Playing Football

Football has always been my first love as a sport, having played it from the earliest days I can remember.
It has given me some of the most amazing highs when unexpected wins occur, flags are won and just the camaraderie that exists within a club makes it special. I have met some of my closest friends through football.
But, it has also given me some lows on a regular basis as I tended to cop lots of injuries through wear and tear, collisions, some punch-ups and just getting crunched. Maybe if I used the inside of my head a lot more instead of using the outside of it to attack opponents then perhaps I might have not had so many injuries and hospital stays!

Some insights from different clubs and teams that I was lucky enough to play with...

Colbinabbin
As soon as I was allowed to play footy by my mum and dad I was into it. Colbinabbin is a small, one street town ( it actually has more streets now, but back then it was basically just the main street) near Bendigo.
The population rarely got close to 200, so it was obviously hard to fill a seniors, reserves and Under 16 team, unless the club was doing well on the field.
What I remember most from this time, about 1974 ish is that when you are in Gr 3 or Gr 4 and are playing U-16, the other kids were BIG ! I was lucky that I had my older brother Tony playing as well and we were often the 19th and 20th players for that year. This was in the days when there was no interchange, so if you came off, you stayed off. It was good to have that familiar face sitting next to me on the bench, and also great to share the moment when one of us was sent on.
I can't recall many wins in those days as Colbinabbin 3rds were the minnows of the league and we could not compete against the powerhouse teams from the bigger towns. Nonetheless, I only have happy memories of my first few years of footy at Colbo as I loved getting to training and just absorbing myself in the culture of a football team. My first injury surfaced at this time when I started to get lots of problems with my heels and arches and started to have my feet strapped and wedges placed in my boots. Looking back now, I probably needed orthotics as each of my own boys have had similar problems and all 3 wear orthotics now. Back then they weren't an option.
After a few more years I gradually played more regularly until the time came to go away to Boarding school when I was 14.
I remember the first time I came home for holidays and was asked if I could play for the 3rds the next day. Unfortunately, the team had already been picked, so on the day, just before the game the coach asked for someone to step out to make room for me. My younger brother Peter quickly volunteered and I was in, but I can still see the disappointment in his face at missing out on a game so that I could play, even to this day. That has always bugged me, and if I had my time again I would never have played in the first place. He loved his footy, so to miss out on a game would have killed him too.
As I reached the age of 15-16 I was playing in the 3rds whenever I came home from boarding school, as did my close mate Raj who went to a different boarding school in Melbourne. There were also a few other boys as well, and my brother Tony. As we were now the older members of the team and could get a lot more of the ball, one or two of the other teams quickly began to target the 'College Kids', as they did not see it as fair that Colbinabbin would top up their team from time to time with these semi-regular players. We quickly became targets for high tackles and fights, and the boys from one team in particular didn't mind if this continued after the game or even when it was not football season, as we were hassled if they saw us anywhere.
As I got a little older I started to play in the reserves and then the seniors when I came home from college and the rough stuff sort of stopped as there were bigger and older blokes in the team who looked after the 16 year olds.
This was when I copped my first big knock. In a game at Stanhope I was having a good game, and the next thing I can remember is being in the Rochester Hospital.
Apparently an opponent game me a whack to the face in a pack and knocked me out and I was taken concussed to hospital where I spent the night. The most annoying thing was that I had to stay home for a week and missed playing for my school team the next day. The bloke who hit me got 6 weeks, and at the tribunal I got a lecture for 'unsatisfactory evidence', because I could not tell them what had happened, and they thought I was covering for the bloke.
The next week I was going to play again, but the club weren't sure if I should. It came down to a decision by my dad, so at training on the Thursday I trained my butt off to impress him, which worked as I got the okay and had another good game.
After leaving school I came home each week to play and was in and out of the seniors and reserves. The highlight of the year was winning the flag in the two's against a team who we had not beaten all year.

Check out the front row, 2nd from left. Is that hair, or a crash helmet? And blue boots too ???

I played again for Colbinabbin in 1986 when I was teaching in Wodonga, and was coming home to play football. This was a lean year, we won a few, but lost more. The blokes were great to play with, especially as they were mostly my mates I had grown up with. My fitness wasn't great because I was living on my own, not eating properly and basically became a bit of a fat slob, but I still loved playing.

