Your First Game of Footy

Tell us all about it. What are your memories of the first game of footy you ever saw, or perhaps played in? I want to know what enduring memories you have when you saw Aussie Rules for the first time.

I remember being dragged along to the footy by my parents but was more interested in playing with the other kids rather than watching the football. One night I sat in front of the TV and watched the 1964 Grand Final where South Adelaide defeated the Magpies. I asked dad to take me to a footy game and he promised he would, the following season. I was told if I was going to play, it would have to be for Norwood.

I remember pinning red & blue streamers to my shirt and walking over to Norwood Oval. I recall the opposition, it was Sturt. There was Rick Schoff, John Halbert, John Murphy, it was exciting to see these players as I had been collecting Mobil Footy Photos as well as coca cola bottle tops and knew who they were. I was intrigued by a tall thin player named Bill Wedding, a well built player named Ron Kneebone, but took special interest in a player named Ian Brewer who was kicking most of the goals.

Norwood won that game by 10 points, so I talked dad into bringing me back the following week. This time the opponent was the infamous Port Adelaide. I saw John Cahill, Jeff Potter and Eric Freeman, but Ian Brewer booted another 5 goals and Norwood won by 20 points. Norwood just had to be the best team in the world!!

I went along later to see Norwood thrash Woodville, and this time, as well as Brewer booting another bag in the league, a full forward in the Reserves named Doug Turbill booted 13 goals. I decided I was going to be a full forward. At the end of the year, Port Adelaide played Sturt in the Grand Final. I couldn't work that one out as we'd beaten the both of them.

The following year I lined up for the local Under 13s team, even though I was still 10, and I remember it like it was yesterday. The umpire was none other than Doug Turbill, the man I saw kick 13 goals for the Norwood reserves. He went on to umpire at league level, and our team went on to win an undefeated premiership

Anyway, let's hear some more memories of our earliest experiences.

It was 1970 or maybe 1971. My parents decided to take me as a ten yr old. They suggested we should go to see the local team (Centrals), but they were playing at Alberton and were not expecting a win. So, at my decision, rather than see our local area lose we would go to the match of the round, North playing Norwood at the Parade. Crowd was huge, as was the margin, with North thumping the home side. What I recall was being covered in red and white paper every time a goal was scored!
When we got home, we learnt the Dogs had beaten Port in a major upset by a solitary point!

My first game was about 87-88 (when I was 4 or 5) Norwood v Central game at Football Park and was told to barrack for Norwood as most of my family are Norwood supporters. Don't remember any of the game at all but just remember that footy park looked a massive venue.

My first West Adelaide game was in 1990 against West Torrens at Richmond (one of their last games). I remember taking a liking to Glenn Goss and for some reason Laurence Schache (although he played for the opposition). Laurence ended up playing at my local club (Gepps Cross) and remember him having bad knees and having bags of ice on them at the end of each game. I was saddened to hear he tragically passed away a few years ago.

Admittedly my first game was I think in 1988 as a 4y.o. and had nothing to do with Westies.

I remember it was Sturt vs Port as my dad is a Sturt man and my uncle is Port (as are the rest of my family...).

So you can imagine, both men trying to influence a young kid into which team they should support.

I'm glad I chose neither!

After many years of searching I recently tracked down the first game of SANFL football I attended
Back in the 60s I was a West Adelaide barracker , I had a sister that would take me to the games
Our next door neighbors were staunch one eyed Port barrackers
They took my sister and me to a game at Alberton Oval
Im fortunate to have recently purchased a football budget from that day [it cost 5 cents, yes they had decimal currency that day ]

Port Adelaide vrs West Adelaide
20/8/1966
Alberton Oval

Port.. 5-4...8-8...14-11...15-13
West 0-3...2-8.....2-9.......5-13

And there was flooding that day. on the way home it pissed down with rain, recall Woodville Road being flooded

Port team
1 errey
2 spiers
3 obst
4 elleway
6 cooper
7 gill
8 traynor
9 bray
10 talman
12 katsanos
13 philp
14 cahill
15 holmes
18 freeman
20 pilgrim
21 potter
22 spencer
24 nyland
25 mead
27 salmon

West
1 roach
2 day
3 jonas
4 sims
6 fraser
7 de broughe
8 pope
10 hooper
11 wallace
12 loveday
13 della polina
15 pannenberg
17 bertelsmeier
18 pfitzner
19 kuchel
23 burkett
24 hughes
26 thompson
27 zanker
29 llewellyn
31 mcinerny
33 jamieson

According to the person who filled in the budget the following:
Eric Fritz Freeman 5-1 leading goalscorer for Port
Simon Fraser 2-3 the leading scorer for West Adelaide

My recollections of the day was Westies not being able to kick many goals
I cant recall the individual efforts of the players
I remember standing behind the goals on the non scoreboard end


Trevor Hughes and Bobby Loveday became business partners in a Sports store
Robert Day ended up at Hawthorn
Trevor Obst became a Taxi driver
John Cahill was the first Port Power coach
Fritz Freeman played Test cricket
Rod Pope was a barman at Strathalbyn races a few years ago
Rod Pope and Don Roach ended up at Norwood

What great names in those Port Adelaide and West Adelaide teams. It was a great era to be a kid and learning the game.

