The Fairytale

by H. G. Nelson

  The 1984–85 version of the surfside stroll was a case of life imitating art as the event was created for and featured in the movie of the same name. The film focused on the adventures of a crew of iron men involved in the fictitious race.

  Holidaymakers from around the world gathered for a sticky beak at the surf-and-sand action. Nothing pulls a crowd more than young, fit Australians doing really stupid and exhausting things and tagging the run-around as both sport and art.

  The original Coolangatta Gold race had a simple yet complex structure. It was a run, a swim and a paddle. The slog began with an eleven-kilometre run from Surfers Paradise over Burleigh Heads to Tallebudgera Creek, barefoot in the scalding sands. Competitors cooled off with a wade across the crocinfested river followed by a short sprint before hitting the soup for a four-kilometre swim towards Currumbin. Once the bull sharks were left behind in the Pacific, the transition to a board leg happened at Bilinga. The paddle leg took the competition down to Coolangatta where they turned north and paddled the ski leg all the way back to Surfers Paradise. If competitors felt peckish during the race, they could nibble on the fish they caught from a baited hook that trailed from the back of the ski.

  This layout was a deadset stinker! But Bob’s fitness would have held up and his great knowledge of ALP back-room tactics in tight marginal seat contests would have given him a distinct advantage in the cut and thrust of competition. The Gold was made for a man with his attack, discipline, elbows and rat cunning.

  Bob would have been a tight fit for Goldie action, but a bigger loss to the national treasure chest of memories, according to many pundits, was Bob’s failure to get a CAMS-approved racing licence. This is not a piece of paper anyone can pick up online from a university in Ohio for fifteen dollars. This is a qualification that requires a stern automotive speed test. It asks serious questions and a demonstration that you have mastered real pedal-to-the-metal skills.

  Mount Panorama and the Holden Dealer Team were a natural stage for Bob. If only Bob had had a chance to strut his stuff in an XU1 Torana in 1972 in the Hardie-Ferodo. It was a lost opportunity. What an example to set for kids of all ages! This was the year Peter Brock drove the whole race by himself. Revheads across the nation would have loved to have seen Bob accelerating down Conrod Straight, scraping the door handles off on the turns in the XU1 when it was his turn to relieve ‘The King’.

  With Bob in the fire-proof overalls, imagine the scenes on the victory dais after the chequered flag had been swung and the dust had settled. The crowd wants to see Bob. He does not disappoint. He steps up and, to the roars of the Generals’ troops, does his thing with a litre or two of the sponsor’s amber-coloured bitter in one gulp. The bloke still has it!

  Of course, given Bob’s style in the cut and thrust of the Big House in Canberra, many fight fans believe Bob would have been very handy turning out in the big shorts in the squared circle.

  Maybe the world of international pro wrestling would have been a big enough arena for his talents. Imagine seeing him turn out and add top-shelf glamour to the ranks of the World Wrestling Superstars. He would front in the green and gold rubberised budgie smugglers with built-in protection from any malicious mat mayhem squirrel-grippers.

  He could top the card with a nom de ring that screamed authority. Imagine the branding possibilities if Bob had appeared in the WWF or WWE, fighting under the banner of ‘The Vicious Tossil’.

  Talk about giving politics back to the people and talking in a language all Australians understand!

  Talk about giving politics back to the people and talking in a language all Australians understand!

  Today, looking back across Bob’s record of staggering success in an action-packed lifetime, a wrestling career is the yawning gap in that magnificent list of achievements.

  Even if a solo career failed, he could have appeared in a tag team combination as The Original Silver Bodgie with a team partner from back in the day, like Outback Jack. It could have been The Fabulous Kangaroos all over again. An electrifying combination of Bob’s brains and Jack’s muscle. They would have been an unstoppable shoo-in for the International Heavyweight Tag Team Title.

  Sadly, Bob chose different paths, but based on what we saw early on with that stunning metre of ‘sconce’ home brew, his green and gold work and his love of Australian winners, Bob’s record speaks for itself. And that’s even allowing for the trifecta of misses at Coolangatta, Bathurst and wrestling in Festival Hall on the WWF card. Bob selected himself as our greatest sporting political all-rounder. The title was Bob’s and Bob’s alone!

