World Footy News

Peter Cresswell is a Kiwi who found footy in Auckland and is glad he did, his story below originally appeared on The Footy Almanac website earlier this week.

I didn’t see my first game of footy until just before my twenty-first. No wonder. There wasn’t a lot of it about in Greater Auckland.

With cartilage falling off the inside of my knees in great chunks, the quack had said “No more contact sport for you, son,” which seemed to rule out any more rugby, league or soccer. And a mate had said, “I’m playing Rules on Sunday. D’you wanna come out and take a look.” The idea of something involving ‘rules’ didn’t sound too appealing to a bloke whose idea of a good night out was pogoing to loud punk bands. But that was how the game was known in Greater Auckland.

So I went, and I laughed.

 I laughed like all hell. I laughed at the leaping boundary maggots chucking the ball in backwards over their heads, and the short-shorted field maggots sprinting absurdly back to the centre after every goal; at the white-coated goal umpires playing fast draw and waving flags of surrender for no apparent reason, and the coaches delivering half-time sprays of Aussie invective to huddled masses mostly on their knees, nodding sagely while savagely clutching gaspers.

Read the rest of the story on The Footy Almanac site here.