Riding the pine

Australian Rules football is a religion in most of the states of Australia except for perhaps New South Wales & Queensland where rugby still rules the roost so to speak.   Aussie Rules has become a lot more popular across all of Australia especially with professional teams located in each of the state capital cities - its a truly national sport these days.

Fraser Street - Clunes (main street) - yes, its straight
out of the 1850's...

As a kid growing up playing football in small town Australia during the 1960’s and 70’s it was 100% football (“footie” as its lovingly called - even today) all the time.  Back then footie was everything…and for the large part still is.  If you didn’t play you were considered weird and often shunned by your mates (peers group for those not in Australia!).  

To say it was a bit of a pressure cooker for a kid from a less than desirable family in a small town was an understatement.  Playing footie was the ultimate “leveler” from a social perspective – and every young boy was expected to play or at least try out for the local team. 
 

Clunes Football Oval as it is today (clearly in the summer time :-)

Like all junior teams there was the range of skills – from the very talented to the no so much.   To be honest, I was considered to be in the mid to lower end of the talent pool.   I'd like to think that it was mostly because I hadn't hit my growth spurt and therefore was both undersized and underweight for my age....but in reality not so much.   

I spent many a game on the bench eagerly awaiting my opportunity to play and prove myself to everyone around me…    There were some looooong seasons in my junior footie; all I can say is that I had plenty of splinters from “riding the pine”.  

As you can imagine I was less than thrilled but what could I do, I didn’t have a family pedigree from an established football family in town, in fact my dad didn’t play a game in his whole life, and therefore not a lot in the gene pool either.   So earning my spot was a humbling and often frustrating experience, but what I learned over those years were a number of things which I carry to this day (no, I didn’t say baggage – btw that’s your “outside voice” again  :-). 

Here are a few to let ruminate - “late bloomers” are often hungrier to play, as they know what it’s like to fail and struggle to earn a spot, they take nothing for granted and play each game hard cos they’re always out to prove themselves (for me this has been the story of my life - constantly out to prove myself) even to this day... 

Late bloomers more often than not have had little or no fanfare attached to their playing careers so their egos are often relatively healthy and intact - very workman like wouldn't you say?   This type of groundedness works well in a strong team environment, and hence I would contend is a better team player overall.

Interestingly if I look back to the so called “stars” of my junior footie, there was only one kid who went onto play at the top level (VFL) for St Kilda, unfortunately his career was cut short when he was killed in a car accident just as his career was taking off and he was on the verge of making his senior debut for the club – extremely sad given his talent.

Each Thursday night the team sheets were posted in the window of the milk bar on Fraser Street.   Okay so to translate from Australian to North American it’s like the local 7-11 or if you’re in the UK it’s the local corner store.  All three grades - Under 16, Reserves and First Grade.   As you can imagine it was quite a thrill to see you name in the starting squad.

Just another game playing at Clunes

The under 16 team trained Monday and Wednesday nights starting after we got back to town from secondary school, usually around 5:15 pm .   The closest secondary schools (High school and Technical college) were a 40 minutes train journey away, so after getting off the train we’d rush down to the town oval, which was about a mile from the station, sometimes I’d have to go home first which was another mile past the oval then come back again - my old bike got a good workout each week.  

On my way out the door from home I’d often grab a handful of biscuits (cookies in North America) to give me some respite against the constantly growling and empty stomach.  We’d train till 7:00 pm most nights irrespective of weather.   Surprisingly in those days it was colder and wetter than today so the mud was really deep, in fact at times it was so deep it would be over the top of your boots – almost to the quality and consistency of the Western Front during the Great War, with lots of slipping and sliding during practice. 

Most training sessions consisted of you quickly becoming caked with the thick black sticky river mud that served as topsoil on the oval.   And if it was raining, then you soon turned into a creature more akin to the “Creature from the black lagoon”.

The other thing was that how adept you became at practicing in semi darkness.   The local club didn’t get training lights till the mid 1970’s, so by the time we got down to the oval after school it was almost dark, and even with lights it was very hard to gauge distance and therefore could forget finesse or real skills work – every session was a no-frills survival of the fittest.

Aaahhh, yes all fun and games until you had to trudge home at the end of training in the pouring rain – just another mile, often soaked, filthy and starving (aren’t all teenage boys constantly hungry?)

Now I don’t want you to think it was a bad experience, quite the contrary in actual fact.  Out there on the training pitch and sometimes in games I felt like I fit in…finally!