a view from the bleachers

Denizens of the bleachers,

It was yet another picture-perfect postcard Saturday in the Emerald City, so, not being overly busy, found myself gracing my first football match in nigh on two years, [got my excuses but no time for them here], perched on the bleachers next to the King George V Memorial Grandstand at Henson Park in Marrickville.
The Daughters have both just moved to different houses in Marrickville, and thought it would be a good idea to have a lookie at the local team, the Newtown Jets, turn out at home, and invited me and the Good Lady Wife to tag along, for old times sake.
Henson Park - named after some long forgotten municipal grandee - has a curious history.
A former, very very deep brickpit, which filled with water when it was abandoned way way back.
After a few kiddies drowned swimming in it, they drained it, tipped a shit-load of landfill into, leveled it out and shaped it into a football ground as a job creation project during the Great Depression, and nothing has changed there since it was opened in 1933.
You can still see the very top of the brick pit at the summit of the Eastern Hill...a high, wide, and handsome expanse of first class viewing for games.
And it's a big ground -- maybe 150 yards long, or more, big enough to play cricket and Australian Rules on, as evinced by the four posts at either end of the oval, with the rugby league oblong with the two posts and cross bar bang smack in the middle.
With the right contraption, you could even race dogs around it.
So big, that if you know the right people and can pull the right strings, you can even park your car atop the Western Hill and watch the game from the comfort of the front seat of yr own motor.
Gold on a wet day having the windscreen wipers going.
It's now the biggest patch of open public space in an always overcrowded suburb, still jam packed with former workmen's cottages and semi-detached houses - it used to be the quintessential migrant working man's suburb [and is still pretty solid, for those who are politically minded, it's right in the heart of Albo territory].
Lived in Marrickville for a short time myself in the early '90's when the first Daughter was little - just off the Sydenham Rd, in Silver St.
And there's a fine pub of the depression era that sits literally next door to the Henson Park ground, which curiously, is named the Henson Park Hotel, and is obviously pumping with pre-loaders on game day.
The Newtown Jets [one of the "foundation" clubs] are principally famous for being thrown out of the top-flight league in a desultory fashion when they went stone motherless broke in 1983, after spending all their money trying to win the 1982 premiership, having been beaten in the 1981 Grand Final.
As a result, the NSW Rugby League's name is mud in these parts, and they've played in what's effectively the Second Division [locally known as the Suburban Comp] ever since.
And as it turns out, they say there's always a goofy ground announcer who reports on the Tannoy that the day's attendance is 8,972...doesn't matter how many are actually in - it's always that crowd...exactly the same number who were at the Jets final top-grade game back in '83.
Heard him say it myself "and today's attendance is 8,972".
It's just incredible, is it not, or maybe merely beyond belief, that down to the last man, the same crowd has turned up fortnight in, fortnight out, at Henson Park for the past 33 years?
As you might guess, Newtown carries a lot of baggage and has chips on both shoulders, with long memories to match.
Their opposition on the day were The Mounties who come from out Mount Pritchard way, south-west beyond the Chipping Norton Lakes, and are somehow a feeder club to the Canberra Raiders in the top-grade.
The crowd [probably around four thousand, maybe a bit more] was what you'd expect of a tribe; dead-set long-time Newtown diehards up near the bar, all with ancient Jets merch on including some splendid blue jackets with 'Under Rated Since 1908' neatly embroidered on the back of them, old punters who'd go every other week just to watch, wanderer's-in, curious hipsters, teenagers cruising for hook-ups, ordinary folk, a few regulation obligatory drunks, late middle-aged stoners out the back of the stand's toilet block sharing scoobs [wasn't sharing mine], a subbie or two, some rabid-looking dogs, and yuppy scum who rode into town on the back of the last real estate boom and their bratty chidren [like the twin boys - put 'em at four years old - probs IVF - who insisted on scrabbling around under the bleachers for used pies, half-eaten sausage sandwiches, ice cream wrappers and so on, and hurling them onto the field, while spraying unsuspecting punters with vile detritus, until finally being rather unsuccesfully disciplined by their useless father] - did they give a shit, no siree!
But the Jets most vociferous fan was a Chinaman - everyone agreed that of all the Oriental faces, his was def Chinese - say in his late 40's - dressed in a Newtown cap and top, three-quarter length khai pants wth long white socks and sneakers.
He was screaming and yelling throughout the match.
And he was also a nervous kinda fella - he urged his players on by name at the top of his lungs as they surged forward in attack, but had half his left fist fully jammed in his mouth while beating his plastic water bottle against the cylone perimeter fence as the Jets ground away grimly in defence.
