I wondered about you as I ran along the Balinese boardwalk. I imagined you in our room — fixing your hair, brushing your teeth, tidying up a little like Ann in The Famous Five. I hoped we’d cross paths. I liked the quiet intimacy of that thought.
The context of the moment matters; it offered a hopeful glimpse of our future. Up early, somewhere tropical. Taking our exercise — as you sagely remarked while coming down the stairs, ‘Even on holidays, we probably need to stay active.’
Running along the boardwalk, after peering in at Pier Eight — we’d have a late-afternoon drink there during our stay — I felt pleased about the morning ahead. Swim. Reading. Breakfast. You.
I had on my Glenelg Footy Club 2024 premiership guernsey. Running in it’s great. It’s lightweight and often a conversation-starter. Just by a beach hotel an older chap and his wife hollered across at me, ‘Is that a Glenelg top?’ I was lost so welcomed a break. ‘Yes,’ I panted, stopping with them by the boom-gate. He continued, ‘I’m from Mundulla, near Bordertown. They’re the Tigers, too.’ We swapped footy histories and off I trudged through south Sanur.
If Claire and I were to meet, I hoped it would be along what I’ve now dubbed the Police Path — no cars, few scooters, only the odd dog ambling along with no real morning agenda and the tourist police office right there. I sensed you were close, just as you had sensed me that summer afternoon, watching the world’s slowest cricket match.
Blue denim shirt. Sunglasses. A singular freely offered smile. Coming around the corner, in the dappled morning sunlight, there you were.
Somehow, we’ve pinched it by two points. Somehow, from directly in front, Redleg Tristan Binder’s kick swung late, like a Terry Alderman outswinger. Moments later, ‘We’re From Tigerland’ blasts out around Adelaide Oval. Despite finishing second, we played and won like underdogs.
Somehow, we’re in the Grand Final.
*
Mum and Dad live in the Barossa. Mum barracks for Sturt. Dad and I are Tigers faithful. This Sunday night, someone’s having disappointment for dinner. Sitting on the veranda, I ring.
Dad says, ‘We’ll really miss Max Proud.’ Matty Snook was Dad’s perpetual favourite.
I say, ‘Gee, it’d be great if Hosie, McBean, and Reynolds all have a day out. It’s been a while.’ We dissect Jonty Scharenberg’s enormous last month.
*
The City-Bay Fun Run is also Sunday. Usually, it coincides with the preliminary final. I formerly ran the twelve kilometres, but now I do just the six from Kurralta Park in the interests of, well, my interests. I’ll again wear my 2023 premiership guernsey. It’s a magnificent running top and attracts quips from cheering onlookers lining the (mercifully downhill) Anzac Highway route.
‘Go, Tigers.’
‘Come on, the Bays.’
And from a tiny, white-haired lady, ‘Go, you good thing!’
*
We all dig out old scarves and ancient yellow and black caps this week. For me, I’ll enlist a premiership stubby holder to chaperone me through. Like a sommelier, I pick each up in turn, study it, and turn it gently in my hand. Which vintage to savour? The 2023? The 2024? I settle on the superbly aged 2019. I inhale and it smells like victory.
Grand final eve eve eve (Thursday) and we wander around Jetty Road to admire the decorations. Yellow and black streamers festooned in shop windows and across pub bars. Balloons bouncing on business facades. Tigers roaring.
Touring the holy trinity of B: Barb’s (Sew and Knits), the Broady pub, Butcher — SA Gourmet Meats (formerly Brian’s) I drink in their displays of communal celebration. Duck in the footy club for a brisk beer to appreciate the buzz — and under the darkening sky, scrutinise training and try to gather some heartening signs.
*
My wife, Claire, is a (mostly) lapsed Norwood fan from a big family of Redlegs supporters — her Dad introduced me to the idea of Port being labelled, ‘The Filth.’ Over beef curry one night she wonders aloud if it’s boring how Glenelg’s into a fifth grand final in seven years. I remind her of the conversation I once had at The Wheaty listening to her brother’s band: Don Morrison’s Raging Thirst.
It was with an old friend and mad Centrals fan. I said, ‘Your mob played in twelve consecutive grand finals, Smacka. Did it ever lose that excitement?’ Smacka instantly replied, laughing like a pirate, ‘No. Never!’
We’re with him.
*
When we win a grand final, my tradition is to swing by the Elephant and Castle (West Terrace) on the way home and buy a Coopers Sparkling Ale stubby (for whichever holder’s riding in the front seat). Here’s hoping that around 6pm Sunday I’m veering through the drive-through for a fourth beer.
I anticipate its zesty hoppiness.
*
Sunday afternoon drive into the CBD. Trust my secret (free) car park’s available. Kimba friends Mozz and Kathy will be with me, so I’ll ask them to not breathe a word of this clandestine location. Then, the thrumming anticipation when crossing the Torrens footbridge.