My first game was being with my father (A staunch West supporter) some time in the early 60's at Glenelg oval in a game between them and Westies, but I can't really remember much about the game except the crowd being quite big plus this player by the name of Doug Thomas running around for West, that was my iniciation into becomming a life long Bloods supporter.

Mine would have been "inutero" as my Mother and Father missed very few, if any, Port games throughout the 70's and 80's.

The first game I recall going to was at Alberton Oval, circa 1980 (+/-)

My long sleeve guernsey was an itchy woolen one, my shorts were button up front, zipper and button adjustments on the sides with brand new socks and Adidas boots. Yep, I wore my full minature playing kit until I was about 9 or 10, when I got my first DUFFEL COAT! Oh yes....

I remember Russell Ebert marking on the wing in front of us, sitting in the Williams Family Stand, turning to handball to Bucky Cunningham and of he went....good time to be a Port supporter. Well, for the next 20 years anyway.

Port Adelaide got the Quadrella in 1980

Port won the premiership, again
Port player wins the Magarey medal , Russell Ebert becoming the first man to win it 4 times
Port had a new sup'port'er , a lad called Booney who watched his first game
Port had the leading goalkicker, Tim Evans with a record 146 goals for the time

The chatter in 1980 was about this Port team being their greatest of all time
In my time I would say yes

I don't think this was the first game I went to, but it's the first game I remember. I was about 4. It was a Central v Port game at footy Park. I got lost and ended up with the Police for most of the game. It wasn't that long after the girls went missing from Adelaide Oval so my parents were frantic. I was having a great time drinking Fanta and eating chips with the Police. Oh and Centrals lost!

Be patient, I’ll get to Aussie Rules in a minute.

My first game of ‘footy’ was Rugby Union, which I played on Sydney’s North Shore from 7 to 11 years of age. We followed Rugby League in the media and played it a bit, but most of my mates were Union mad during the 1960’s. League seemed to be more popular amongst the more working class folk on the South Shore, and to the west of Sydney. Battle lines were drawn. You were either Union or League in winter, except for a handful of crazy immigrant kids who were laughed at for playing some weird rubbish called soccer. We knew it would never catch on.

It’s hard to believe how egocentric the eastern states could be. We grew up convinced that New South Wales was the centre of the known universe and that Sydney was the crowning jewel of civilised Australia, if not the world. We’d heard of some far flung southern ratbag colony called Victoria, where the largest of their slums was allegedly named Melbourne. We Sydney kids were warned early on about these half humans who envied us with near fatal attacks of jealousy. It seems that these poor wretches had no sun, no beaches, no harbour and no fresh water, due to their flea-bitten village being stupidly plopped on top of a stinking drain full of mud they refer to as the Yarra. That was pretty much it for Australian geography class. Oh, and something called ‘plonk’ came from some strange place called South Australia. Ha ha ha … ‘SOUTH’ Australia, where the hell could that be? Isn’t the next stop Antarctica? Fortunately my outlook since has been well and truly reversed where S.A. is concerned. Victoria, however, has fallen far, far, lower in polite estimations.

When my ‘old man’ was transferred to Adelaide back in 1967 I had absolutely NO knowledge of Australian Rules football. So there I suddenly was in grade 7, SEVEN??? Everyone knows you get 6 years primary, then 6 years high school! What the hell is this crazy 7 & 5 system? Why have I missed grade 6 completely? Why am I two years ahead of these clowns at science & english, but I haven’t got clue what they’re talking about in maths. And why do these teachers refuse to mark my schoolwork until I learn to write like my flippin’ grandparents do? Just who the hell do these backwater, crow-eating b*****ds think they’re screwing with???

To be honest, I really was trying to fit in, as new kids the world over always do. But just about everything here was foreign to me. Amscol? Fritters? Big-Sars? Fritz? Even Mum wanted to know why the signs had no gap between the ‘e’ and ‘b’ on some joint called The Barton. Kids pick up on every small detail and can sniff out an outsider from light years away. From the moment I asked for a ‘devon roll’ I got the nickname ‘Marsh’, which was short for Martian. Yes, apparently I was from another planet. Well, if you think I was a fish out of water then, just imagine what awaited me when the loudspeaker around my new school called for players to try out for the senior footy team. What? I wonder why Dad said they don’t play football over here? Ah sport! That would be my salvation! When the chance to strut my stuff on the footy field came along, I would be first cab off the rank and first boy on the oval at the trial game. The big day came and there I was, salivating over the acceptance and adulation that awaited me when the other boys saw the culmination of 5 tough years of battle, representing my old school and local club against the best young rugby players that could be thrown at me north of Sydney Harbour Bridge. Now I was certain to fit in!

