Soccer between France and Australia.

 

Kalanchoe.

There is always a first time. Helvi scanned the TV programme for Saturday evening and as the pickings were a bit slim, surprised me by saying; ‘why don’t we watch the soccer?’ We never watch any sport. When sport comes on the TV, we slink away to clear the table or use the time to put the dishes in the sink, feed Milo, only to return when the weather forecast comes on. We are not against sport. There is just too much of it. At my social bowling-club I am often embarrassed when I am asked what I thought of the latest rugby or AFL match. I don’t understand the game or the scoring and so often read players being up for drug charges, glassing girlfriends, sexual misconduct, drunkenness etc. I always though that playing with an oblong ball must result in a warped personality and deviousness

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You can imagine my surprise when Helvi suggested to watch the world soccer match beamed live on the TV. I always felt that if sport was anywhere on her radar, it would be soccer. I agreed that to settle down to watch Australia play soccer against France it would be a first in our long term marriage or relationship. People are in relationships rather than marriages. Does it have a tinge of sophistication now?

The weather outside was atrocious. The wind was howling and the forecast was for snow down to 700 metres. We are at 500 metres above the sea on the cusp of snow or at least a bucketing of sleet. Helvi had already packed up the Kalanchoes who don’t like cold. The cyclamen were jubilant in eager anticipation of a nice cyclonic frost. The violets are more indifferent and like extremes of weather, cold or heat. Those brave little souls.

The TV was put on the right soccer channel, the shiraz uncorked. I threw all caution to the wind. The cheese, olives and other delicacies on the coffee table. I turned the thermostat to 25C.  I thought it so typical and lovely for Helvi so often to make the best of things, and in such a surprising and creative way. The thing with soccer is that the ball is round and generally goes towards its intended destination. The ball is also used to kick it instead of being (Illegally) carried around under the arm as in rugby. No-one in soccer will ever grapple with each other either. In a rugby scrum one could be forgiven in thinking that maybe it isn’t only the ball they are trying to grapple with. Who knows what goes on between all those legs, arms and bums?

We enjoyed the soccer immensely and so badly wanted Australia to win. As it turned out there were some dodgy calls and hints of video evidence being ignored favouring France. They finished up winning 2-1. Australia played very well, and even though they lost on a faulty technicality, can walk proud into the future.

Helvi and I had a great evening. Who could have thought that so late in life we watched soccer game?

It is never too late!

Bowling and toilet breaks.

The Sunday event of playing bowls with another club went smoothly. Most clubs don’t open before 10 am. This is probably linked to those strict license laws.  We can drink ourselves into a stupor but not before a certain time. We were told to arrive at 9.30am in Goulburn and naturally found the door closed. We walked around and found another door slightly ajar which allowed us to sneak in. It might well have been the door that the cleaners and staff used to prepare for the day.

No-one was at the desk and this will probably be our last and only time we entered a club without having to show proof of identity. Prince Frederick of Denmark; please note! After entering the bowling room upstairs, we noticed many of the Goulburn’s bowling members being present with most of our own club’s members. I was given a light green t-shirt with our club’s name  ‘The Berrima Social Bowling Club.’ emblazoned on it. It had a dark blue collar. The Goulburn club all wore a dark-blue outfit which included pants. All had name tags which was a great relief. I just hope the ladies did not think I was perving when staring at their chests trying to get to their names!

After a while we were all split into different teams. I was supposed to be a ‘lead’ in my team. I was unprepared for that role. I asked what this meant and was informed it meant my side would start the first bowl by tossing a coin.

‘Ok, I said,’ and dug out a coin, flipped it into the air and gravity did the rest. It fell onto the ground. ‘You have to call it,’ an opposing team-member said.  It turned out you have to say ‘heads or tails,.’ before flipping it. How does one know those things? I am a fast learner though, and  successfully flipped it the second time. I said ‘heads.’ It happened to land with the queen’s head showing. I bowled first. A giant leap forwards.

It turned out the two different teams were all playing together with each other and not against each other. Isn’t that a giant step forwards? This is social sport at its best. For me, a dream come true. I propose that when  Germany plays England next in soccer, that each team have a fifty- fifty mix of each others players. This will do away with all forms of violence and unnecessary competition. We play for the joy of the sport.