We’ll sit in the Ricciuto Stand. Looks like it’ll be showery. Max Proud is out — sadly his remarkable career is done — but with significant upset Sturt captain James Battersby has not so much walked out as run out to Oxford Terrace, wailing and blubbing. Both teams need to absorb these seismic events. Our last three finals victories have been by a combined eight points. They’ve been gripping and frantic. We’re underdogs, again.
And then, there’ll be that enlivening, hot-blooded moment when all the energy of the players and fans explodes.
Mist hangs inside the Adelaide Oval, the arena lights smudgy and weary. A sullen sky thinks about raining but can’t be bothered to do so properly. It could be Yorkshire — on a summer’s day.
We’re in the Sir Donald Bradman Pavillion and it’s late in the last quarter of the Glenelg and Adelaide qualifying final.
The ball has morphed into a cake of soap — Palmolive Gold — yet somehow the disposal quality is still impressive — from both teams. It’s ferocious, it’s close. All afternoon, our forwards have been suffocated. The Crows intercept and rebound regularly. Our tackles are often swotted aside with indifference. The indicators are worrying.
Down two goals. On a slippery deck, old friend Brett and I decide this lead is worth four. We’re spluttering but Lachie Hosie converts a timely shot to the northern end. Six points in it but it feels like an unconquerable canyon.
The clock marches on. A bedevilling resignation forms. Crows fans grow louder. In front of us, an elderly couple — she in a Crows scarf, he in a Tigers top. Someone’s going home grumpy.
Every time they surge forward, Adelaide looks irresistible. Our defenders battle to be bold and resolute, to borrow from Macbeth.
Glancing at the scoreboard I see the clock ticking past 24 minutes. I say to Brett, ‘We really need to hurry.’
He replies, ‘There can’t be much time-on.’
26 minutes. Can only be a minute or two. I dread the siren.
Darcy Bailey pumps it to the square. Luke Reynolds slips behind the pack. He’s been below his best, but this is his moment. The ball spills and he edges into the corridor. With the outside of his left boot, he caresses it through like an Italian striker! Bellissima.
Scores are level. Ecstasy immediately swamped by threat of the cruel clock. Planes drone overhead. I bet it’s chilly at the Showgrounds. Only the woodchoppers would be warm — my hot chips are forgotten.
Heading deep into an unbearable thirty-first minute, Jarrod Lyons drives it into the arc. This is it.
Matty Allen snatches a quick handball from Hosie, steadies on a slight angle, and kicks. This afternoon has been one of relentless danger and suddenly, Glenelg finds its twinkling of grace. He dribbles the soggy Sherrin and tumbling goalward, it bounces three or four times and clangs into the post.
Have we just seen the best behind ever?
Tiger roar in the stands. Uniquely, Australian rules football rewards scoring inaccuracy and I love how this reflects our best, laconic selves (Good try matey but not quite. Here have a point!) and so, we lead, 74 – 73. On my all-time favourite left-footers list, number 22 climbs a few rungs to join Freddy McGuinness, Matty Bode and Ruory ‘Space Goat’ Kirkby.
The moments stretch excruciatingly. Allen’s behind is better than a goal — Adelaide must now go the full length of the ground. A major and a quick centre clearance could sink us. More anguish as the ball pings back and forth in our half.
Then the siren. And then the song crashes in: Oh, we’re from Tigerland / A fighting fury, we’re from Tigerland…
Like a Dickensian thief, we’ve pinched it. Seven consecutive wins in finals.
From fence to fence, it’s two-hundred massive metres. How agog must European or American visitors be who are accustomed to compact soccer pitches and gridiron fields? It reminds me of Rome’s chariot-racing stadium, the Circus Maximus, with its intimidating length and considerable circumference. Running laps here would be tough.
Watching the Eagles in their warm-up jog, they appear (mostly) young and undersized. Two dozen are sidelined with injury. A good thing the QEH is out the back. Many look like they’re a year or two off (legally) driving. It’s bright and sunny. Clots of blokes in shorts. I prefer not to grizzle about footy catering — but wonder if I paid too much for my bucket of chip. A rare odourless wind blows in from the Port.
After a scrappy opening, on Glenelg’s first entry Riley Holder dribbles it through. The Tigers then begin to exploit the oval’s massive acreage by sustaining possession with solid chains of handball and short passing. Archie Lovelock asserts himself with a smother, gather, and goal.
Aw, Cracklin’ Hosie, gets on board with a major, characterised by his panther-like prowling and athletic predation. Jarryd Lyons was a Lion but now he’s a Tiger. While he and his brother Corey are in the team, a pair of Lyons doesn’t quite make a pride — but we’ll be proud of them if these feline fellows help win the flag. He takes some inspiring grabs.