As I waited for the other lads to run out, I stood proud and resplendent in my good old long sleeved jersey, long legged shorts with side pads and good strong high ankle covering boots with the latest in rugby-style ribbed padding. Not that I’d ever need that foot protection in the scrums, ‘coz I was sure to be in ‘the backs’. I was utterly determined to show off my blistering speed and fancy footwork to such blinding effect that the coach would immediately see he has the greatest Right-Winger this weird bloody school and drought ridden state has ever known. If any of these half-wits can throw me a decent pass I can already taste all the tries I’m gonna score. They might even let me place-kick all the conversions. It’s just a matter of time before Wallaby selection. Maybe I’ll switch to League later on and make millions. Then a Kangaroos tour of Britain. Oh yeah! Move over Kenny Irvine, here I come!

Never in the history of human endeavour and boyhood ignorance has one child ever been so wrong !

Inevitably, my competition for Rugby glory in S.A. joined me on the oval. I couldn’t believe my eyes, nor could they believe theirs. My first inkling of the coming disaster was the strange woollen singlets they wore. Then I spied the weird low cut boots, that looked like Olympian’s track shoes, but with sprigs instead of spikes. And you call those things shorts??? How the hell do you pull those things on without emasculating yourselves? What was happening? What have I done wrong? Why are they laughing at me? Why do I suddenly feel like my life as a sport star is being replaced by a circus performer? At least there you get paid to be a clown. “Jesus, Marsh! What kind of footy clobber is that?” they screamed.

I thought the teacher who would coach the team had taken pity on me when he broke up the surrounding riot by ordering ‘circle work’ to warm up. Alas, no. This graduate of ‘The Marquis de Sade School of Mockery’ couldn’t wait to see a whole new vista of child abuse open up through mass derision by one’s contemporaries. And what in blue blazes is ‘circle work’ ??? Everyone knows a footy ground is a rectangle and ………… oh……….that’s when I noticed the white boundary line wasn’t just left over from cricket season. Then I saw 4 unusual posts at each end of the ground with a box shape in front of the tallest poles and absolutely no sign of a crossbar anywhere. These freaks are calling ME the Martian? Holy strewth! And what’s with the skewed psycho square with the circle in the middle. Maybe it’s a target. Yeah that’s it, real Martians are gonna bomb these queer mutants and put me out of my misery. I must be dreaming. Have you ever woken from a nightmare only to find it’s all real? That’s precisely how I felt. Of course, the ‘best’ was yet to come.

What I still laughingly call a brain was spinning around in a daze as our sadist, sorry, our coach, divided us into 2 teams. Some kid in charge of our team yelled something unintelligible to me about my back pocket. I told him to p**s off. What kind of idiot would have pockets in their footy shorts? The teacher bellowed, “OK boys, I’ll umpire.” Hee hee, I laughed a little too loudly, this bloke’s a moron, he means referee. Anyway, he gave me a dirty look and blew the whistle for the start of play. Straight away some kid standing beside me started pushing, which was annoying, but he was the least of my problems. Hang on! Why are opponents still standing next to each other all over the ground? STOP! STOP! We haven’t lined up for the kick off yet! Hey ref, why is everyone off-side?

Good lord, they’re all bumping each other. There’s gonna be a fight here I reckon. I said to the kid beside me, “Why the hell did the ref throw the ball at the ground like that? Is he upset about everyone standing in the wrong place?” I still remember the look on that kid’s face as I went into a non-stop critique of every transgression in play during these first demented displays of alien epilepsy unfolding around us. “Off-side!”, “Knock-on!”, “What the friggin’ hell do you call that? Those two blokes are punching the bloody ball back and forward to each other!” Very nervously, the kid beside me moved away a little as he said, “That’s a handpass stupid.” I said, “I don’t care what you call it! It was bloody-well forward! That’s a penalty! Why doesn’t that pinhead of a ref call for a scrum?” The kid just shook his head and walked away muttering something about my sanity, parentage and Australian Rules. Too shocked by the crazed scenes before me to take offence at his insults, I just remember screaming out “RULES??? WHAT F*****G RULES ??? He started running away. FAST! Funny, that kid never came near me again, and I don’t just mean for the game!

