Chapter 6. Alice Springs Rules Footy, And Keeping Up Appearances
With the cooler weather came the footy season, the only game played in Alice Springs during that time being Aussie Rules.
The footy oval was alongside Anzac Hill, and two of the town’s three adult competition teams would play there of a Sund'y arvo. Of a Saturday, however (and previously on the Sunday mornings now lost) we’d ride by there on the off-chance that someone might be kicking a football around – a few of our schoolmates perhaps or some team members having a practice.
If no one was there we’d either hang around in case somebody did turn up with a footy, or we'd continue looking for threepenny bottles and check back an hour or so later. But if some action was taking place there our bikes would be abandoned at the boundary, still on the move and left to park themselves as we bolted onto the field.
In those days the oval’s playing surface was natural dirt and gravel and we played bare footed, barefoot being our default status anyway and none of us owning footy boots. Cuts, gravel rash and blood loss were suffered stoically and with pride, while the results of any rough-and-tumble over-competitiveness was dismissed through grit teeth with offhand comments like “…Ar it’s nothing, ay. I’m all right,” as our eyes watered visibly with the pain. Sometimes others would claim other injuries as footy wounds too, such as those incurred in fallings off bikes. This only worked where the claimant was certain the claimee had not been present at any recent kick-around, and so knew otherwise.
Contributing to these losses of bark was our weekend bicycle riding attire, comprising in its entirety as it did, just a pair of shorts (sans jocks, socks, shirts and shoes) – the only acceptable accessory being a Boy Scout belt with its exclusive quick-release turn-and-lock buckle.
In fact the belt was de-rigueur, whether a member of the Scouts or not. I mean one was simply not dressed without it.
(I never joined the Scouts but I did attend two meetings, coaxed there by a city born mate who claimed it was “triffic fun”. On the first occasion I felt a right goose because of having no idea as to where I should be standing, what I should be doing and what I should be saying, while on the second occasion our group leader took us on a short excursion to demonstrate the making of little stick and stone signs – as a means of indicating to others coming behind that we’d already been by there and the direction we were proceeding.
I couldn’t bloody believe it. Signs?!! …Why were they making signs?
See I was a bush kid; to me it looked as if a herd of wildebeest had stampeded through there – never imagining, of course, that Scouting’s raison d'être was aimed not at the likes of moi but at enlightening one’s less feral, urban-raised associates.)
Back on the footy field anything could be happening, with numbers varying on the day from several to several dozen, depending on circumstances. Often with numbers came more footballs, so sometimes there’d be more than one footy in play.
This was of no consequence whatever, as there were neither teams nor umpires nor any score kept. In fact our “game” was little more than fluid, running anarchy. On winning a ball you kicked it to a mate, in either direction as the moment dictated, the idea being for you or one of your associates to kick a goal (and all the while keeping alert as to where any other balls might be).
Kicking-mates in order of priority were: 1) our creek gang members, 2) the girl you fancied’s hopeless brother, 3) classmates generally and 4) an occasional member of the half-caste kids’ Gap Gang that might turn up – sworn territorial enemies but automatically allowable on the day via the fluidity business – and all of them able to fight, run, kick a footy and play better than any of us. Opponents would include anyone from the Catholic school, any more than two kids from the Gap Gang, other schoolmates generally as the mood took you and anyone you didn’t recognise.
Then one day our sports teacher happened by and, noting our commitment and general enthusiasm, took it upon himself to formalise matters, so ruining the whole free-running fluid anarchy thing that was the essence of what we were doing. Three teams were created and boys allocated and, him being an athletic type whom we all respected, we went along with it … more or less.
A short time later he announced that he’d found a part sponsor and would be organizing football boots for us. Needless to say, his stock just skyrocketed at this.
The local Football Association was then contacted and an arrangement made whereby we would play of a Sunday morning as a lead up to the main event. And for a time it all worked, though sometimes boys would turn up ready to play, often to find themselves not picked for the team, and then get into trouble for kicking a football around that invariably ended up landing amongst the parked cars or someone’s family get-together picnic.
After a time, however, interest began to decline. This made it easier to get a game, even if your team wasn’t playing; all you had to do was turn up. Even so, events were often conducted short handed. Eventually, though, the whole business more or less petered out.
Yet this is not to say it wouldn’t have died anyway. These things come and go. On warmer weekends – given the total absence of swimming pools in Alice Springs at the time – storms and a decent creek flow (or even rumours of a storm) would see a mass of junior cyclists migrating northward the eight or so kilometres to the Wigley’s Waterhole, many of whom were known to play football.
And not just us absentee footy kids. Wigley’s was a popular picnic spot in those days and when full sometimes half the town seemed to be there – including on one occasion the girl I fancied’s family.
Being “in” with her brother now proved a great help, in that it got me back to their picnic spot with him for a drink and a sandwich – during which time I didn’t show off too much.
And his sister really liked me. I mean why otherwise would she have ignored me so pointedly, hmm?
Nowdays the Anzac Oval is grassed, it’s used for rugby league, the real footy is played on the main Traeger Park Oval south of the town centre and hardly anyone goes out to Wigley’s Waterhole any more. I still go past the turnoff though, when I cycle up into the hills, even if I do have to stop at the top of the biggest little hill and catch my breath.
It’s the altitude, see; Alice Springs is two thousand feet up (600m); the air is thinner.
All of which explains how we grew up to be so fit and self-reliant, see. Firstly: put off smoking for life by our attempts to use gum tree roots, and eating plenty of good food.
Well there was no such thing as a McDonalds – or any fast food outlets for that matter – just pies and pasties from the local baker’s. And old Mrs Morecroft wasn’t exactly fast on her feet.
Secondly: plenty of fresh air and exercise. (It was a long way down to the market-garden and around the back to the melon patch, see, and you had to get the legs working pretty well if old Kilkenny saw you, because he could follow in his ex army jeep anywhere you could ride your treadly – including into the Gap Road acacia forest which was Gap Gang territory and more totally life-threatening than any maniacal market garden owner could ever be). Added to this was having to wrestle one's self out of the brawny Lena Ragonelli’s amorous clutches whenever the affection-starved hippo chose to ambush me on the way home from school (and it was no good trying to ride past her as she could stop me and my bicycle in full flight). I mean how else do you think I learned to break out of an Indian Death-lock?
And (thirdly): by ensuring one drank plenty of fluids (Mr Cav's Creaming Soda in the main but anything we found there, really).
As for the gum tree roots... Well, we’d still light ‘em up from time to time, but only when there were some little kids around – you know, so as to demonstrate just how tough and worldly-wise we East Side Acacia-scrub boys actually were.
I mean keeping up appearances is really important.