The Eagles kick two goals to commence the second term and courtesy of the zephyr, the Sherrin remains captive at the southern end. After twelve minutes Glenelg finally gets it inside fifty. This barren period is rare for such an attacking side but shows how our game is partly at the mercy of the elements. In a sometimes-malicious encounter there’s a skirmish on the forward flank from which Alex Martini emerges shaken not stirred.
*
The third quarter is underway and given the relentless wind I reckon we need to be at least six goals up at the final change to avoid a visit to the QEH cardiac ward — at least it’s only a swift stroll. A match highlight is the half a dozen frantic smothers from both sides and with a smile I recall the last-gasp effort from Will Chandler in the 2024 decider. I’m convinced this could’ve been the flag-winner.
Second-half specialist Luke Reynolds scores after a free and then there’s one for the VHS tape with a (Darcy) Bailey banana. During a P&O cruise happy hour who wouldn’t welcome a Bailey(s) banana? The ever-elusive and unruffled Cole Gerloff goals following a retaliatory smother from Hosie. A blow-out approaches. The umpires endure five torrid minutes during which spectators from both camps bark disapproval to the wind — and as always, hear nothing back.
In a display of sparkling local wit our first miss of the quarter is met with an aged antagonist yelling, ‘Sucked in.’ Laugh! A great captain’s tackle in our arc and with his immaculate kicking mechanics Liam McBean converts again. He’s the best shot for goal I’ve seen in our city since D. Jarman.
McBean again. Lyons another hanger. Clouds now assembling over the Port and the air is suddenly chilled. Pleased I’m not in shorts.
As is my spectating habit I move every quarter and for the concluding stanza I’m on the sloping lawns in front of the scoreboard. The breeze is now becalmed and so the ball has permission to venture to the northern end. We trade scores early but are largely unflustered by the hosts.
With less fizz in the contest now than flat Fanta, the clock ticks down — but up on scoreboard. Only golf claps for goals. But there’s still outrage present with a late dubious free against the home side. Why is sporting dismay louder than celebration?
It’s a win for the Tigers — modestly efficient. But we haven’t done much to sharpen our premiership credentials. I thread between the Barry Jarman Stand and the Percy Fox Green Stand and head to my car — half frozen, half hopeful.
We’ll remain in a wary but largely inconsequential waltz with the Crows for second spot. Either way, the qualifying final looms.
Saturday afternoon and I’m home alone. Chores are in hand. Nothing on TV and the book I’m reading, the collected stories of cult American author, HP Lovecraft, is more medicinal than recreational, so it sits untouched by our bed.
On Record Store Day (globally recognised on April 19th) I swung by Mr. V’s on Semaphore Road, and because one of the very best ways to invest half an hour is by listening to a Beatles’ album, I bought this. The music transports me to my childhood. It remains thrilling and urgent and while Paul is my favourite, I can understand why George Martin, their producer, commented that of all the great things he got to do with the Beatles, his absolute preference was mixing the vocals of John. As I type, the album’s on and it’s utterly joyous and innocent and compelling.
I love our backyard. And the time of peak admiration is, of course, in those first minutes after it’s been mowed on an autumnal afternoon. The breeze is coaxing the trees and shrubs towards folksy dance and there’s bursts of birdsong. I’m in debt to Claire who, with her artistic eye, designed and brought our garden to painterly life. Later, I may sit out here with a quiet ale and admire the view.
I purchased Glenelg Footy Club’s 2023 premiership jumper at Adelaide Oval during last year’s finals for tuppence and my appreciation of this simple item is twofold. Yes, the dual flags (nice win yesterday over Norwood in the Anzac Day grand final rematch with Lachie Hosie kicking eight goals) but the guernsey is my default running top. It’s frequently a conversation starter and when I’m on the beach in the morning a passerby will sometimes say, ‘Go Tigers’ as we puff by each other. I had it on this morning at the Patawalonga parkrun (my 110th, the 200th such local event and day number 729 of my current streak) and it was a fun 5k (24.49 which is decent for me). I’m grateful for footy and running.
Dinner is slowly cooking in the slow cooker. Which is what the label promised, Mr Spock. It’s a beef casserole and I look forward to it. I assembled it late morning with the help of a Ball Park Music playlist. Can you remind me to throw in the beans around six o’clock? Thanks.
It’s a bit of a narrative but Claire has been in receipt of red wine. Needing some for the aforementioned dinner, I opened a bottle of the 2005, McLaren Vale. This was done with nervousness for I anticipated it might have aged as well as the K-Pop song, Gangnam Style.
How is it? It was a little cantankerous during those early minutes, but I commented to Claire that if I’d been trapped in a bottle for twenty years I would be too. I slopped a few generous glugs into the cooker and popping into the kitchen across the afternoon, both casserole and plonk are doing well.
