Beechworth players gather round for the coach’s address at the quarter-time huddle. Photo: TONY SOWERSBY
The inclement weather rolls in around mid-afternoon. The way that Glastonbury gets muddy, that’s akin to the middle of the ground as the seniors team squelch in. Everything gets heavier in the wet. The old woollen jumper fibres absorb the water and cling and bounce with a thud on the skin like water on a trampoline.
Lifting the legs requires more effort as the boots sink down making carved out shapes in the dirt and clay, in these landscapes where digging has long been a thing, when gold and hope and possibility are but moments away. This is Ned Kelly country and in any weather the locals buck up and play. It’s not always pretty but there’s something poetic about the show going on, even when darkness encroaches just as the siren rings out, the last quarter has begun.
Country footy in regional Victoria is one of sensory experiences. There has got to be some of the most beautiful backdrops draped around, of green rolling hills and established trees, a variety of birds that continue through the game to sing and fly overhead, sometimes their flight path confusing the game. On a good day when there’s no fog or mist or deluge or buckets and buckets of rain, there are 360-degree views of the weather moving in. Blue clear skies on one side, dark threatening clouds on the right side, making their descent in.
A painter could have set up a few yards back, capturing the eclectic landscapes: sometimes bush, sometimes English. Sometimes featuring a group of kangaroos towards dusk bounding by. A place where it is not uncommon to see a koala when you make your way in to buy a record, perched up above in the wind chimes of dangling leaves. By the time you return again, he’s moved on quietly, away from the thundering audience, gathered near the kiosk, huddled in.
“Look Dad!” I remember us saying on the way to a game. We slowed down as we caught a glimpse of the face. The cutest echidna you ever did see, just going about his day, wandering happily.
That’s the thing about country footy, it’s a travelling game. Into the car we all piled, for an away game. Conversation or radio or quiet contemplation filled the space, as paddocks and houses and open skies gave movement to thoughts and ideas. It was a day of sensations, as the Saturday unfurled. Of seriousness and lightness, of concentration and laughter. Of handshakes and pats on the back, interspersed with stern talkings-to and that’s just observed from afar. It was a day of play and other games of childhood where freedom was part of how you thought and who you were.
Yackandandah and Beechworth, Chiltern and Rutherglen, Glenrowan, Mount Beauty – a place earning its name. It was a time of simplicity, of little strips of shops that were closed by late morning. Most of the small streetscapes emptied as the members of the township made their way to the grounds.
Visceral memories you’ll remember again, of my brothers and my Dad making their way to the centre of the ground, to inspect the conditions and stand together, with a mixture of suspense and of love, of being together, on the cusp of something else.
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For many reasons, there’s a glue-binding agent here at the local ground, helping to lift the spirits of all around. There wasn’t anything fancy but there was a nourishing quality that you can’t quite name as volunteers filled polystyrene cups with hot tea from an urn and stuffed paper bags with sausage rolls and pies you could barely recognise from the topping of sauce. Afternoons filled with whizz fizzes and those pink musk sticks, long rainbow python snakes and redskins that stuck to the roof of your mouth and between your teeth, giving the adults a moment of quiet as the kids gathered around.
The atmosphere near the club rooms during seniors games was both energising and intimidating, such a mix of people all together but separate, immersed in the play and the players as they moved near the ball, most knowing their names.
Standing around fires alight in old rusted iron drums, depending on the direction of the wind, the smoke pushed back, so whether you liked it or not, with each inhale, you would gulp some back.
A winter’s day at the footy, in the middle of the year, is about sharing moments in time, letting go of other restless life events. Like a hike in the great outdoors where the elements call you to attention, your senses are drawn in, forcing you to be present, to look, to listen and as someone says something as the wind clips your ears, you must engage and lean in.
An old friend who once lived nearby used to feign disinterest when her husband asked me about football on the weekend. He said to me more than once, her Dad was a good footballer, indeed he was. I’ve often thought about our conversations later, how we can start to shift away from things that bring the memories flooding back. Or how people can often get the wrong idea of football like religion or politics and turn it into a divisive thing – but in its heart it’s not. The thing is it’s not merely the game but the sensory stories and incidental goings-on. The landscape and togetherness form a potent thing, with the sights and the sounds, conversations and ideas.
After the game, the clip clop of boots make their way in, either a triumphant whirl of stories and, “Did you see that”, following by a spirited chorus of the club songs (“From the foothills of Mount Stanley”), that brought in quiet members of the community and invited them into the fold, soaking it in, to disappear again not long afterwards, a feeling of joy carried within. Or instead, subdued murmurings and arms placed around. Even during a loss, here is an illustration of what matters, people having a collective thing to connect about, everyone familiar with the sights, feelings and sounds. Everyone holding a common thread, a tapestry woven around the navy blue night sky, fallen over the muddy ground as the day draws to a close.
Years later, walking around a quiet, empty football ground, with the green surrounds, the memories and senses of childhood I can feel with each footstep, each glance around.
My brother appears from the veranda, looking up at the starry sky, he breathes deeply and follows with a sigh. Chimneys puff and smoke collides with the air. “Smells like Beechworth,” he says. I nod alongside him, another of those moments pocketed and shared. Together three siblings, smelling something of home, of childhood, or comfort, of our Dad, in the winter night air.
The navy blue night sky, fallen over the ground as the day draws to a close. Photo: SINEAD HALLIDAY