  The green and gold man: John Howard, PM 1996–2007

  John Howard loved cricket. He rated being the captain of the Australian team as a more important and onerous position in the nation’s affairs than being Prime Minister.

  He rated being the captain of the Australian team as a more important and onerous position in the nation’s affairs than being Prime Minister.

  He loved watching cricket, even when it was the most cod ordinary and stupefyingly dull affair and everyone apart from him and his bodyguards had left.

  There was no more enthusiastic starter in the Paddington shuffle than John. This was a curious sight at the Sydney Test held every New Year. SCG members, including John, queued before the gates opened to get a good seat in the Members’ Stand to watch the day’s play.

  At opening time, the hordes were let in and set off at a steady pace. It is a local version of Pamplona’s running of the bulls. If anyone tripped or slipped, there was no help until after the first wave had waddled by, snapping up the best seats on offer.

  John was a very keen watcher of all sport, especially cricket and rugby union. In fact, he was taken by any sport with an international agenda like the Olympics, the World Football Cup, Kangaroo tours, the Bledisloe Cup or World Series Cricket – any international event that allowed him to slip into the green and gold tracksuit and watch from the boundary or the TV coverage any time, night or day.

  He struggled when it came to saying anything sensible about these events. That did not matter, he was quoted anyway. And playing? Well, that was in the distant past by the time he became PM. But people who know about these things said the bloke had a terrific spin bowling action.

  John represented Australia at the highest international level politically. He was dubbed the Man of Steel by the Bush administration after 9/11. But he had very few opportunities to demonstrate to the nation the Howard line and length. He never bothered an opening bat in the corridor of uncertainty or took the ball, once the shine had been knocked off it, and demonstrated his prowess with a spell of impossible-to-play reverse swings.

  An opportunity came to see the Howard action up close at Camp Bradman. This was a secure, well-fortified facility set up by an Australian Defence Force medical team deployed to Pakistan to provide healthcare assistance to people affected by an earthquake in 2005. The earthquake devastated the area and killed more than 70,000 people.

  Camp Bradman was 1200 metres above sea level, twenty kilometres northeast of Muzaffarabad on the Pakistani line of control.

  The Australian first eleven, with John as skip, were to play a local side dolled up in bright red Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirts with the bold slogan ‘Support Southern rock’ plastered across the front. The opposition saw themselves as a team and certainly looked the part. The team had a cause. They were stepping out to promote the Southern rock concept across Asia.

  The team had a cause. They were stepping out to promote the Southern rock concept across Asia.

  The Skynyrd were a hard-rocking, country-flavoured, blues-based combo that knocked out five studio albums and one live set during a career that ran from 1964–1977. They stormed the charts with now long forgotten big hits like ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘Free Bird’. There was no indication in press releases from the camp that PM Howard knew their music or had taken any interest in their career.

  Lynyrd Skynyrd were part of a surge of music from the Southern st
ates of America during the 1970s. This wave rumbled out of Macon, Georgia, and included outfits like the Allman Brothers, the Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels, Stillwater and Sea Level.

  How the Skynyrd shirts ended up in the Neelum Valley was never adequately explained, given that none of these bands had ever toured Pakistan or knew bugger-all about cricket. In fact, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s career was cut short by a tragic plane crash in 1977.

  The appearance of the Pakistani team in the Skynyrd shirts is one of the great mysteries of international cricket. It has never been adequately explained by the ADF, the BCCI or Wisden. It was a development that still baffles our finest cricketing minds. Despite a six-month probe by both Mojo and Rolling Stone, music buffs and cricket tragics still scratch their heads.

  John, as skipper of the ADF eleven, selected himself for an opening spell of spin. He was worried. He knew the altitude could play havoc with his technique. He measured out his run and as he steamed in from the Everest end, he tried to remember everything his coach at Canterbury Boys High, the chemistry teacher, Luke ‘Wally’ Stout, had drummed into him on hot afternoons bowling in the nets at the far end of the school oval. Wally stressed the importance of the delivery stride, getting side on, giving the ball air, letting the pitch do the work and disguising the slower ball. John had these Stout off-spin pointers front and centre in his opening spell. They swirled through his mind as he set the field.