We talk about it every now and then. How, before mobile phones we’d make an arrangement with somebody and just have to stick to it.
‘Meet me at the Malls Balls at noon.’
Done.
‘See you tonight at the pub.’
Sorted.
Technology now allows us to break these agreements. Some might say mobile phones encourage rudeness. Or maybe they’ve made us more responsive to life’s twitchy demands. Is constant communication healthy? The social landscape has shifted.
*
‘I’ll meet you at the finish line,’ I said to Claire.
‘About 9,’ she confirmed.
It was the morning of the City Bay Fun Run. Same as the year before, we’d a plan. Claire would be easy to spot in her pink jacket. I also liked to think that there’d be some mysterious, undeniable connection, a marital telepathy that would bring us together, despite the swarm of 25,000 runners and their innumerable hangers-on.
Exhausted, ruddy of cheek, and hands on hips, I was funnelled along Colley Terrace, peering about, trying to spot the pink jacket.
Where was she? Maybe over by the roundabout. No, she wasn’t.
Continuing to the race village in Wigley Reserve, I hunted among the marquees and food trucks and bibbed joggers. No luck. Back to the finish line. Same. No pink jacket.
What to do? That’s it! I’d borrow a stranger’s phone to ring Claire.
5AA had a MC at the music stage, and away he honked. He was pleased with himself and pleased with his voice. ‘Well done to all the participants. It’s been a great morning. Up soon we’ve got the Flaming Sambuccas who are going to play for you…’
I wondered if he might help me, but he barely drew breath, so I walked off.
A safety of blue-uniformed police officers (nice collective noun) stood at a display, chatting among themselves. Approaching an officer I said, ‘Hello there. Hoping you can help me…’
Now, we don’t usually need to remember phone numbers. Who knows anybody’s number, beyond their own? It’s a redundant skill. How would I call her?
On the friendly officer’s phone, I pressed the buttons. How had I memorised the number?
Claire’s the holder of the Dan Murphy’s membership and if I pop in late Saturday morning (as I sometimes like to do) the cashier will say, ‘Do you have a membership?’ to which I reply, ‘Yes, I do’ and then I recite Claire’s phone number.
I’ve now heard myself say this dozens of times; just like my Grade 5 class learnt by heart, ‘Mulga Bill’s Bicycle.’ There’s an everyday intimacy in it and it’s a little prayer. And what better place for this oration than Dan’s?
Shortly after, heading towards me I saw a pink jacket.
*
Later Sunday I was at Adelaide Oval, while Claire attended day two of a conference at the convention centre on North Terrace.
The Tigers and Dogs were in a close one and I moved restlessly around the ground trying inanely to escape the foghorn chant. ‘U Dogs! U Dogs!’
Just after half time Claire called to say that her phone was about to die. What to do? We’d planned to head home together. Ordinarily, we’d sort this much later.
So, again we made an arrangement. Two hours before hand! Then followed two hours during which we had no contact! I watched the footy and Claire did conference things at the conference.
It seemed pioneering and almost dangerous. But there we were in this psychological uncertainty, both adrift, both untethered. Miraculously, we just went about our afternoons. It was thrilling and magical.
We’d decided on a time and place to meet and after a gap of a few hours, we were going to have to honour it. Just like it was 1987 and we were meeting at the Malls Balls before going to Brashs to buy an Uncanny X-Men CD.
Leaving the footy a few minutes early, with Glenelg off to the grand final, I made my way over the sunlit footbridge, up through the majestic railway station, across North Terrace and into the Strathmore Hotel.
Just as planned, Claire was there. Sitting on a stool, smiling, with an espresso martini in hand.
Norwood swarms forward, and with a brutal bump at half-back flashy nugget Mitch O’Neill flattens Dr. Chris Curran. It’s ferocious but ill-disciplined and the umpire’s whistle arrests this menacing surge. For long, agonised seconds the gentlemanly Tiger is on the ground before he enacts the biblical instruction, ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ rises and takes his deserved free kick. In the Sir Edwin Smith Stand, we exhale.
*
Hunter Window streams around the eastern flank adjacent to the scoreboard and kicks, somewhat optimistically, for goal. Begging the ball to go through and confirm our seventh flag, we hold our breath. Glory sours to deflation as it sails mockingly across the goal front and out on the full. Despair! Norwood claims the ball and relaunches down the western wing. We again swing psychologically from the elated promise of attack to the gloomy duty of defense.
*
Reigning Jack Oatey Medalist, Lachie Hosie, had no first-half possessions, but we all knew this would change, likely in spectacular style. It did. Imposing himself late, he slots two goals and then with an athletic leap at the point of the pack, he grabs a rousing mark. It lifts the Tiger faithful. The final score of the season is this kick for goal but it wobbles off the woodwork! Is there a more theatrical moment in footy than the Sherrin crashing into the goal post? The narrative effects are multiple. The scoring side claims what could be a telling single point addition, but the ball is given to the opposition, who steal it forwards like surprised thieves. Minor reward is replaced by the torment of major risk.