He was also the chief cheerleader of the "Newtown! Newtown! Newtown!" chant any time the Jets threatened the tryline.
Late in the second half, when the Mounties potted a penalty goal to put the result beyond doubt in their favour, the Chinaman turned on his heels, left the ground, and disappeared - as if in a puff of smoke; he was there one second, gone the next.
That was clearly enough for him, he'd done with it.
The Jets had all the run of play in the first half, but contrived to butcher five tries close to the line - dropping or fumbling and knocking on the ball, the no-look hospital pass that misses by a mile, they even passed it into touch at one stage.
Should have been miles in front at half-time, but found themselves 12-6 down, after letting in two very soft tries as the top-of-the-table Mounties simply strode through the Newtown defence.
It's also apparently a tradition as Henson Park that kick-to-kick happens at half-time, not full-time, so hundreds of folk jumped the fence and started punting balls all over the shop.
Some kiddies even got on board the padded foam line-markers and got other kids to tow them around as if they were kings of the world.
Right in front of the George V Stand are two purpose built coach and bench dug outs covered in curved fibreglass that are entirely unused during the game, with the coach and bench of both sides prefering to sit on plastic outdoor setting chairs right on the sideline, along with a few esky's of alleged Gatorade - each team has one trainer - no "doctor" or "physiotherapist" vests in sight.
During half-time, people were drinking beer and eating sausage sangas sheltering in the dug outs to protect themseleves from being donged on the head by flying balls going every which way and that.
The ground announcer barked on the Tannoy at the end of half-time "Righto. The big boys are coming back on, so time to clear the ground, and take your balls and other shit with you, including the mobile phones you've left on the pitch" and within a minute or so, the players reappeared and it was game on for the second half, which was a full-on arm wrestle in the good ol' grapple style.
But Newtown were getting tired; at one stage, one of their blokes was kicking for touch from a penalty and committed the cardinal sin of booting the ball straight into the arms of an opposing winger.
A cry - the best barrack of the day - rang out from the stand "Oh, you goat! You've been taking lessons from Merle Perle again!"
Now there's a sledge that goes so far back in the mists on time, that you won't find any reference to it on the new-fangled internet-thingy.
Mounties scored an unconverted try late in the game, then potted the penalty goal, and Newtown scored in the dying seconds, and it was game over 18-12 the away team's way.
Best players?
Thought the inside centre for Newtown, Matt Evans, had a cracker - the kid can run, take the ball up, and bust the advantage line at will - while the prop forward for the Mounties, Rhys Kennedy, [one of no less than four Kennedy's playing on the side - they might as well call them The Camelots] toiled, ground, tackled and grappled his way manfully throughout - had a blinder. Saved a few tries.
And then there's Jet Man, the lunatic who rides the full perimeter of the ground on a small bicycle with trainer wheels, pedalling furiously while a hootin' and a hollerin' madly waving a Newtown flag with a swag of children running in his wake Pied Piper fashion whenever the Jets score a try.
He went round only once with Newtown's first-half try, but didn't bother to go around again for the Jets consolation try right at the end of the day.
By then, he was sucking on a tinnie and already preparing to ride out of the ground - on what people say who've seen him elsewhere in the district - appears to be his everyday drive.
We took The Daughters to many games involving the Mighty Balmain Tigers at Leichhardt Oval when they were mere kiddies hoping to inculcate them into the culture, but they don't have time for football much anymore now that they are both deep into their adult lives in their 20's; although, deep down, they still have a love of the finest sight in world sport - running rugby league.
The day out only went to confirm that rugby league football in Sydney - forget what the TV moneymen and bullshit artist publicists say - is still tribal.
Internecine warfare at its finest.

Please don't get me started on the Swans losing by a single behind -- "a bloody point" -- to the lowly-ranked, un-loved, hapless Richmond [now Sydney's official "hoodoo" team].
Just don't.
To kick one goal more than the opposition and still lose makes it a funny game, eh?
A classic case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The only upshot of the match is that the Good Lady Wife has now launched the BAN THE BEHIND movement.
The ultimate aim of the Leauge of the Disgruntled campaign is to uproot every behind post in the length and breadth of the entire Wide Brown Land, saw 'em up into one foot lengths, sell them off to traditionalists, historians, and souvenir hunters, and from now on it's a two sticks GOALS ONLY game, OK?
You know it makes sense.
Don't argue.