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MY BRILLIANT (FOOTBALL) CAREER or THREE
STRIKES AND YOU'RE OUT!* Adelaide Oval. April 25, 1946. It
was a typical Anzac Day. In the morning it had rained, and the afternoon
wind was bitingly cold. I had been ill and still felt a little weak, but it
was Dad's first Anzac Day after the war, and we went as a family to the
Lightning Football Carnival at Adelaide Oval. I was 8 years old and this was
my first football game. The oval was packed and Dad, Mum, Bob and I sat high
up in the western stand. Mum insisted that I wear one of my brother's old
Unley High School caps, dark blue with light blue piping. 'You'll
have to barrack for Sturt, wearing that cap,' Mum told me. I felt
uncomfortable as Dad's team was West Adelaide—the Blood 'n Tars –
but, compliant, I accepted my designation. A Lightning Carnival pitted the eight league teams against each other in a knockout competition, each game abbreviated to two 15 minutes halves. Of the games, I remember little except that Sturt and West Adelaide met in the final. I was now quite uneasy about my required support for Sturt, feeling that it represented a disloyalty to my father so, taking off my cap and handing it to Mum, I said, 'I'm going to barrack for West now.' My parents exchanged smiles over my head. No desertion goes unpunished and Sturt outclassed West to win the final Glandore
Oval. July 1949 Three
years later, baseball was everything. Saturday afternoons were spent at
University Oval watching Bob play baseball and I longed for the time I could
don the black and white of Adelaide University and feel the crack of the
ball against the bat. Dad was now in the grandstand as official scorer and
Mum, dressed in hat, gloves, and fur-collared overcoat, was always there
among the small group of players' mothers and girlfriends. I worshipped my
brother's skill and composure and longed to be able to emulate it. I had
unsuccessfully importuned the Headmaster of Black Forest Primary School to
establish a baseball team and a desire to play competitive sport burned
inside me. The knock-up games of baseball I organised in an empty Glandore
paddock on Saturday afternoons did not satisfy my need for 'real'
competition so, driven by that and a desire for social inclusion, I tried
out for the School football team. To my, and I'm sure to others'
surprise, I was included in the football squad. Mum was unimpressed by my
request for new football boots and shorts, undoubtedly aware that this
passion was likely to be short-lived. However, the boots were bought and Dad
tried to teach me some of the rudiments of kicking a football. I was short,
chubby and asthmatic—an unlikely candidate for football greatness. I
got to play in two games that season. In the first, I played on a forward
flank and watched the opposition reel off 30 goals to our one. My stats for
the game would not have been difficult to calculate. In the second game, I
actually got two touches, both from free kicks. At least I was somewhere
near the action! My first kick was a grubber and was turned over by the
opposition. The second came from a free 10 metres out from goal. I lined up
the goals and—kicked into the man! At least there were a couple of stats
to record. It
was the last day of term and the sports master, probably tired of trying to
restrain a mob of adolescent boys eager for the holiday break, arranged a
scratch football match on the oval. John Halbert, who in the next year would
debut for Sturt in what would become an outstanding career, was captain of
the First Football team. Jim Rosevear, who in 2003 would publish a book
about Neil Kerley, was also playing. It was a bright Spring Day, with light
cloud in a blue sky. There was a feeling of freedom, of escape from lessons,
and of the sheer pleasure of physicality. I was placed out of harm's way
in a back pocket. The bounce went down and the rucks palmed the ball to
Halbert. Then there is darkness. 'Neil.
Can you hear me?' The
sounds of the game are going on at a distance and I am having trouble
focussing. It's as if I am in a dark mist. The sports master is hovering
over me. There is the sharp sting of ammonia in my nostrils and I jerk
awake. 'Wha
… where …?' 'It's
OK. You got a bit of a knock.' A bit of a knock! Just when I was about to achieve my first career 'hard get' Geoff 'Hubba' Huddleston had come flying into a pack and what I got was Hubba's knee to my head. Out cold, I was stretchered off. Mum
was right in the first place. The boots weren't worth the investment. Happy Birthday, Aaron, from your grandfather
Neil Quintrell—career statistics Years:
1946 –1954 Games:
Black Forest Primary (2 games)
Unley
High School (one minute of one quarter) Lifetime statistics: kicks 2; effective disposals 0, marks 0, handballs 0, hard gets (almost 1). *I
wrote this for Aaron—a keen footballer—on his 18th birthday. Fortunately
he has not inherited my football skills! |