*
There’s a menacing wave of red and blue as Norwood again flows through the centre square. Baynen Lowe launches the ball long and high. Like an American football kick, it achieves good hang time beneath the Riverbank Stand and both teams run on to it. We’re now inside the final minute and the execution of his disposal seems more prayerful than geographic precision. We need someone to scramble back and intercept this indiscriminate bomb. We’re five points up. And in what could be the concluding gesture of his 191-game career, Max Proud materialises miraculously by the goal square to rescue us yet again. With superior anticipation, he minsters customary relief. Norwood is thwarted.
*
Time stretches cruelly, advancing at a glacial pace. The ball’s on the members wing. A desperate Redleg kick—but Will Chandler smothers it! There’s an appreciative roar for this startling defensive action during which the ball is arrested before it commences its trajectory. On all fours, Chandler leaps up and across at the kick and there’s a near-catastrophic but selfless beauty in his diving at a violently swinging boot. In that brief space and moment, danger and grace co-exist but only one can prevail. It’s grace.
The siren sounds.
photos courtesy of the author and screenshots from Channel 7
From the top deck of the Sir Edwin Smith Stand I see the scoreboard flags dancing in the breeze. It’s a bright Sunday for the season’s climax and I reckon three or four goals would capitalise on Max Proud winning the toss.
My teenaged son Alex and his mates are with me and during the footy enjoy just one meal. It begins before the opening bounce and in Henry the Eighth style, is still going in the car as we drive home along Anzac Highway.
Both sides exhibit what KG might describe as ‘exceptionally ferocious tackling’ and after eight lengthy minutes a shrewd Lachie Hosie snap in the pocket gets the Tigers away. With his deadly ability to pounce and attack he’s the human form of our mascot.
Cole Gerloff begins brightly and his major from just inside fifty makes the boys roar between cheeseburger bites. It’s a balmy afternoon and Oval management has the Big Ass fans (it’s true, look ‘em up) turning in all the stands.
Then a classically laconic kick from the Ken Farmer Medallist adds another goal. Minus the bloodbaths, ironic dialogue and 1970’s soundtrack, it’s a start that Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino could’ve written for Glenelg.
In the second term Sturt menaces and this continues all afternoon. In the eighth minute they goal and I’m reminded of the 2019 decider when former grand final gluttons, Port, took until just before half time to register their opening major. I don’t ponder this as I want to avoid notifying karma.
Luke Reynolds converts an opportunistic snap and then from the Chappell Stand boundary Corey Lyons slots one magnificently. There’s a healthy crowd of 33,000 and some compulsory rowdiness is already gurgling from the Scoreboard bar. The siren concludes the first half with our lead just short of five goals.
With the psychological if not fiscal comfort of a bucket of chips I prepare myself for Sturt’s inevitable surge. The boys take a break from their eating festival to wolf something else. I ask, ‘Did any of you have breakfast?’ In chorus they reply, ‘Nup.’
Beginning quarter number three for the Blues Matthews kicks one from mid-air. Then they get another. I fidget in my chair. Across halfback Glenelg has been terrifically resolute with the captain marshalling his lieutenants in his composed and visionary way. The umpiring has been excellent thus far.
Sturt now gets a third straight and the surge is on. Suddenly it’s quiet in the jungle. Too quiet. I try not to think about the Double Blues one-point victory over Port in the 2017 grand final.
Then Hosie gets his fifth to restore order and faith. And then he kicks number six. The margin is also six goals. How on earth did the Roos not want him? I say a silent prayer of thanks to North Melbourne for sending Hosie home. With a combined nine goals it’s a pulsating quarter that does justice to the notion of the Premiership Quarter but Sturt is unable to erode our lead.
For the final term the arena is characterised by lengthening shadows and lengthening beer queues. It’s a tussle and we hold firm. The Burley footy is misbehaving for Sturt and in the tricky wind they register four consecutive points before a goal to their speedster in Frederick.
But it’s already ten minutes in. Our defence is superb with smothers aplenty and unrelenting pressure acts to thwart the men from Unley. As KG probably never said, ‘The cruel, uncaring clock is now their enemy.’
I see some Blues scarves easing down the stairs of the Sir Edwin Smith Stand. A mate texts to announce that ‘the Tigers have done it!’ I can’t relax. Not yet. The ball spends long, agonising minutes at the wrong end. Like a constipated mathematician without a pencil, we can’t work it out. Then it finally pings forward and Matty Allen seizes the ball, swings onto his left and it’s home.
The siren. ‘Tigerland’ blasts out across the arena. Still hoovering up food, the boys and I stroll out into the jubilant afternoon.