Suddenly there was a bigger bloke next to me whose constant shouldering was really giving me the irrits. I was never a violent kid, we ‘backs’ had ‘forwards’ for that kinda stuff, but you must understand how close to breaking point I was. My world and everything I knew and valued was in melt-down. My patience was first to go. Listen d**kh**d, one more push like that and I’ll knock ya’ f*****g block off. Strangely I’d neither heard nor used that kind of language before coming to Adelaide. True, I’m not kidding. There’s nothing like travel to educate a young mind huh?

Anyway, back to the game. I don’t know if it was my threats, all my loony questions about what in god’s name was happening out there, the increasingly psychotic demeanour in my eyes, or the football suddenly falling from the sky towards us, but my opponent momentarily complied with my request and ceased the shoulder action and jumped in front to stop me catching the ball. Instantly there was nothing more important than that football. Here was my chance to shine and instinct took over! I shoved the idiot in front of me out of the way and caught the pill right in the breadbasket, sweet as you like, textbook rugby, no knock-on and I was off. Behind me that whinging kid was screaming something about his bloody back. What a sissy! There was nothing wrong with his back when I pushed it out of my way. Is that a kooky whistle I hear? Nah, impossible! It’s all good. My old coach would surely be smiling now, but c’mon kid, time to concentrate. There must be a line somewhere up there between those goofy posts for a try, but it’s gonna be bloody hard to get through all this flippin’ traffic. This is bizarre, doesn’t anyone know the rules? There’s a lot more than 15 blokes on either team out here and some of those big forwards who ran into each other when that deranged ref chucked the ball into the ground need to be avoided. Time for some fancy footwork. Who keeps blowing that bloody weird whistle?

Hey, this is easier than I thought. These dills are coming in too high. Here we go! Protect the ball with the left as they tackle from the right and vice-versa. Fend off with a face palm. There’s that ruddy high pitched whistle again. Past another 2 blokes and sprint to space. Forget about the Wingers slot, I could play in Five-Eighth or Half Back against these turkeys. They just can’t tackle low. Alright! Time for my trademark double feint, yes, he fell for it, I’m away! Was that another whistle? Can’t be me, this is going beautifully, these guys don’t know how to tackle at all. OK, just side step this fool in front. Sheesh, they sure don’t like these high fend offs, especially when they try to hang on for a while. What’s with that constant whistling noise? Oh, oh, that’s a lot of congestion up ahead, no room for a kick and chase, better not get greedy either, don’t want to be a show off, time for the old one two. Right, I’ll pass off, then back up out wide for a re-take. OH GREAT! There’s no one running with me except that great buffoon of a ref constantly bleating on that damned whistle. So that’s who was whistling. What a strange pitch. Why didn’t he just blow the correct sound and give the proper signal. This dorky blockhead keeps waving his arms around like a Hills Hoist having a fit.

I knew this was too good to be true, they’ve all stopped. Rats! We could have scored there. What’s with the funny looks guys? Crikey, I haven’t got bloody leprosy you know. Huh? What’s that ref? Sure ref, you can have the ball back. What ref? Stop calling you ref, you’re a f*****g umpire. OK, but what’s the problem f*****g umpire? Was there an infringement behind the play? What do you mean ‘I’m the infringement’? Why have I got detention? But you told me to call you a f*****g umpire!

What an imbecile.
I tell ya, that teacher was bloody lucky I was taught never to tell a ref to shove his whistle up his anus until you’re 50 points up !

Not everyone makes it into the history books or gets to be a great record breaking football superstar, but everyone knows there are quite a few rules in Australian Rules footy, and unwittingly, at just 11 years of age, I single-handedly managed to break nearly all of ‘em in just 15 seconds. How good is that ?


I still wish I’d kept running though. How many people can say they scored a try in their first game of Aussie Rules ?
Jeez I came close.



Luv,
Sabre.

Sabre, that was a very entertaining read.

Did you see the Wally Lewis testimonial match? They invited Robert DiPierdomenico to play as he was one of the main attractions of Aussie Rules at the time.

Not having the first clue about how to play RL, all Dipper knew was if the ball was in the area, you chase it. He ended up running in several tries, laying numerous tackles, and I thought for a while there he was going to revolutionise Rugby

Sabre, Admin has read your story and decided to award it the Inaugural Talking Footy SA Gold Star Award.

The criteria are:

Entertainment value...........................................................tick

Humour ..........................................................................tick

Norwood fan (apart from AH) being able to write....................tick

Successfully beating the swear filter ....................................tick

Absolute accuracy of recollection.........................................tick


Happy days, eh? Just as well a future life with Fort Battleaxe wasn't on the radar then.

WOW !

I’m truly honoured.
*takes bow*
Thank you so much ladies and gentlemen. I will treasure this sacred award for all that it means.
(Mostly another good excuse to raise a glass in celebration)
Is it OK if I just take the award and run before anyone starts asking too many
questions about the ‘absolute accuracy of recollections’ category ?

That is a great read Sabre You made me spill my wine reading it