t know. But I tried.

 

we wanted no wedding attendants

as it was always just us three

within our happy cocoon.

photos on the beach, at the sepia tram and there’s

a special one of you in the rotunda

wearing a ribbon & your elegant gaze

our golden, wonderful bridesmaid

in the field behind our Lakes District cottage

we paused by some horses & there you were

suddenly zipping through the spring grass!

beneath the bemused mares

barking & bounding about

we laughed, how we laughed!

our loyal travel companion

a bright July day, your last afternoon

on the lounge, curled serenely, your hazel eyes

dusty sunlight streaming onto your fur

baby Max on Mummy’s knee, looking at you

& for the first time, he giggles & giggles

as if enjoying what we had loved for sixteen years.

i’m so grateful for this,

your final gift to us

our gentle, precious girl

thank you.

lakes district

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Homecoming

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cricket

Like Gatsby preparing to again see Daisy, I’d imagined it vividly and often. However, our plane simply rose from the Heathrow runway, and ended our English adventure. Leaving became only a transaction, a mere connective between one life concluding and the old one, recommencing.

Returning to Australia after nearly thirty months is like being both troubled and delighted by the sudden, unmistakable scent of a forgotten friend. I ‘d missed our popular culture, and drifting through the in-flight entertainment during my 3am restlessness I discovered Billy Birmingham, the Twelfth Man, being interviewed by Adam Spencer.

Billy’s first success, I‘d forgotten, was co-writing 1983’s Australiana. How weirdly wonderful, as we rushed over the Tanami Desert, sleeping in the silently breathing below, to be stirred by those faintly pathetic puns- Well a few of the blokes decided to play some cricket. Boomer says, ‘Why doesn’t Wombat? Yeah, and let Tenterfield.’

I then watched Crowded House’s farewell concert from the Opera House. Could that have been a decade ago? I recall my sadness as we journeyed along the Grand Union Canal in a narrow boat, and I read in The Guardian of Paul Hester’s passing.

Through the 767’s window, the sun then burst up over the Western Plains. Not a stunning sunrise but as it’s my first Australian sunrise in nine hundred days, its poignancy makes me misty.

Which band could have served me other than Crowded House? Favourably compared to the Beatles with their fetching melodies, but manifestly local, they’re as effortless as a Sunday BBQ. When they performed, “Better Be Home Soon” I realised the golden corridor, my arrival, was close.

Scurrying about the Sydney airport shops, I beam at things unremarkable transformed by my excitement to native treasures. Powderfinger CDs. Steve Waugh’s autobiography. Boost Juice! Their realness is exhilarating. Within the terminal, the uncluttered spaces, affable colours and the brazen January light are deliciously Australian.

After the gloomy British currency, visiting an ATM makes me gawk at the crayfish-coloured banknotes. And everywhere, voices, our voices. Here, accents don’t crash like improper cymbals above a mortified English string section. I eavesdrop, and the chatter is as comforting as a Coopers.

Waiting with our hand luggage while my wife goes for a stroll, I fiddle with my Walkman radio, singularly ravenous for Australian sounds. My morning’s second musical epiphany occurs as Triple J plays Sarah Blasko’s version of Cold Chisel’s “Flame Trees.” Originally released as I began uni when life was inching beyond my dusty hometown, Kapunda.

I’d long appreciated the song’s jaded melancholia and evocations of happy hours and old friends. But the girl’s plaintive singing gives it an aching warmth. This is a welcome contracting of my planet back to the recognisable; a sensation not easily found in a confronting, often unknowable Europe. Having hugged me so tightly upon my homecoming, this song again sits in my heart.

It is fitting that Sydney was covered by cloud for when we land in Adelaide the unbounded sky is a cathedral. Walking across the tarmac, I take in the low, auburn hills and the thirsty plains and later, the idyllic drone of the cricket as we move through the empty afternoon streets of our screen-doored suburbs.

After months and hours of hungry longing, I am home.

flame trees

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Mother’s Day 2008

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boys

Mother’s Day

Like Verulamium Park as spring surges, there’s clustering throughout.

we claim our corner in Wattle Reserve

surrounded by sea and thudding balls and sky.

 

Squinting into the autumnal sun, I snap photos of you both

cocooned on the rug; enjoy our silence, wonder about Alex’ voice.

Who will he sound like and what will he say? We’ll be listening.

 

Chilli olives, fetta in bell peppers and pesto. Alex sleeps in his pram.

bouncy kids follow footies, rush around swings and slides

soon he’ll be there- too soon, too soon…

 

Drift south to the Brighton café wallpapered with Marilyn Monroe.

The menu board can’t spell, but we comprehend

Maltezer cheesecake and I have a lemon, lime and bitters.

 

We’ve explored Central Park and Madrid’s Retiro;

Greenwich Park and the World’s Prime Meridian but

For us three this tiny common is our world.

 

Mother’s Day Dream

Like a persistent vision, I’d seen it often and vividly…

You’re strolling across Wrigley Reserve;

excited dogs and swirling colour and laughing picnickers

burst across the glittering, autumn afternoon.

 

I imagine you both hand-in-hand, chatting away.

in our private universe Alex christens you “Mummy” and

asks curious question after curious question with

a voice innocent and eager and trusting.

 

I’m watching as the sun catches his blond curls and

perfects this image. Now that Alex is here

my dream is speeding towards us and

I can’t wait to witness that mother and son moment.

 

park

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Autumn 2004

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derby

it is snug and perfectly pretty

a vague dog bark and whispering breeze.

listen.

now it is hushed.

trees guard the dappled streets

their molten leaves

fall

and carpet like painted snow.

we swim along the footpath

our shoes drown

under swirling colour.

the village green is proud and prim

its gnarled set of stocks

vivid like a sepia photograph.

suddenly, a boisterous tractor and

then it grumbles to a stop.

a green-capped farmer

vaults

from his cabin

nods at us and

saunters into the Red Lion

her antique vine, blazing burgundy

Friday lunchtime and

we’re blissfully cocooned

in this Derbyshire hamlet.