It’s been a joyous, affirming season. We’re premiers!
Immersion in nature. It’s profoundly important as both prevention and cure. Late on a recent Sunday Alex and Max accompanied me down to Old Noarlunga where following some detective work we located the hiking trail. A narrow path took us along the river by some ancient gum trees. All during the hike there was a stream of natter. School, basketball, friends, basketball, stuff. With dappled light drenching us we worked hard to climb the steep rise by the pipeline and were rewarded to our west with the silently glistening sea.
Kitchen Confidential
Although I’m not a foodie (my greatest passion is getting my schnitzel off the poor chips) I’ve long been a fan of Anthony Bourdain’s storytelling and crisp, assured language use. Drawing me to his cinematic travelogues his skill in locating the story within the story was always a joy. So, I finally got my hands on his celebrated memoir and will attack it over the next week.
Glenelg Scoreboard
Professional sport increasingly seeks to cannibalise its competition and footy is no exception with the AFL beyond shameless in this. I reckon winter sport should begin in April, and it was Good Friday when I ambled down for the Tigers’ first home game. The sun set just before half-time. The new scoreboard grabbed my focus with its dazzling imagery and was a lighthouse in the oceanic dark. Old scoreboards sometimes attract more affection than deserved and Glenelg’s new screen is a bold addition, especially when we’re spanking the Filth in front.
Winery Picnic
Cheese, olives, chutney, crusty bread. Evil, magnificent, cured meats. A secluded table. Sheltering trees. A frisky cabernet sauvignon. Sunday lunch at Golding.
Lana Del Ray
Just released, (I won’t say dropped like the kids) the ninth album from the New York-born but West Coast resident continues her lush arrangements, engaging vocals and deepening, Hollywood-noir mythology on Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. Among many highlights is ‘Let The Light In’ featuring harmonies from Father John Misty and this is a pairing of two terrifically matched voices, equal parts honey, murky sultriness and soaring elegance. It’s a Leonard Cohen nod to forbidden love and as always, the lyrics leave plenty of space for the listener to wander the landscape of broken dreams.
Anniversary
April 10. The deep and joyous value of our wedding anniversary is being rushed back to the time and place when the often-unknowable universe finally consented to my simplest, most profound dream. How great to experience this wonder every year.
Italy
Departing Adelaide, we’ll enjoy Lake Como. Cinque Terre. Pisa. Milan. Florence. The Last Supper. The Statue of David. West End Draught. Opera at La Scala.
“If only people would label things,” announces Trev.
Instead of “Hello, how are you?” this is his customary greeting, and he lurches up to the table.
Pete also pulls out his chair in the Glenelg footy club bistro. We remove our masks. We have permission. We will be drinking and eating while seated. No vertical consumption. Just vigorous consumption. We all grew up in Kapunda.
Of course, straight away we speak of Chernobyl and Fukushima, both Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Afterall, we’re about to watch a battle between first and fifth on the SANFL ladder. Traditional rivals. Finals loom.
I mention an old friend who grew up in Poland and was at kindergarten during the Chernobyl incident in 1986. She remembers being told to not go out in the playground the week after the No.4 reactor went on the fritz. Trev wonders if they closed the kindy windows too. You know, as a precaution.
Lunch arrives and it’s excellent. The boys are on the Japanese beers. It may be a Fukushima tribute. I’m on Little Creatures pale ale. It’s not a Fremantle tribute. We’re all pleased we don’t have shares in the Pripyat pub, near the frozen Ferris wheel.
We claim our seats on the 50-metre arc, at the southern end, just in front of the Edward Rix Stand. Pete’s happy to be catching some Vitamin D. I’d never abbreviate this sentence to “catching some VD.” He and his family’s only just completed a fortnight of quarantine after his wife was caught in a “hotspot” at the Burnside hospital. When I was a boy Lennie’s, The Planet and Heaven on West Terrace were the only hotspots.
The footy’s underway. Norwood’s dominating and we’re chasing. Mercifully, the Kernahan End goals prove repellent and the quarter time score is like losing your Titanic boarding pass- a near disaster.
It’s cloudy over the hills, but sunny by the beach. We wonder if it’s hailing in Belair. Other Kapunda mates are at Williamstown in the Barossa as the Bombers try to sneak into the finals. Up there’s a very wet winter. Trev wonders if it’s more suited to submariners. I ask about folks eating a marinara sub. It’s probably bad news for all.
We speak about life with the virus like we’re in an Atwood novel. I mention that the night before we were supposed to go see the Whitlams at the Gov. A Sydney band, I maintain their best song’s titled “Melbourne” about a girl, “who calls her dog The Bear.” But the Eastern seaboard lockdown means they couldn’t come. Of course, if they were GWS, they could. We wonder about the injustice of this. Footy and live music are both in the bucket called entertainment.