  John set the field out exactly as he had imagined it lying in his sleeping bag on a camp stretcher under ADF canvas.

  The visiting PM knew he had a good opening spell of maybe three overs. If he kept a tight line and length and took a couple of early wickets the batting side could be rocked. He thought the middle order was rubbish. But our skip was unsure what his teammates would bring to the table.

  He knew Senior Sergeant Trevor Ferret, crouching behind the stumps with the surgical gloves on, would be a safe pair of hands. He had seen Ferret in action during an Army v Navy clash. The Sarge was a top croucher.

  John set a wide slips cordon knowing if he could get the ball to grip he could turn it away from the stumps in the corridor of uncertainty, catch an edge of the bat and then have the slips crew do the rest.

  Lance Corporal Herman Dick from the Broke Cricket Club selected himself at first slip, Captain Victor Tool slotted in at second slip and Chief Medical Officer Lionel Stiff completed the slip cordon.

  For the opening spell there was a short leg, a silly leg, a square leg, a mid-off and a mid-on. If the batting side got after him and took the long handle to his spin, John would drop the mid-off and mid-on back to the boundary.

  ADF quartermaster Harry Knob was tapped to open from the Rawalpindi end. John knew ‘Knobbie’ could generate explosive pace. The Knob looked fit and set for a bag of wickets. Taking over after John from the Everest end was the just short of a length specialist, Sergeant ‘Tiger’ Tim Tackle.

  The pill was not a regulation Kookaburra six stitcher but a locally made DIY construction. When our number one looked at it closely all he saw was an irregular shape, just a bunch of rubbish tied together with rubber bands. The irregular shape of the ball made a conventional grip extremely difficult. John asked his travelling press secretary Herbert ‘Rocky’ Tudge to make a note to send through a box of Kookaburra six stitches in the overnight bag as a gesture of good will from the Australian cricket community.

  So while the DIY Jaffa left the hand beautifully throughout the spell, John’s deliveries squirted off the pitch at weird angles, that is, if they lobbed on the pitch at all, which was a length of rolled dirt.

  The field could not take advantage of the opportunities that came their way. It was set too deep. Skip’s opening spell failed to ask questions of the Pakistani upper order. After a few overs from the Everest end he swapped and tried to bowl up the hill into the breeze from the Karachi pavilion end with even less success.

  John’s technique was classical and he could not adapt to local conditions. He struggled. But it was a spell never forgotten by anyone who was lucky to see it. And what a way to cement relations between our two great nations in this troubled part of the world. Many believe it was the highlight of John’s career as he had the opportunity to combine his great loves: politics, cricket and representing Australia.

  Cricket diplomacy was at its height with John Howard as PM. He turned up in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan throughout his long career in the top job. He often timed his trips to coincide with the Anzac Day Tests and the best of three ODIs which have become a regular feature of the post ‘shock and awe’ sporting landscape in the Middle East.

  Cricket diplomacy was at its height with John Howard as PM.

  For many years John thought the future of Australian cricket lay in the refugee camps on the Afghan–Pakistani border. So many kids heard of his deeds in the Lynyrd Skynyrd Test and had time to perfect skills with homemade equipment that allowed them to blossom once they got their hands on some decent kit.

  He came, he saw, he stayed: Bob Menzies, PM 1939–41, 1949–66

  Oddly enough our longest-serving Prime Minister, Bob Menzies, was a shooter. He shot with the Melbourne University Rifles during World War One. But training in this amateur outfit was sub-standard. This was partially due to lack of bullets, even though every bullet shot by Australians during the First and Second big shows was made in nearby Footscray.

  He was a great supporter of the Carlton Football Club. The club welcomed his support, building a ramp at Princess Park off Anzac Parade to allow Menzies’ Rolls Royce to glide up the incline into a prominent position so that the PM, now of advancing years, could sit in the front seat, see the match and honk the horn whenever the Carlton Blues (the team that never lets you down) slotted a major.

