Email to:When Sport & Art Exploded On The Same Stage!
The news that Leeton will tomorrow battle it out against Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong in the Riverina Australian Rules Football League Grand Final, fills me with troublesome emotions. . Of course, I pray Leeton wipes out the boys from a widespread, woefully drought affected, close-knit, struggling farming community. On the other hand, the memories of another Grand Final day in 1963, threaten to overwhelm me.
Before 1963 grand final credit: Sister72, Flickr
The Ross family (five lovely girls and Hec and Gwennie) lived, ate and dry-retched footy. Hec was the President of The Leeton Redlegs, the Mighty Demons Australian Rules Football Club. And In 1963, the Mighty Demons had risen above a record-breaking caseload of shockingly dehabilitating groin injuries to scrape into the Grand Final.
Gwennie was always very creative. But, in the week leading up to the Grand Final, this mid-career cake decorating artist, suddenly switched mediums! Our carport resembled the Sydney Mardi Gras’ float storage warehouse. I’m going to do the car, Gwennie said. And, at 6am on Grand Final morning, it was indeed very clear that, yes, Gwennie had done the car.
The car – EK Holden registration number CLU295 – was rendered a forward attack vehicle. Massive cardboard demons with pitchforks festooned every inch of it. Their grotesque faces had words coming from their mouths: Bulldogs Desexed Today!, Watch The Bulldogs Dribble!, Bulldogs Put Down!….
The meanest Mighty Demon posed huge logistical problems. He came in at just under five-metres and was somehow attached to CLU295’s roof. There was even very intense talk among neighbours that an articulated vehicle from a local haulage company may have be brought in to transport our car to grand final headquarters, the magnificent sports ground at Narrandera.
Hec would have none of it! If a man can’t drive his family to the footy, that man is a dill Get in!
Now, Narrandera is 25kms from Leeton. Hec’s game plan was to stay on the gravel and take it easy.
To say that Gwennie’s work immediately struck a chord deep within people, would be an understatement. As Hec battled to keep CLU295 on the gravel, hundreds of Mighty Demons’ supporters roared past, blowing horns and yelling: You Bloody Beauty!
After 1963 grand final
On the other hand, It is said that within cars transporting Grand Final players, silence fell. It was just too dangerous to get worked up. Because of that shocking litany of groin injuries, many of players were up to their eyeballs in Bex powders. Club strappers had also been hard at work overnight. Trusted insiders reported that their phenomenal ‘groin bandage work’ in combo with the application of handfuls of Deep Heat cream was extraordinarily painful to watch, but necessary.
Meanwhile at the Narrandera sports ground, word had spread that something colossal was on its way. I know nothing of the negotiations that took place but when we did arrive, a parking man in a white coat said: You have permission to do a lap around the ground. Just stay outside that bloody boundary line, hear me!
And so, we did that lap. To a mixed reaction. While the Mighty Demon’s camp made the rapture witnessed at charismatic churches look lame, ugly Bulldogs’ supporters willingly participated in the greatest mass demonstration of five fingered gestures and fifthy language, ever recorded anywhere in the world.
On Grand Final Day, 1963, The Mighty Demons got flogged.
Under Gwennie’s instructions, we’d started dismantling CLU295 mid-way through the second quarter. But, it was slow going. Because of the amount of adhesive material used in the installation, it was intricate work.
Hec eventually came back to the car. So mad with grief, he didn’t know what he was doing. Enough to say that we got next to nought for CLU295 at trade-in time because of the state of the ducco.
After that day, Gwennie became very quiet. Neighbours, who always described her as a very deep thinker, said she was going into herself. We all worried. That was until mid-December when Gwennie announced plans for her massive cardboard backyard nativity scene. With a big sign right on top of it saying: Good One Joseph!
Note: In an efort to save country football, the Mighty Demons were eventually amalgamated with our old arch enemy, the Whitton Tigers. So it is, the Leeton-Whitton Crows which play Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong, tomorrow.
Post match report. What a brave town! Click on this: Hot Story From Leeton Irrigator
Prawn Cutlet Award
September 21st, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Hello there KJ:
Laughed so much I couldn’t read all the screen. Had to take my glasses off. Poor Gwennie…….has she “done” a Crow car, this time?
September 21st, 2008 at 4:28 pm
WAS GOING TO AFL GRAND FINAL BUT WILL NOW BE GOING TO NARRANDERA!
September 21st, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Vintage KJ!
September 21st, 2008 at 8:41 pm
I’ve just crawled out from under the doona.
Leeton got done today. By 23 points. Ganmain-Grong Grong- Matong: 102, Leeton-Whitton, 79.
My contacts, Sue & Jimmy K, report there were at least 7,000 people at the Narrandera sports ground.
Among them, hundreds of former Mighty Demons including Johnnie Power who travelled all the way from Bangkok.