There’s talk of Clare wineries such as Skillogalee which was just sold by our former PE teacher and footy coach. Pete announces he’s embarking on a cabernet sauvignon self-education course. He’s become too comfortable with shiraz. Trev and I chorus, “Coonawarra.”
Pete mentions popular racehorse Morty, which shares a name with an identity back home in Kapunda. I check to see if it’s done well. It hasn’t. The Astrologist salutes at Flemington in race 8 for me. My horoscope told me it would.
It still looks dark and wet up in the Hills. We wonder how the footy’s going in Belair. Good day for back men we reckon. At half-time in Glenelg there’s kick and catch. There’s only been seven goals thus far and we wonder if the game’ll open up in the second half.
Trev played drums in some prominent Adelaide bands including Imelda’s Shoes. Still a great name, we agree. He was asked to audition for another band but declined as he was happy where he was. They were called The Superjesus.
A prodigious kick, Pete played full back for Kapunda in the 1987 grand final. They lost to Tanunda. The day started warm, but it was pouring by the final siren. I remember driving home from Freeling in a mate’s Torana. In the cassette deck was popular saxophonist Grover Washington’s Winelight and, “Just The Two Of Us” with Bill Withers on vocals. It features extensive use of steel drums, but we don’t mention this.
Inflicted with the same calamity as the AFL there’s loudspeaker music at the breaks and it’s too loud. A splash of plutonium in the footy club PA could be timely.
Then Pete talks of the trip he and his family made recently to Port Arthur and its tragic natural beauty and I speak of Arkaroola as a single-visit only destination to use a tourism term I just invented. Then we discuss the Prince of Wales pub back home going on the market for the first time in nearly forty years.
Like Hawthorn for most of this century, Glenelg find a way, somehow with a seven-goal last term burst. Former Tiger cub Richard Douglas kicks a late major for the Redlegs and this irritates some in the boisterous crowd. The Bays are now 15 and zip. It’s still looks grim over Belair, but Chernobyl oval’s in the longest winter of all.
Glenelg is the reigning premier for at least for another week!Sunday afternoon, just critiquing the front lawn and counting the pickets.Max’s soccer season slides to a spring stop.What better gift than the appropriate use of a possessive apostrophe?The forlorn and haunting beauty of Williamstown’s barbeque (and Claire!)Teenage boy rule 31: as your parents love it ensure that you run on the grass in your socks.
Less than a minute in the umpire blew his whistle to pay a holding free kick to Glenelg, and from a few rows behind us came the comforting, Pavlovian yelp, “He’s been doin’ it all bloody day, Ump!”
A convivial tone now set in the bottom deck of the Fos Williams Stand at Adelaide Oval our afternoon unfolded in exhilarating fashion. Even the subsequent Popcorn Chicken Incident served as a petit carnival of community and generosity.
Footy jumpers, scarves, caps and t-shirts in Port and Glenelg colours smeared across the outer like a monochrome Monet, and with the crowd split evenly the atmosphere was enthusiastically tribal, but also exhibited an unedited defiance of the AFL, in celebration of local footy as it was before we capitulated to national (Victorian) interests, and permitted our suburbs to be annexed.
Admittedly, I’m also an Adelaide fan, but there’s a deeper, elemental quality about your footy team having its own discrete place and particular geography. Last Thursday I walked along Jetty Road and about Moseley Square, buoyed by the balloons and streamers and team posters in the windows. However, in this city the Crows are both everywhere and nowhere. They have no earthly claim; no Alberton, no Patawalonga.
The pre-game concert is another ritual, and I loved You Am I in 2015 with footy-mad Tim Rogers up front siphoning Pete Townsend and Ray Davies. Local outfit Bad/Dreems are energetically gruff and glug West End Draught as they romp through their set. The drummer sports the prison bars of a Magpies guernsey.
History always hovers at the SANFL grand final. Former stars Peter Carey who I pass walking his dog on the esplanade most mornings and Greg Anderson, whose timeless locks are surely in the Mullet Hall of Fame (next to those of Billy Ray Cyrus) do a lap in a ute while clasping the premiership cup, and both relish the sunny applause.
Glenelg skips away early. Their tackling has jungle ferocity and as if channelling the glory days when footy was only on boxy black and white Pye TVs, they kick long into their forward line.
Port are flint-hard and the twenty years since they’ve won a flag must present as volcanic outrage. They harass and coerce, but the Tigers use crafty handball to dominate possession.
For Magpie fans the unknowable has arrived, and nineteen excruciating minutes elapse in the second quarter before Frampton comes alive and they register their afternoon’s first goal.
