Specky Magee and the Spirit of the Game

by Felice Arena

  Eventually, Brian was able to break free from half-back and shoot a spearing pass to Dean Roeder on the wing. He played on quickly and kicked it long into the forward line. It wasn’t an accurate kick and it started to drift toward Matt and Grunter in the pocket. They jostled and wrestled for position, waiting for the ball. Biff charged over to get involved and got there just before Specky.

  But when Specky did arrive, he saw his chance. In full stride, about a metre from the pack, he soared through the air, pushing his knees firmly into Biff’s shoulder and catapulting himself toward the ball.

  The crowd and every player on the ground held their breath.

  I’m flying! thought Specky as he got both hands onto the football. But his body was unbalanced and twisted. Matt, Grunter and Biff crumbled under his weight and crashed to the ground.

  Specky felt his legs flip from under him, and it seemed like he was suspended in midair, two metres from the ground. For a second he had no idea which way was up. He felt as if he had been tossed around in a giant washing machine.

  ‘He’ll break his back!’ someone yelled.

  Then, he was falling.

  Specky, panicked, tried to turn himself as he fell to avoid a disastrous crash landing. It all happened so quickly. Then FWOMP!

  Specky landed on Grunter’s fat gut, cushioning his fall and winding the Sovereign Grove back-man.

  The Rivergum crowd erupted into hysterical cheers. It was one of the greatest marks they had ever seen. The car horns blared and Motormouth Mick’s voice boomed out across the ground.

  Oh my lord! In all my years of calling football, I have never seen anything like that. This has got to be Rivergum’s greatest mark of all time!

  ∗∗∗

  ‘Well, I’m proud of you blokes.’

  Ernie had the team assembled in the change rooms after the final siren had sounded.

  ‘To be within fifteen points with just ten minutes to go was a mighty effort. Sure, Jimmy Prior’s dodgy knee took him off the field and left us with only fourteen men again, but numbers were always gonna be the problem. They might’ve kicked three more goals and we might’ve lost by thirty-three points, but don’t you worry. When we get a full list together we will wipe the smile off that mongrel Carl Sharkey’s face.’

  ‘You tell ’em, young Earnest!’ said Ivor Richards, who was handing out cut oranges to the exhausted players.

  ‘And now for the awards,’ continued Ernie. ‘The Commercial, the best hotel in town, has donated twenty bucks for the best Redfin player on the ground. And that goes to Brian Edwards.’

  A round of applause greeted Brian as he sheepishly got up and accepted his prize.

  ‘The meat tray, kindly donated by Mick Richards, goes to Jimmy Prior, for staying out there as long as he did, even though his knee was stuffed.’

  Ernie handed the tray over to Jimmy.

  ‘And the Roeder’s Hardware and Tackle twenty dollars goes to a young bloke who must have had rockets strapped to the bottom of his boots, ’cause we’ve never seen anyone get up as high as he did – Simon “Specky” Magee.’

  A big roar rang out amongst the players and the spectators who had assembled in the rooms. Specky had a whole new legion of fans.

  When Specky woke up on Sunday morning, every muscle in his body ached. His hands were bruised and tender, causing him to flinch every time he moved his fingers.

  ‘C’mon, let’s get going,’ Brian said, already dressed and raring to start the day. ‘Gotta check my crays, go for a quick swim and set up for the market today.’

  Slowly Specky got ready. The idea of jumping into a muddy river in the middle of winter didn’t appeal to him, but he was really sore and going for a swim after the hard training sessions of the past few weeks had certainly helped.

  Less than an hour later, Specky and Brian were down on the banks of the river in their board shorts.

  ‘This is so much better than I thought it would be,’ said Specky, surprised, as he dropped his towel down on a beautiful sandbank.

  ‘Yeah, this is the best swimming spot on the river,’ said Brian. ‘You can walk out on this sandbar for twenty metres and it doesn’t get any deeper than your waist. Dad and Ernie were down here in the tinny last week.’

  ‘What’s a tinny?’ asked Specky.