Sue said that when the final whistle went off, the Leeton-Whitton boys ‘flopped to the ground’. They played their guts out right to the end.
Sue made special mention of Liam Frazer (half-forward flank) who’ll be able to tell his kids he played in a 1st grade Grand Final at age 15.
Sue K also said the spinach frittata she warmed up for dinner tonight, had no taste.
And earlier, when I was emptying the dregs from the footy thermos and cleaning up the picnic basket, I felt I was collapsing into myself…..
If Leeton had come in today, it would have been its first Grand Final since 1978.
Congratulations to Ganmain et al.
Sue K promises she’ll be alright. She says her grieving process started about 17 minutes into the third quarter.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:18 am
Brilliant.
The scene at the Naranderra football ground with Hec driving an honour lap (a little too early by the sounds of things) could only be equalled by a human sculptural performance of Colin/Coleen the Whale that was witnessed on Saturday night at the Tempe Bowling Club!
Keep up the great work Miss Ross.
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:49 am
Thank God someone on your wireless station understands footy fever at the business end of the season (most of your colleagues seem to spend their time trawling the backstreets of Australia interviewing the most desperate bunch of weirdoes, hobbledehoys, tosspots & no-hopers – while ignoring the POSITIVE – e.g. a chap can rise himself up from a humble Vaucluse bedsit & make it all the way to the Lodge. But I digress – the thing is: the world may be going to hell in a handbasket (another piece of nonsense, but we’ll leave that for another time), while the Big Question of the day – the GRAPPLETACKLE – is ignored (with the honourable exception of Alan Jones, who, as always, speaks some plain old fashioned common sense). Your thoughts please Miss KJ on what remains a very tricky area.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:50 am
Ah Man In Grey – that old GRAPPLETACKLE!
A couple of things to say. When I burst onto the Leeton dating scene in the early seventies, the grappletackle was probably at its zenith. It was sometimes used in combo with the GROPETACKLE – but was mainly, a ’stand alone’ tactic. I also remember a couple of Deep Thinkers trying the TANTRICTACKLE but it never really took off.
My thoughts on the GRAPPLETACKLE haven’t changed much over the years. It’s great on the ‘intent’ front but can pose problems when it comes to ‘follow through’.
September 25th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Superb! Now I better understand the driving creative force behind the ”human sculptural performance of Colin/Coleen the Whale that was witnessed on Saturday night at the Tempe Bowling Club!” (thanks Davo for pointing that out!)
Without Leeton, Gwennie and the Grand Final, Kerrie Jean could not have created such a sublime show.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Your story puts me in mind of the time Temora, (the Grasshoppers then, eons before they became the Kangaroos) were to play in their first ever grand final. They had formed a club with a handful of keen and key players who had made the trip from Victoria to seek work and security away from the AFL home territory.
The club had had some setbacks in the first year but in the second year they were on the cusp of their crowning glory.
Through the home and away games the players had responded to the training regimes. Tactical moves were planned at the weekly pie nights. This consisted of the normal physical training, followed by a couple of meat pies washed down with a number of cans of the sponsor’s beer.
All of this was to change as the big one approached. The Grand Final was the next game and the coach got very serious at the thought he might pull off the unbelievable and win the grandy against all odds. Think what this would do for his credibility as a coach. He would be in demand and his fee would escalate.
Alcohol was banned, everyone was to train twice a week, and the team was to be a well oiled machine.
The great day was here. The team was assembled. The team photos were taken. The atmosphere was electric.
Unbeknown to the coach the star players had a little heart starter each week, A good swig of Brown Muscat from a bottle smuggled in the kitbag, good for the heart they reckoned.
This was a ritual and they played like men possessed. A little top up at half time and they played like champions.
The siren was about to sound and coach looked for his stars prior to giving the game plan. Where were they?, he asked the rest of the team. In the toilet was the reply. Coach went in pursuit of his stars and seeing them swigging out of the plonk bottle, he lost the plot and smashed the bottle against the wall of the toilet and castigated the fellows in no uncertain terms. Needless to say the blokes played a shocker. The cohesion between the two was missing; the team was in disarray, the game lost by 7 goals.
The moral of the story is if the system works, don’t try to fix it on grand final day.
Up the mighty redlegs.
October 4th, 2008 at 5:11 am
Chocka – My feelings exactly! Do NOT change routines, successful strategies, on the eve of BIG games!
Thrilled to get a match report from down my way.
Readers will have to excuse a little bit of ‘in talk’ but here goes……..all footy teams should take a leaf out of the Temora hero, Paleface Adios’, book. Paleface never, ever changed his routine – whether he was going round at the Leeton or Junee trots – or going for the Inter Dominion crown at Harold Park. The ‘Paleface Strategy’ deservedly remains the Riverina benchmark.