When my parents first moved out of town to a paddock on the NSW south coast, their builder laid the concrete slab and gave them a lesson on what it took to be considered a local in those parts: three generations in the local cemetery.
Last Friday night, I dipped in and out of the coverage on the National Indigenous Radio Service, coming in close only once the final siren had sounded. ‘Ah Koschitzke,’ a voice lamented. ‘Looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane.’ The regulars back-introduced him – Darryl White. The Cob and I turned to each other. ‘The porn star,’ we said in unison.
White played fullback for Brisbane when I was a girl. He wore his hair out, his socks down and a glove on his left hand, and we always called him 'the porn star.' He marked it cleanly and moved it smoothly. You could imagine a soundtrack by that other White – Barry – accompanying Darryl as he moved it down the wing. He was sexy.
‘I must be getting old,’ I said to the Cob. ‘All the players I loved and watched when I started out – they’re the coaches and commentators now.’ There was something simultaneously unsettling and comforting in this thought.
In footy terms, let’s face it, I found the game against all odds, with some considerable handicaps: a woman, a New South Welshwoman, daughter of a Frenchman, lacking any genetic disposition or environmental exposure to the game. I immigrated unexpectedly to the oval ball a meager eleven years ago – a twenty-first century fan – a novice, I know. And I’ve always felt those schisms.
Without generations of footy blood, I’ve relied on other building blocks to feel like a ‘footy local’. It was a big day the day my 10 year pin arrived on a card in the mail from Swans headquarters. And it’s with deep satisfaction that I stand at the school gate on a Monday morning and effortlessly embark on the weekend wrap with the Victorian born Dad and super centre half back/first ruck change of the local Masters comp. I’ve got the lingo now, and you can hardly hear the accent anymore.
But now, this year, I have the beginnings of a generation of players under my belt. It’s satisfying to see Hird, Voss, the Scott twins and Primus in the box; to see Darcy and Crawf, Richo and Roosey on the other box. I know their strengths and their weaknesses, their heroics and their injuries, their Premierships achieved and those retired without. It's reassuring to hear White and Grant and Tommy Harley on the wireless; to know that the man in charge of conquering the world, tackle by tackle, is none other than Brett Kirk. Even this week’s newest caretaker coach is one of mine – Paul Williams, #10, whose outside run we could use in the Swans midfield right now. More often than not, the face (or voice) of the game now belongs to someone I feel I know.
Esteemed tipster, Sally, fellow mum at the Newtown Swans Under 7s, was keeping me warm on the boundary of another arctic local oval last Saturday morning, with stories of her son’s new found interest in football statistics. He helps himself to them online. He had propped and asked her the other day, ‘Why were there so few teams in 1915?’ It got her thinking about the longer throw of history, beyond this season or the last, beyond the premierships of the last seven years.
It reminded her that our kids – the new generation of footy fans – think that the Saints and the Cats have always been great – they were hardly a year old when Nick Davis ended Premiership dreams down at the cattery and prompted the review that gave Bomber Thomson one more chance. Our kids hum the Collingwood theme song subconsciously on Sunday nights. Our kids believe that Port have always been basket cases. After all, the Cygnet was only two days old when his father wheeled him into the tea room of the maternity ward and settled him in front of the Power’s Grand Final victory over the waning Lions.
Kids are better at the here and now. They don’t feel the pull of eternal space which makes an adult reach for the gravitational certainty of roots.
The other morning, the Cygnet rejected some over-cooked toast. ‘You cannot be serious?’ I whined in my best New York accent. He looked bemused. I explained that there was this great tennis champ, John McEnroe, who used to play when I was a kid, who wore a sweatband and liked to complain a lot. But that he was always entertaining and a very good player. ‘He had a great rivalry,’ I added, ‘with a Swedish guy called Bjorg. He was the best player of his time, like Federer.’ It’s not easy mapping history over peanut butter toast. I was doing a pretty good job, I thought, until the Cygnet piped up, ‘But Federer’s not the best player in the world anymore. It’s Nadal.’ (It’s Djokavic actually but I didn’t want to get too technical.)
Perhaps more than any player now confined to a box, more than any jargon I can employ, more than all the membership cards in the bottom drawer, the most honest sign of my growing ownership of the game, is the fact that I have to tell the next generation how it all came to this. We all come in and go out at some point in history and sometimes, especially when the immediate week to week is hard to bear, it’s nice to feel the slightly longer throw of that continuum, and even nicer to be the one who knows enough to fill in the gaps.
So, I am the pioneer. I have laid the slab for what could be a long lineage. At almost seven, the Cygnet is one generation ahead of where I started. He wants to run like Rohan and mark like Reid. Hannerbury may well be his Captain oh Captain, and Judd will be special comments.
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