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From The Footy Almanac: Footy Islands

  • Monday, February 10 2014 @ 05:00 pm ACDT
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Asia

Mickey Randall writes for The Footy Almanac - a great piece written around the modern international world of Auskick on Australia day with the Singapore Sharks and taking Mickey back to his own junior days in Kapunda, South Australia.

 
My ears are more alert than my eyes. I hear the song before I see anything.
 
Meet me down by the jetty landing
Where the pontoons bump and sway
I see the others reading, standing
As the Manly Ferry cuts its way to Circular Quay
 
Reckless by Australian Crawl takes me back. With a funereal bass line, and a snare drum like gunshot, it’s prominent in the soundtrack to my last year at school. This was also the year I broke my arm playing junior football for Kapunda. June and my season, wrecked.
 
A fortnight later my arm was to be re-broken, as the locum had not aligned it. Six more weeks in a cast! So with Mum watching I was on a hospital bed as the resident doctor loomed and mumbled.
 
“Ouch! It’s hurting!” I sensed the subterranean crunching.
Doc was an absorbed professional. “Be quiet please!”
I was in distress. “ No, it’s really hurting!” Not just Masters bakery is out of sausage rolls distress. Or even Skyhooks split distress.
Minutes later the doctor squinted at the drip. He realised. His tone transformed. “Oh! I’m so sorry. I’m very sorry!” There he was, fracturing my arm enthusiastically, but, somehow, having neglected to turn on the anaesthetic. After, the local veterinarian gave me artificial insemination gloves to slide over my cast when showering. Pleasingly, for the district’s young and old bulls and me, these were not pre-loved.
 
We’re at the Australian School in Singapore. It’s Auskick registration on Australia Day. With blonde mops, the boys now merge. Unlike much of Asia, no one here takes their photo. Ninety-five inches of rain annually means there’s artificial turf. However, they’ll be in the cavernous gym. No footy boots. Not yet.