DANIEL LEWIS REMEMBERS HOW A GAME SPANNED GENERATIONS.
AROUND THIS
TIME each year, after autumn has surrendered to winter and office
workers keep their souls invigorated with Australian Rules chatter, memories of
my footy-fixated childhood come flooding back.
To when multiple games were
staged on a Saturday afternoon. To when money-obsessed outsiders hadn’t yet
fully dipped their fingers into football’s pie. To when my Collingwood-mad
uncle rang pretending to be the Pies’ mercurial forward Peter Daicos after a
semi-final win in 1984 – and I believed him. (This same uncle had to summon all
available restraint to stop himself throwing his beer at the television during
the 1980 grand final, as Richmond’s wispy-haired, cocksure Kevin Bartlett ran
riot with seven goals against the Pies.)
And to when I met a kindly old
man by the name of Stuart.
It was autumn, 1987. I was 10. We
were new to the northwest Victorian town of Swan Hill, Dad having just accepted
a job transfer with the bank. I was
charging around the bottom of our avenue, barefoot, weathered Sherrin footy in
hand. The first drop in light signalled time-on in the final quarter.
Collingwood five points down. I was tough-as-nails wingman Darren ‘Pants’
Millane, thundering towards full-forward Brian Taylor for the winning goal –
between the light post and the mailbox two doors down. But a stray kick landed
in the arms of an old, bespectacled man, who fired a 20-metre handpass back at
me. This wasn’t in the script.
Even though we’d never met,
Stuart knew my first name, and also that I barracked for Collingwood. He was a
Fitzroy supporter; he said he
wanted to see a premiership before he died.
His creaky bones hampered him
somewhat, but he was skilful and nimble, his drop kicks spearing into my chest.
We went back and forth until the ball and darkness became one and the closing
credits for A Country Practice rolled
in unison in the surrounding houses.
The
following evening, I looked out the window and there he was again: the old man,
hovering under the street light. And so it became a nightly ritual. In between
kicks he’d quiz me about school and junior footy. Mum would reserve her best
neighbourly smile for him, while he and Dad became mates. He would sometimes
call around on Saturday afternoons and sit with us by the fire drum in the
backyard as the ABC footy crackled from the wireless. The commentators would
talk excitedly about St Kilda’s Tony Lockett breaking the record for most goals
in a game. Stuart would agree; he reckoned Lockett was the best full-forward
since 1950s Essendon legend John Coleman. His eyes narrowed somewhat on Sunday
afternoons, however, when Sydney’s tight-shorted show-pony Warwick Capper stole
the show.
By late 1988 it was time to move
house again. I went next door to say goodbye. Stuart’s place was modest: a tiny
kitchen and bathroom; a lounge room cramped with old china. Ancient Fitzroy
Football Club paraphernalia filled the absence of family photos – he’d never
married. On the coffee table sat a photo album filled with newspaper clippings,
curled-up and yellowing. A footballer of promise, the war years had cut
Stuart’s own career short.
He was sad we were leaving. I
made a promise to visit him again. I never did.
Fitzroy became my
second-favourite team – and I always associated them with ‘old Stu’, as Dad
called him. But my teen years passed without much thought of the old man until
1996, when the Lions folded and merged with the Brisbane Bears.
I hoped Stuart had taken on
Brisbane (now the Brisbane Lions) as his team after the merger. And I hoped he
was still alive to see their three premierships just after the turn of the
millennium. For me, the twin blows of Brisbane’s pair of grand final triumphs
over Collingwood (2002 and 2003) were softened by the thought of a
ninety-something Stuart in his armchair, soaking it up.
Now I’m 36, a father of two girls, and footy and I
have fallen out. My short career peaked with runner-up in the best and fairest
for Cobram Seconds in the Murray Football League. My pedigree as a Pies
supporter has moved from one-eyed to almost ambivalent. Other interests –
travel, love, words, music and booze – have taken the place of footy. I can
hold a conversation with a footy nut, but my views certainly aren’t nuanced.
Now it all seems too chaotic and complicated – and wrung free of colour. I
spend my days chasing simplicity. It’s elusive, yet I find it. It’s there in my
girls’ smiles. And it’s there at the local park whenever I see dads and their
sons kicking the Sherrin back and forth, the tiniest sliver of sunshine
breaking through the cloud, an old man’s twinkle-eyed smile going against the
grain.
» Daniel Lewis is a Melbourne-based writer and media professional
»» Originally published in The Big Issue on July 5, 2013.
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