  He loved fish: Harold Holt, PM 1966–67

  So many of our Prime Ministers were keen sporting people and it was not the most obvious sports that they excelled at.

  Harold ‘Gunner’ Holt was our seventeenth Prime Minister. He had big shoes to fill as the first Australian to get a shufti inside The Lodge after years of occupation by Bob Menzies. Sadly, he had a very short time to enjoy the digs, from January 1966 until late in the following year.

  Early in life, Harold discovered his passion for shooting. In May 1940, he joined the Australian Imperial Force. He was posted to the 2/4th Field Regiment where he rose to the rank of gunner. He did all this while still warming a seat in federal Parliament.

  When an air crash in 1940 wiped out several cabinet ministers, young Harold was promoted into the Menzies cabinet where he became Minister for Labour and National Service. Consequently, he had to park his dry-land shooting passion, but this opened the door for his real sporting career.

  Harold loved fish. He loved nothing better than eating a fish. He loved nothing better than shooting fish. These were the three great loves of his life. When he went, he was lucky enough to go out doing what he loved.

  He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of fish and how they tasted. In fact, on one magic night of Australian television on Bob Dyer’s Pick a Box quiz show, Gunner beat the resident champ Barry Jones by five points. He dropped only one point in his special subject of correctly identifying a fish from smell alone.

  As he says in his autobiography (as told to Age fishing correspondent Cedric Snook):

  I have had a hook into everything. I know fish. It was an honest mistake. I put it down to tiredness. The pressure of work, imagine thinking the waft of tommy ruff was snapper? Honestly, who would make that mistake?

  Incidentally, quizmaster Bob Dyer was a mad hook, line and sinker man. He spent his holidays camped on the back of a boat chasing big fish across the Pacific.

  There was nothing Gunner Holt loved more than getting away from the cares of the office, togging up, getting wet and drawing a bead on a flathead that could feed a family of seven.

  Whenever time permitted, he would drop everything, pull on the wetsuit, grab the speargun and plunge in.

  He was probed b
y senior fishing correspondent ‘Slugger’ Doak for a pictorial in The Australian newspaper in mid-1967: ‘Slugger, my dream is to snare a great white with a lucky shot, but it would be hell trying to get the bugger back on shore to prove to the knockers, and there are many, that I had done it.’ But he noted in the spray his great weakness: ‘Slugs, honestly, I just love spearing fish, any fish, it doesn’t matter what the breed. If it swims and has fins, I will have a crack!’

  One of his favourite locations for a shoot was Cheviot Beach near Portsea in Victoria. The beach is named after the S.S. Cheviot, which got into trouble, broke up and sank in terrible conditions in October 1887 with the loss of thirty-five lives. This grim detail suggests the beach is not the easiest place to relax and contemplate a sunny swim. It was a restricted area for some time, and Surf Life Saving Australia rated it as extremely hazardous, with plenty of heavy rips, especially as the tide drops.

  Harold had a special pass that allowed him access, and even though it was remote from all the usual beachside services, Cheviot was his second home. Fast forward to 17 December 1967: on that fateful day, a carload of boat freaks headed towards Point Nepean to see nurseryman and fruit merchant Sir Alec Rose pass through The Rip at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay. Alec was at the helm of Lively Lady, a thirty-six-foot cutter, heading off to complete his round-the-world solo voyage.

  On the way back from waving bon voyage to the mad fruiterer in charge of the quickly disappearing yacht, Harold persuaded his driver to stop at Cheviot Beach so he could have a dip before heading home for a well-earned lunch. The menu on that fate-filled day was the house speciality of beer-battered flathead, tartare sauce and those large-cut chips Harold loved, followed by a passionfruit and strawberry pavlova.

  Given that it was rough, with a lumpy sea running, there was some reluctance from the crew about plunging in, but Harold could smell a big school of salmon lurking just beyond the white-water surge. He togged up and set off with a companion who, spooked by the conditions, stayed close to the shore, while ‘Gung Ho’ Harold tackled the beach he ‘knew like the back of his hand’.