The alarm sounds at 6:15am. The boy drags himself out of bed. It is cold but he doesn’t care. His footy jumper is carefully laid out on the end of his bed.
He admires it for a moment, a brightly coloured maroon and gold design that is pleasing to his eye. He especially likes the lion motif that sits front and centre, its shaggy mane framing its head while its front paw rests lightly on a football.
He slips it on, along with his maroon shorts, and then sits on the end of his bed and rolls on his maroon socks. It is a ritual he loves.
By 6:30am he is eating breakfast. Outside the kitchen window the world is still in darkness and all is quiet. He grabs his father’s iPad while he munches on his Coco Pops and checks the AFL scores from the night before. He nods knowingly. Geelong has defeated North Melbourne and the Suns have got home over the Saints.
By 7:00am the whole family are rugged up and ready. They have crunched their way across a backyard blanketed by frost and piled into the car. It reluctantly chugs to life in a cloud of blue exhaust smoke, and the heater, which is hastily turned up to high, blows out a jet of cold air.
“Let the engine warm up first,” shouts the father as he does every Sunday morning, but he is ignored, as he is every other Sunday morning (and most times for that matter).
The sun has not yet risen but at least now it is light enough to see. They drive into town, past paddocks rendered white by the sub-zero temperatures. It was minus five degrees when they left home according to the thermometer hanging under the verandah.
At 7:30am they reach their destination, driving through icy slush before skidding their way up the embankment that surrounds the oval. Before them, like a sparkling sea of salt, lays their hallowed turf. Not a blade of green grass can be seen.
A parent volunteer wheels a small cart across the ground, his breath turning to mist with every puff. He marks out the playing surface with cones (the under 10s play across the width of the oval) and ensures that the portable goal posts are in the correct position. His footprints leave a dark stain in the thick frost, betraying his movements.
By 7:45am the visiting team are out on the ground trying to warm up. They have come from slightly warmer climes and are not enjoying the pretty, but freezing conditions. The home side stay in their heated clubrooms until the last possible moment, keeping their boots and feet dry.
At 8:00am the boys have taken up their positions and the umpire throws up the ball to start the game. They have forgotten about the cold and go about their business with all the seriousness of their AFL idols. The parents on the other hand are left shivering on the sidelines with numb toes and throbbing fingers, hopping from foot to foot trying to keep warm, as the sun rises weakly into the sky.
The kids are soon red faced from their efforts and the ball, so wet and heavy, begins to claim some victims. A full blooded kick sends the undersized Sherrin crashing into one youngster’s face, bringing tears, while another cops an errant fist from an attempted handball in the eye. The coldness emphasises the pain.
The crowd cheer when an overhead mark is taken with the slippery ball, and clap enthusiastically when one young fella takes two overhead pack marks in a row.
A goal is kicked and the frost begins to thaw.
After the game the boys line up. Every player shakes the hand of every other player. The volunteer umpire gets three cheers and each coach says a few words, praising the opposition and highlighting the spirit and skill of the contest.
The ‘away’ coach jokes about how it was an almost tropical 0 degrees when he left home, but minus four degrees by the time he got to the ground. Jokes about the weather are a dime a dozen in this notoriously cold central Victorian town.
The kids disperse and the next age group take over the ground. Back in the rooms the teams sing their club songs with all the gusto of their AFL counterparts, except the kids even sing it after a loss.
Not that they keep score of course. Someone, somewhere, decided that children at this level can’t cope with winning or losing. But that someone, somewhere, must have forgotten that even under 10s can count and that the children are more than aware of who has won or lost. They cope with it just fine. Perhaps the singing helps!
As we grow older it is easy to forget that a whole world of football exists outside of the AFL. For many of us, unless we have kids of our own or friends still playing, local leagues and junior football are things of our past.
Of course, nothing beats sitting with 80,000 like-minded souls at an MCG blockbuster, but for all its glitz, glamour and skill, the AFL can be a frustrating monster.
It is easy to become disillusioned. Ticket pricing, scheduling, tit-for-tat arguing, egos bigger than the game itself, inconsistent umpiring, inconsistent tribunal decisions, drug scandals, unattractive football, salary cap breaches, tanking… The list goes on.
Sometimes a trip back down to junior or local level can be cleansing for the soul. To see kids running about, free of ego, is to see the game being played at its purest. It is football stripped bare. Everyone is a volunteer. The kids play because they love it and because it makes them feel good. Most of all, it is fun (okay, the 6 am starts might not be fun, but you get the drift).
The boy described above is my son. For the first time since hanging up my own boots 13 years ago, I have found myself stepping back onto local grounds. It has been quite an experience. The aroma of freshly cut grass always sets my pulse racing, and the smell of liniment and stale sweat in the rooms is still so familiar that I (almost) feel that I could pull the boots on again, just for one more season.
To walk with my son onto grounds that I once played on and into the same cramped and decrepit clubrooms I changed in way back in the dream time of my own playing days, has been a nostalgic yet uplifting experience.
It has reminded me of everything I love about this game and allowed me to take a step back and look at the elite level through fresh, unjaded eyes.
And guess what?
The game is as magical as it has ever been!
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Things heating up in Canberra!
Diplomatically answered, Darcy!
For all the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the now-traditional Anzac Day clash at the MCG, there has been one thing conspicuously lacking over…
Old mate summing it up better than anyone possibly could!