Buninyong

In 1983 I moved to Ballarat to study teaching and moved into a house with 6 other blokes. Within a week we had the President from Buninyong on our doorstep trying to recruit us all. 3 of us went out and trained, but the other two pulled out after a week or two, leaving just me.
From the outset, I just loved this club and all of the blokes in it. They made me feel so welcome and very quickly a lot of good friendships were formed.
The season started well and I was in the Senior team, but we weren't having a lot of success. To make matters worse, I copped a bad ankle injury midway through the season and missed about 6 games. I came back and played the rest of the season, but struggled with the ankle every game. I was a bit slack about getting proper treatment for it, and it wasn't until about 7 years later that I ended up getting it looked at more closely, with the result being that I required an ankle reconstruction. That meant another year out of action.
1983 was a great year at Buninyong even though we struggled. It taught me a lot about always giving your best no matter what, because on the odd occasion when we did win, the feelings were so special.
For some reason, I spent the next year at East Ballarat after getting talked into signing on after a boozy night at the local student pub. I never really enjoyed my time here as one never knew until the day of the game if you were going to play or not, so after a while I just stopped turning up on the Saturday. This killed me as I loved my footy. I still trained, but if they couldn't confirm if you would be playing or not, I chose to not go.
So, in 1984 it was back to Buninyong and this is where I really felt at home.
We trained our butts off in the pre season under a very tough, but fair coach in 'Bull' Dean. Success quickly came our way and we spent the season in the top 5. 'Bull' taught us to play hard, but fair, because if we got rubbed out we would disadvantage the team.
We made the finals, and in the first final it was us vs Bungaree, played at Learmonth on a typical crappy, cold and wet Ballarat day. The mud and slosh was ankle deep and it was my job to cover a bloke named McGuigan I think, who had won the league B & F Medal. I was always close enough to mug him, but to my everlasting horror he kicked 5 I think in the 1st quarter, leaving me gutted. At 1/4 time I asked if someone else could cover him, but it was still left to me. He didn't do much more in the game, but the damage was done, and we lost by about 30 points, which was what he kicked in the 1st quarter ! 'Bull' was noble after the game, but I could tell he was gutted, he always worked so hard for us.
I moved away for a year to teach in Wodonga, and in 1987 I was back in Ballarat and straight back to Buninyong.
This time I got myself really fit and we started the year off well. What I loved most was that the team stayed settled all year, in particular the backline where I was. The 6-7 blokes who played there became really close on and off the field, and although we missed the finals, we had a great time all year long. Towards the end of the season I developed my first knee injury and needed lots of strapping to get on the paddock. I managed to see the year out and have an operation, the first of many over the next few years.

Check out the mullet, as well as the strapping to hold the knee together !

1988 was a great year, the best I had of all my years of playing. While we did not have a lot of wins, we celebrated hard when we did win. One night in particular saw us smoking cigars after an unexpected win, so you can imagine how a non smoker like me pulled up after this !

We trained  our butts off throughout the year, and even during those bleak winter Ballarat nights I just loved it. I thrived on the work because the results were showing up on the Saturday.

I remember one game against Bungaree where the game itself was its usual hard but fair contest, but towards the end the game was paused for about 10 minutes because a lot of the spectators were fighting, and it spilled out onto the ground. I can still see the masses of people spread from the wing to the goal posts just going for it, while the players from both teams assembled in the middle and just laughed at what we were witnessing. Usually it is the players having a crack at each other.

Whenever we played Hepburn (who we hated, and were known as a dirty team) I always came up against this one particular bloke and for some reason we always ended up having a punch up. In this one particular game we lined up on at each other at the start and before the ball was bounced he started swinging, After we were seperated I called him some names and asked what his problem was, to which he said "Just wanted to get it done early!"

It doesn't sound good, but it always gave me pleasure running through him!!

In another game, I was playing against my good mate Laney, who was the gun forward at Springbank. Before the game started, we were doing the usual shaking of hands before the game (unheard of now!) and as I reached out to shake Laney's, he spat in his hand then shook mine, all the time with a wicked wink in his eye. No malice, just Laney being Laney. Imagine my horror when my team mates saw this and pounced on him and laid into him because they didn't know we were mates and he was just mucking around. After the scuffle was broken up he just laughed it off then proceeded to kick 10 goals and murder us all day.

The following year was going to be the big one for me, I had won a few awards the previous year, so this was time to step up. 

I had never been fitter and was ready to go, only to stuff up my knee again two weeks before the first game. Another operation and that season was over. Gutted.

Sadly, this was my last season for Buninyong, as some issues arose in regards to my hospital bills, so at the start of the next season a few friends got in my ear and I was off to a rival team, Springbank. Despite not winning a flag at Buninyong, I still regard them as 'my team', the one that I still have the closest allegiance to.

Springbank

I had been spending a lot of time over summer with a good mate, Laney, and although he wasn't playing that year due to a knee reco, he convinced me to come to Springbank to play.

