Hello all...a topic by way of divresion from our illustrious year

A comment I made elsewhere reminded me of my vintage..lol. Maybe some others amongst you may have a memory tickled by any talk of footy in the school yard.

I dont know about many of you but as a kid I lived and breathed footy. I would say I took the Sherrin to bed but in my day they were an icon beyond our pocket money budgets. They existed on hallowed turf only whilst the mortals amongst us treasured our Ross Faulkners and Lyrebirds. Some poor sods only had the "placky" from Coles. ( and who doesnt remember NOT to kick the end where the ball had the moulding spue trimmed !! lol ) Actually if you "could ' kick a 'placky' decently you could kick anything well !! Funny how you learned your skills

My school in then sburban ( now Inner ) Melbourne wasnt afforded the luxury of its own oval. We either played all our schoolday games on the courts or other ashpalted areas or the older kids had the "luxury " of what we called..."The Gravel !!" Imagine an area about of 8 tennis courts and made of a similar clay base with similar red gravel and you have the picture. Bandaids were a staple of the times !! lol . Torn school duds were a perpetual curse for mums !! I dont know that todays typical shoes would stand the rigours of my school days. A pair of leather Clarkes , Harrisons or some other brand ( begins with P but escapes me , Purnell ?) were absolutely recquired. Polished in morning, scuffed by hometime ..lol

We only went to school really to play footy in winter and cricket in summer. Lessons were there only to divide the day into Quarters or Innings Rubbish bins and school jumpers ( on warmer days ) dilineated the goals and points. I'd love a dollar for every argument ever had for whether a goal touched the post, that didnt exist ...lol :D.

If we werent playing an actual game it was kick to kick on the "gravel". Mates waxed and the nerdy types made good ladders for speckies. Today theyd be inside on computers, then they had nowhere to hide. They were fodder !!

End to end the leather, vinyl and plackies were roosted. Day in day out imaginary 'saving' marks were taken by improvised heroes emulating their favourite league player. We only had 12 teams then and all matches were over by 5 on a Sat. Just imagine that ..lol

Your standing amongst your peers was based on your sporting proess. A superby executed 'torp' would garner silent but plausible admiration. My weekend team was in Richmonds territory. We played on a Sat morning so we could race home change, grab the sangers mum had made for you and off you scooted to the station to grab the Rattler to the G.. Often kids went together. No adults. . We could then. Some family would 'adopt' you there and keep an eye. That seems like a world away now.

Weekday school team training fell to our Teacher Coach but often , every other week , ambassadors came from our ZoneTeam.

My school fell in Hawthorn's Territiory. In my day I feel priveledged to have been tutored by the likes of Knights, Hudson, Scott, Mathews, Moore as well as the likes of the great Peter Crimmins. I mention them not to skyte but as a reminder of an era gone.

Strange in a way..Though surrounded by Hawks, an exposre to Ricmond through my local club through whom we got invited to contribute to the Little League ( a huge thing in a pre Auskick era ) and the reality that these teams were strong whilst my beloved Dees was struggling ( seems familiar ) my loyalty never wavered.

Some days we could wear footy colours to school and so we'd all line up at either end of the Gravel ready to fight for the honour of our adopted heroes. I'd imagine I was Tassie Johnson as I let a drop kick fly. I could imagine Hassa Mann or Brian Dixon as I let rip a chest thumping 'stab" kick. ( Well, it probably didnt thump, but we tried ) or I was Gary Hardeman who had verntured forward and roosted a torp through the posts.

You knocked 'round with your mates. You donned your White Diamonds and 'clomped " down the road to the local park and played endless final quarters of championship footy. Footy was life , life was FOOTY !!

What do kids think of it today, what were you days growing up like ?

Is there still the maniachal passion ??

At my school, up here in Canberra, AFL was invisible (I didn't know squat about AFL til I was 20) and we ended up playing soccer at recess and lunch (once we progressed from tips) with a tennis ball, on a wire-fence enlosed concrete tennis court which had another metal wire fence installed as the net. Classic stuff. Once a few more people joined (and we were kicked off the tennis courts "in case someone wanted to use them"??) we shifted to the basketball court (which was awkward because it was mostly used as an eating area), until finally a real soccer ball got introduced and we started playing on the hockey field.

'Physical Education' was a joke. The only thing anyone remembers PE for was just how damn stupid and useless the supposed teachers were. That and a series of broken legs, arms and ribs from people being tripped, stomped on, that sort of garbage. Top quality discipline, there. Still mystifies me where all the PE budget went, too. We had to supply our own fricking tennis ball for soccer.

Not that I'm bitter.

On the plus side. Any club that gets properly involved in informal and semi-formal junior sports is gonna make big progress, in Canberra or anywhere. A massively neglected area precisely because of bureaucracy-driven strategy - i.e. AFL HQ is only interested in what it can count in Key Performance Indicators, so if you aren't registered, you don't exist.

At my school, up here in Canberra, AFL was invisible (I didn't know squat about AFL til I was 20) and we ended up playing soccer at recess and lunch (once we progressed from tips) with a tennis ball, on a wire-fence enlosed concrete tennis court which had another metal wire fence installed as the net. Classic stuff. Once a few more people joined (and we were kicked off the tennis courts "in case someone wanted to use them"??) we shifted to the basketball court (which was awkward because it was mostly used as an eating area), until finally a real soccer ball got introduced and we started playing on the hockey field.

'Physical Education' was a joke. The only thing anyone remembers PE for was just how damn stupid and useless the supposed teachers were. That and a series of broken legs, arms and ribs from people being tripped, stomped on, that sort of garbage. Top quality discipline, there. Still mystifies me where all the PE budget went, too. We had to supply our own fricking tennis ball for soccer.

Not that I'm bitter.

On the plus side. Any club that gets properly involved in informal and semi-formal junior sports is gonna make big progress, in Canberra or anywhere. A massively neglected area precisely because of bureaucracy-driven strategy - i.e. AFL HQ is only interested in what it can count in Key Performance Indicators, so if you aren't registered, you don't exist.

the afls 'registered juniors' in queensland include any school kid who has participated in a free auskick clinic run during school hours...