DRIVING home in
the rain from Etihad Stadium on the weekend, my retinas were still recovering
from the flashbulbs of photographers eager to get a snap of Our Julia singing
our Bulldogs' hymn.
As tempting as
it is to revisit an old column - ''Why club theme songs are so freakin' good
- I'll resist. Too much of a good thing, and all that.
With the
after-effects of the paparazzi bombardment wearing off as I manoeuvred through
the city streets, I slipped past The Drunken Poet, near the Vic Market, and
spotted an old acquaintance standing out the front, pint in hand, looking
decidedly content with life.
I met ''The
Yak'', as he is affectionately known, this past off-season when I caught up
with a good friend at The Poet (Melbourne's best Irish bar and small music
venue, bar none). The Yak is an imposing figure - a huge man with a ready smile
and a big heart.
Seeing him
again got me thinking about big men and their role in the biggest game in town.
When I was a
kid visiting the school library, if Where's
Wally was already taken, my next best option was to get The Guinness Book of World Records. Once
I had that oversized book in my hands, I would invariably flick the pages until
I came across ''world's tallest man''. I don't know where this fascination
started (I'm sure Freud would have a theory), but it blew my tiny mind.
''The longer
the game goes, the big blokes don't get any smaller.''
You don't hear
this sort of footy wisdom much anymore. Malcolm Blight seems to be the most
psychedelic of all modern footy commentators, and I could quite easily imagine
him speaking in such tongues.
Although the
footy world gives big blokes a hard time for a whole range of things
(stupidity, for one), we do love them and teams don't function without them.
Which is why this column is my unofficial ''Ode to the Big Man''.
Perhaps it was
simply a sighting of The Yak, or maybe it was watching Liam Jones making his
debut for the Bulldogs earlier that afternoon, that sparked this tribute. It
wasn't so long ago that ''promising Bulldogs key forward'' was a cross too
heavy for most to bear. Jonesy and Jarrad Grant now seem more than capable of
carrying that cross and taking a few grabs at the same time.
A footballer's
debut is a special thing - your life is never the same. All of those nights
lying awake, throwing a football towards the ceiling and catching it again, all
the time wondering if you could match it in the AFL.
All footballers
have been there in their quieter moments, and then suddenly you're running out,
your heart is pumping and you're not sure if your smile will rip your cheeks
open, or if you'll vomit. Any debutant will tell you that the shock of how
quick the game is played leaves them breathless, and the lactic acid in your
legs makes you wonder if they're filled with cement.
What are the
expectations of a debutant? To try their guts out and show a glimpse of what is
to come is pretty reasonable, I think. Jonesy ticked those boxes and looked
cool and calm as he led, marked and pierced the goals in the last quarter. Good
lad.
It wasn't too
long ago that the Bulldogs were seen as a mosquito fleet. Almost overnight
we've become the land of the GIANTS. We recruited Big Barry (and isn't he in
fine fettle?), and before him, the People's Beard, of course.
A couple of
youngsters, Ayce Cordy and Jordan Roughead, stand two metres tall, and last but
not least we have our German exchange student William (pronounced Villiam)
Minson. (Is it just me, or does Will look even more gigantic in a Williamstown
jumper?)
I'm a touch
over six-foot-one in the old language (186 centimetres), which has me taller
than the average geezer, but in my place of work I feel like Arthur at a dog
show. My place in the pecking order is highlighted by the fact that I am not a
member of Will's Big Man Eating Club.
Every so often,
Villiam gets the big boys together at a restaurant to show them how to eat like
a real man. A few of these behemoths are fighting it out for the two ruck spots
in the team, and even with my basic maths I'm pretty sure four doesn't go into
two. The rivalry on the plate is almost as fierce as the rivalry on the field.
This week the
boys have organised a team dinner out at Craig Parry's Sunshine Golf Club. We
midgets have been allowed to join in, which will be a nice treat. To witness
these big boys attack a plate is a thing to behold, and I hope ''Popeye's''
caterers know what they're in for.
They can't
kick, they don't play on a man, and they have some bizarre brain snaps on the
field, but footy is a world where size really does matter. We little blokes are
all the better for having our big friends by our side.
It is an AFL
obsession to want to measure everything via statistics. But what these blokes
give a team in spades is presence. Like The Yak out the front of The Poet,
these lumbering giants do their best work when it's crowded and loud.
Last Modified on 05/08/2010 09:45