World Footy News

While clubs across Australia are into their preseason training in temperatures that today in many places are above 40°C, much of Europe and North America are in the deep freeze. Embracing that cold this weekend were the Columbus Jackaroos. The chilling event was covered in the following report by Chet Ridenour.


Columbus, OH – After a week of the biggest and most consistent snow falls of the season, the Columbus Jackaroos were keen as mustard to lace up their boots (literally), and have a rumble in the white, wintry tundra. Emerging from their warmed cars, dressed in plenty of layers, leaving only their rosy red faces exposed – a stark contrast to the abundance of skin shown in traditional attire – they stumbled in for an 11 am Saturday morning match. With about six inches of untouched powder on the local Thomas Worthington High School football field, these blokes, dressed in red and blue would square off in perhaps one of the most fun traditions yet for this young club, the Second Annual SNOW BOWL.
An enthusiastic group of rookies would join the Jackaroos core, whose love for this beautiful game would not be deterred by the 15°F (-9°C) temperatures. Brian Turpie would take the umpire reigns, while super fan and club photographer Amy Hoover braved the cold to capture some amazing action shots. And while supporters Stacia and Megan came along to get their own shots of their leading men, sheilas would not be regulated to the sidelines for this festive occasion. Visiting Ashley Warcewicz, an ex-rugby player who’d seen the game while studying in Brisbane, and Thomas Latin teacher and ex-soccer goalie, Julie York were not afraid to get right into the action.


The blue team, stacked with seasoned veterans, lined up against a youthful red team with both ladies and newbie Jason “Lumberjack” Staten. From the ball-up, the play was sloppy, and the officiating even sloppier. Despite playing with a bright orange, rubber “Beach Footy” (purchased in Peru), marking would prove difficult, leaving crumbing to dominate the day’s action. Natural-born crumbers, Aussie brothers Simon and Scott Matheson (playing in their first ever Footy game together), were all over the ground to win the snow balls. Umpire “Turps,” showed his true colors (dressed in red) during the match, joining in on the community action for the Reds, while absent or quick on the whistle whenever it supported his “communists” cronies. The capitalist Blues weren’t deterred though, and narrowly held a one goal advantage when forward Anish “Mr. Big” Mistry notched a beaut just before the quarter’s end.

In the second, the tough got tougher, and we had an all-out dog fight on our hands. Julie “Jillaroo” York used her keeper experience to smother more than a few kicks, while being the first to charge hard in for a loose ball. Wes McCorkle, was elusive up front evading tacklers, scoring more today on the field than he had in his whole life off of it. And it was no surprise that the A.G.D. of “Toey” Ward and “Redheart” Lang played well together and with each other. A bearded Brandon “The Abominable Snowman” Crowe could have passed for his namesake with big play in defense, while ex-Kangaroo Gardiner, who dove selflessly in the snow, might have been frozen downunder.

The third was more of the same, and while the women continued to make the men look bad (literally when Ashley bloodied a ducking Simon’s nose with a knee to the face), the wise umpire had the bigger picture in mind. Between sucking in the dry, cold air into your cardio-starved lungs, you kept moving, else the frost quickly seep in through your cotton-soaked layers as soon as you stop moving. As the 3rd Quarter expired, the game was called, and ended in a 57-57 tie (though some parties debated whether some insider lobbying between Ridenour and the ump had added a phantom goal for the Reds at the end). Nevertheless, despite the score and the numbness, we all felt like we’d battled the elements and come out winners in the end.

Afterwards, a dozen of us went for a bite and a brew. We shared wings, pizza and beers just as easily as the stories we swapped, while rehashing the game’s fun through Hoover’s digital camera. Later in the evening, several Jacks gathered for some spirited karaoke. In the end, it was a great day of footy, and perhaps, most surprisingly, the Jacks discovered they may have found the cornerstone for their Women’s Jillaroos team – Good onya Ms. York.

GAME STATS:


End of Q1: Blues 5 3 (33) Reds 4 3 (27)
End of Q2: Blues 6 5 (41) Reds 6 5 (41)
End of Q3/FINAL:Blues 8 9 (57) Reds 8 9 (57)

BLUES
Best on Ground: Anish Mistry, Simon Matheson, Brandon Crowe

REDS
Best on Ground: Julie York, Wes McCorkle, Umpire Brian Turpie