Alex and Max and two of their primary school mates are as unrelenting in their eating as Glenelg is in their attack so I muster extra supplies. Juggling food worth the GDP of a small Pacific nation I shuffle back down aisle 133 as Marlon Motlop kicks a clever goal, and a rejoicing fan’s arms shoot out periscopically and clock me. Instantly, it’s raining popcorn chicken all over the concrete steps and my person. I’m a friendly-fire casualty.
The colonel can’t help me.
The Glenelg fan apologies saying, “Can I buy you another one of those?”
My automated response is a polite but stunned, “No, mate it’s fine.”
I surrender the surviving chook to the boys who are wholly unsympathetic to my fiscal, social and psychological loss, and inhale them. Old mate comes down and announces, “Mum feels badly so she’ll get you some more chicken.” Claire and I nod thanks. He’s about forty years old. Perhaps he’s already spent his pocket money.
Another most kind witness to the Sudden Chicken Storm appears with a box of popcorn poultry, and says, “I felt very sorry when I saw what happened. Some Port fans started laughing.” She hands these over, and before she can reclaim her seat, the boys have slurped them up. So, the kindness of strangers gladdens our hearts, if not our arteries.
Claire is bemused that my only contributions to the stadium noise are the binary and monosyllabic, “BALL!” when a Magpie player has had too long and, “YEEEAAAHHH!” when we kick a goal. On advice of my singing coach I ration these, but come Monday morning my vocal stylings are still more Joe Cocker than Tiny Tim.
The clouds dart and race, and we alternately soak up the sun and then shiver. Glenelg controls the narrative from prelude to epilogue. At the siren the four boys are on their seats shrieking and waving their yellow and black flag. The Tigers club song loops about the arena.
We cross the pedestrian bridge over the Torrens, and then head for home and our premiership suburb, by the silvery sea.
It must be acknowledged that autumn is ridiculously good in Adelaide.
The cloudless, immensely liveable days host a tremendous array of outdoor fun at the beach, at the Fringe Festival, in the backyard. It’s a spectacular time in this cosy city, clinging to the edge of our isolated island at 34.9285° S.
However, every month and season has highpoints, but September is the one to which I pin most happy expectation. I love winter, and while here it’s brief, I’m mostly pleased to wave farewell to it, and smile at spring.
So, what is it about September?
Football finals.
From my hometown of Kapunda, to Adelaide’s suburban competition and then to the immovable Australian Football league, it’s the best month to enjoy our unique game. I love that it must be the only sport in which competitors miss a goal but are rewarded with a point for being close. You know, for having a go. In this country we value laconic imprecision, of course.
With the Adelaide Crows finally back in September after seven years in the wilderness, I’ll take a huge interest in the AFL finals and hope they can claim their first flag this century (actually, millennium). We’ve two home finals and I still recall being at Adelaide Oval (with Paddy Dangerfield’s grandfather) when after cutting up the Cats they advanced to the last Saturday. The place went ape droppings. If it’s not to be in 2025, my inner socialist dictates that my temporary affections are with the most deserving, and generally least successful team. This doesn’t include Collingwood or Geelong. Not in my lifetime!
At the local level my team Glenelg qualified for their seventh consecutive finals series. Indeed, they have a shot at their third premiership cup in a row, and their fourth since 2019. It’s probably the club’s most successful era, ever. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be surprising. Most vitally, it’s going to be memorable. Can it already be a year since our captain, Liam McBean, lasered through 7.0 goals to pinch the flag from Norwood? Go, the fighting fury!
Spring is a seductress, but a shameless tease too. With the days lengthening swiftly we end our hibernation and amble outdoors expecting bright, sunny skies. There’s a burst of cheerful warmth, and suddenly, barbeques sizzle, thongs flip-flop out of the wardrobe, and a few frenzied punters even splash down to the beach.
But, before you’ve pumped up the tyres on your cobwebby bike, or ironed your speedos, a gusty change lashes through, and again you need a beanie on just to stick out the bins. And this schizophrenic weather can go on endlessly. It’s like buying tickets to a Bob Dylan concert and worrying about who’ll turn up on the night. The good Bob, or the bad Bob?
The international cricket season (Ashes Tour) is slow to get a rumblin’ so horse-racing enjoys some attention until mid-November. I love the Group 1 races such as the Makybe Diva Stakes, named after the Port Lincoln wonder mare who won three consecutive Melbourne Cups, and the Moir Stakes, which sadly isn’t the Moi Stakes and therefore named after Kath and Kim. The boys and I will invest the odd hour in the Broadway pub watching some of the turf action. Max might even wear his Black Caviar cap. It’ll be a raspberry and chips for all.
September is rebirth and renaissance; promise and hope; a farewell to the murk and a cautious nod at the light. It’s when the year stomps down on the accelerator and tyres squealing, burns towards Christmas like a mad Monaro.
Let’s wind down the windows and crank up the radio!
*The title comes from the celebrated American poet ee cummings
mickeytales 