The Roar
The Roar

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Growing up with a sport-obsessed uncle in suburban Sydney

Tim O'Brien new author
Roar Rookie
7th August, 2017
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(Wiki Creative Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Tim O'Brien new author
Roar Rookie
7th August, 2017
5

I grew up in a dead end street in the western suburbs of Sydney in the 1970s. The memories are still vivid.

You could get your head rubbed in mud without your mother going for the antiseptic, run through the low burning fire, smoking away in the corner of the yard, or get chased up the road by your cousin who was throwing live fire crackers at you.

Fish on Fridays and church on Sundays.

But the one thing I remember the most that year was Uncle Donga.

He lived four houses up the road with his family – our cousins. His real name was Donald, but we just called him Uncle Donga.

Uncle Donga was five feet eight inches tall and 18 stones (work out the metric for yourself, it’s 1975 after all!).

He was a keg carter and knew every publican in Sydney. I used to run up to his house when his flatbed truck rolled in, and watch him kick off his steel capped boots as he dropped back into his well-worn armchair. I just wanted to be near him. Everybody wanted to be near him.

In his garage Uncle Donga had an 8’x 4′ snooker table.

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“It’s not a bloody pool table,” he used to say.

“That’s what the yanks call it.”

You had to be 10 years old to play on his table, and guess what? I was 10.

Uncle Donga also showed me how to play. How to hold the cue, how to shoot the white ball into the coloured balls, all the rules, the scoreboard, jigger, everything. He did it for all of us kids but this time it was my turn. Do you understand?

MY TURN.

Also in Uncle Donga’s garage stood a homemade chocolate wheel he and my dad made for our school fete at St Patricks Guildford. They had to use washers on the back of the wheel to balance it out. I always wondered why the numbers between 12 and 16 won a prize.

But it was when I watched the cricket with Uncle Donga I found the passion within, the true meaning of loving cricket, living every ball as if it were you out there at the WACA, facing the West Indies’ finest.

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Uncle Donga would launch off the armchair when an unfair dismissal was given against Australia, pointing and screaming at the television with irreverence.

I would look at my Uncle Donga in absolute awe. Uncle Donga could keep his unbridled one-eyed hunger for the Aussies success going for every session.

Sometimes he would trip as he lifted off out of his arm chair, taking out the coffee table and everything on it. But he never fell over once, probably good foot work. I would look at my Uncle Donga in absolute awe.

We enjoyed other sports together in his lounge room, but it wasn’t the same as the cricket in the summer of 1975.

I worked on my form over the years. Practicing the lift off, the pointing at the TV, and the irreverent comments when the Aussies were being disadvantaged.

I eventually managed to keep it going for the whole day, through every session.

Thanks to Uncle Donga I was a pro.

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