As I had put our own club’s t-shirt over my long sleeved shirt I was told that a T-shirt is not normally worn on top of a normal shirt. Panic struck. I wasn’t going to strip down to my singlet. The sight would have been so undignifying, some might have fainted. I have long passed the age of once perhaps being seen as the Prince of Passion, polar necked golden chained, God of the pounding surf. ( I never was.) A man over seventy should never be seen in his singlet, not even in the dark.

There were two games before lunch and one after. The lunch was ordered before hand and at 12.30 we all filed into a special dining room. Most of us went for the ‘Roast Pork with Vegetables. I had earlier inquired if this would include ‘Crackling.’ The answer was in the positive. Boundless enthusiasm followed after that bit of news. I am sure it improved my bowling.

After lunch we all filed back and took our positions behind the greens again. Of course with most of us full of the Roast Pork and apple sauce now queuing up in our intestines for digestion, it should not come a surprise that some sneaked in a hurried trip to the toilet. This happened to one of our own players. ‘I have to go to the loo’, John said. Fair enough, everyone understood and when it became his turn to bowl we all patiently waited his return. We looked to the floor and engaged in some chit-chat. However, it took a bit more time and after about ten minutes of waiting we were just about to suggest a rescue operation when, much to our relief, John re-appeared and took his turn bowling. His bowling was superb.

We had a great day.

 

The garlic wars of migrants and Islam!

Fibro garage. Our first ‘temporary’ home.

It used to be the Italians and Greeks that were blamed for woes and wiles by ‘true Aussies’. The smell of garlic was enough for angry outbursts to the ‘dagoes’ of the fifties and sixties. They were knife pullers and had strange sexual habits.

This was overcome but the next lot to receive abuse were the Balts and Lebanese. The usual abuse and accusations of taking virtuous women, climb over fences and corrupt the Australian culture with kebabs and even more garlic.

The introduction of soccer was met with riotous behaviour, bottle throwing and burning down of strange flags.

Hot on the heels were people from Vietnam with rice dishes and totally ignorant of cricket and Phar Lap.

We are giving the same to Muslims that are coming from all sorts of countries that by and large we have bombed without much effect.

When will they ever learn, by Marlene Dietrich springs to mind or should that be ‘when will WE ever learn?

A Country of strange Sports.

It is no wonder soccer is the world’s most popular sport. Everyone understands it and it is played with a round ball. You can understand how I felt back in 1956 after arrival in Australia, finding that not all balls are perfectly round. How anyone could play a sport with an oblong ball that could not be kicked towards where you wanted it, was a blow that I still have trouble in accepting today.

How could a country hold a better future that played such a strange game? In Holland I had never heard of rugby and was only vaguely aware of cricket. No one had warned us. Soon after arrival I met up with an oblong ball. I thought it was a mistake and that the ball somehow was an aberration, a rejection from the ball factory. No, it wasn’t I was told and I was totally unprepared. I went to bed that night with feelings of dread for the future.

We arrived in January and the drone of cricket on the AWA radio was seeping through the suburban venetian blinds on my way to and form work, together with the suspended, dusty and forgotten Christmas cards. ‘All out and in for a duck’ were cricket terms I don’t understand till this day. But, at least the ball was round. It was of some soothing comfort during those difficult times.

Here is an explanation of cricket to a foreigner; ( From tea-towel cricket)
“You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out, and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out. When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay all out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.

When both sides have been in and all the men have out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game”

My first job was as a ‘process worker’. The definition of that skill was as incomprehensible as cricket. It mainly included holding broom and sweeping up remnants of worker’s lunches. I was amazed that a meat-pie in Australia could be so callously disregarded, being half eaten. At least, that was of some consolation. In Holland a half eaten pie on the floor would be swarming with kids fighting tooth and nails over ownership and I would win! The others would be out!

I remember the owner of the factory having a wooden leg which used to creak as he walked around. He could well have been a soldier and casualty of WW2, he was a slave driver and everyone would be at his machine when the dreaded creaking came near. I gradually progressed and taught to work on lathes and milling machines. I quite liked being able to turn a piece of steel into an object of use. A new migrant boy would become the holder of a broom and baptised ‘process worker’. He too would be surprised at the half eaten meat pies. Such blatant show of wealth! It had to be a good country, even with oblong balls.

That’s how it was.