While I was very keen to do so, I was still torn between the attraction of going to this club and my loyalties to Buninyong. The only thing that made me change my mind was that I had had hassles at Buninyong after needing a knee op, and there were problems with the insurance that we paid. The hassle with getting a clearance were always happening, even to the point of the club ringing me at school, and the coach waiting outside my school to see me to get me to change my my mind.

So, off I went, and I also talked a teaching colleague into coming to Springbank as well. Well, they were rapt, as my colleague was blitzing everything at training, and they were thinking "How good is this?". However, one night at training before the season even started, my colleague went down in a heap after doing his hammy. He looked like he had been shot, and I can still see him crawling along the ground trying to stand up, but couldn't. Needless to say, he ended up at the hospital, crutches for a while and his footy career ended there and then.

Our coach was a well known player who had a reputation of being tough, but fair. I always got on well with him and loved his approach.

He always told us that we were not to kick 'torps' at training, and 'look out if anyone does!'.

It became a constant game to try and sneak a few in while we were having our warm up kicks while he was in the sheds getting ready. Sometimes he would catch someone and some form of punishment would be given out, so if you tried to do one you were taking your life into your own hands.

This year I was in and out of the Seniors and missed out on a spot in the Grand Final, which they won. It was still great to be part of the club at this time, they were amazing people.

Recuperating at home after an ankle reconstruction.

Footy ended for me in about 1992 0r 1993 when I played in the Reserves Premiership for Springbank. But there is a bit more to this story...

I wasn't really meant to be playing after having had so many knee operations in the previous years, so I was asked to be a trainer for the club (you know, the guys in white overalls who strap the players, handle injuries etc). I readily agreed to this so that I could still be involved. My wife liked the idea too because she was pretty well sick of all the injuries, plus we had just had our first child. Plus, I was getting some dollars for doing this role.

Anyway, all was going well in the first week or two of the season, but numbers of players were down. So, in about round 2 or 3, the reserves were really short of players and the club asked if I could fill in.

Could I ?? Hell yeah !!!! So on went some borrowed gear and I played and had a ball, but didn't say a word about it when I got home.

The next Saturday came and I secretly packed my footy gear into my 'trainer's bag' and off I went to the footy, played again and was over the moon. We were getting more players and we were winning. Once again, my secret was safe.

However, the next week I played and copped a cut to the head, and there was no way of hiding it when I got home. As expected, it was noticed straight away and the game was up. Silence for the next few hours!!

Next Saturday came, and I was heading off to the footy, this time to play rather than strap players, but not with the full support of my wife.

We won again, and even more players rocked up, and before too long we were the top team and the pressure was on to keep your spot in the team. We covered most teams really well, except Wendouree who we just couldn't knock over. The finals came and we soon found ourselves in the decider against Wendouree, and the planets aligned beautifully on the day and we smashed them. A highlight for me was when a good mate, Hoges brought our son Sam (who was about 2) into the rooms before the game and he was wearing a jumper with my number on it. I felt forgiven at last !! (But this was definitely going to be my last game!!)

Or so I thought....

Fast forward about 10-11 years and we are now living in Bendigo. I had started to run marathons and was reasonably fit. One weekend I went out to watch Colbinabbin play and was amazed to see a lot of blokes my age and older still playing. I quizzed my brother who was one of the trainers about this and he said they were just so short of players. I casually said to him "Oh, if they're short, just give me a ring" and thought nothing about it.

Until the next Friday when the coach rang me and asked if I could fill in. I was over the moon, the wife was just as impressed as she was 10 years previously when I made a similar 'comeback'!

So I turn up to Colbo the next day and get handed some gear and nervously do the warm ups, meet the players etc. Was I nervous!!!!!!

As I said, I had been doing marathons, so thought I was fit, but after the first few contests I was ready for a heart/lung transplant - I was knackered! It is a totally different type of exertion playing footy when compared to running non stop for 3 1/2 hours.

The bloke I was playing on just wanted to punch, push and niggle right from the start, so I just faced up to him and said "Mate, just play the friggin game, and we don't have to worry about this sort of crap", and to my surprise he stopped straight away and we were besties for the rest of the game.

We were playing the top side and late in the last quarter we were up by a few points (unexpected as the team was topped up with blokes like me) but kicking against the wind. The coach said to another older bloke on the bench "If I put you on, can you win it for us?" to which he vigorously nodded, so on he went. Within a minute he had decked an opponent, starting a big melee which ran down the clock and won us the game.

The next Friday, the phone rang at home and it was the coach again, but unfortunately, my wife took the call. Needless to say, I didn't play that weekend, and my footy career finished at age 41.