  ‘It’s a little aluminium fishing boat. They checked for submerged logs or anything else that could be dangerous. The river might look quiet, Speck, but you have to know how deep it is and understand the currents and all that.’

  It was turning out to be quite a warm day and once Specky had adjusted to the cold of the water, he realised how clean and refreshing it was. Half an hour later, some of the aches and pains from yesterday’s game had faded.

  The boys dried off, got changed, jumped on the bikes and headed off to check on the crays.

  ‘Whoa! I think we’ve hit the mother lode,’ Brian exclaimed. ‘It weighs a ton.’

  Specky watched Brian quickly dragging the rope out of the river.

  ‘What?’ Brian choked in disbelief.

  The sheep’s head was gone and there wasn’t a single crayfish. Instead, there was a footy strapped to a large rock, with a message written in thick black texta: RIVERGUM LOSERS!

  ‘What idiot would do that?’ Specky said, feeling really sorry for his mate.

  ‘Guess,’ said Brian, angrily untying the football and kicking it into the river.

  ‘Biff?’

  ‘Yeah, who else?’

  ∗∗∗

  A few hours later, Rivergum’s Annual Country Market Day was in full swing. Allan Street had been closed off to vehicles and turned into a huge pedestrian mall – allowing the locals, farmers and shop owners to set up stalls selling their homemade goodies and fresh produce.

  ‘It’s packed! And I’ve never seen so many cakes and jams,’ mumbled Specky, with his mouth full of chocolate crackle.

  ‘Yeah, it’s great,’ Brian said as he and Specky weaved their way through the throng of out-of-town visitors. ‘I reckon they’ll get about two thousand people this year. If they all spend five bucks each, we might be able to get a proper roof for the change rooms.’

  Specky and Brian wandered from stall to stall.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ muttered Brian.

  Specky turned to see the Sovereign Grove coach, Carl Sharkey, heading directly for them.

  ‘G’day, Brian. Great game you played yesterday,’ he said through a toothy grin. ‘And you too, mate. Magee, isn’t it?’

  Specky nodded.

  ‘Bit of a fluke, that mark you took. My boy lost the ball in the sun, otherwise you never would have got up that high. You looked a bit shaken up out there a few times. Playing with the big boys can do that to ya.’

  ‘The only blokes I saw shaking were Biff and Grunter, when Matty Connelly was there to meet them after half-time,’ Brian said coldly. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’

  ‘No need to be like that,’ said Coach Sharkey. ‘Always good to help out the smaller clubs. Try to give ’em a bit of cash when I can. Looks like you might make some today – great turn out.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ shrugged Brian, gesturing to Specky to keep walking.

  ‘Hey, Brian!’ Coach Sharkey called out after him. ‘Come and play for us. I’ll pay you one hundred and fifty dollars a game. And, Magee, that goes for you, too, if you’re willing to come up here every weekend. And I’ll throw in ten bucks a goal.’

  Specky and Brian stopped dead in their tracks. Brian turned and slowly walked back toward the coach – with Specky by his side.

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ said Brian. ‘No disrespect, Mr Sharkey, but I wouldn’t play for your team if it was the only club in the state.’

  Specky couldn’t believe what Brian was saying. He watched Coach Sharkey’s face harden, his slimy smile now gone.

  One hundred and fifty bucks, thought Specky. That’s one hundred and thirty more than Brian had got from Rivergum, without even being the best player o
n the ground, without even kicking a goal. He couldn’t believe that Brian didn’t even need to think about it.

  ‘And Specky wouldn’t either,’ Brian added quickly. ‘Would you, Speck?’

  ‘Um… I…’ stuttered Specky, feeling overwhelmed by the offer.

  It was the first time in his life he’d been offered money to play footy – one hundred and fifty bucks, plus incentives, was a good chunk of cash.

  ‘No way,’ he replied, finally, realising straightaway that he had made the right decision. He didn’t play football for money, he played because he loved it, and he wouldn’t betray the Booyong High Lions or the Rivergum Redfins to play for a team he didn’t respect.

  ‘Oh well, your loss,’ muttered the coach as Brian and Specky took off into the crowd.

  ∗∗∗

  By the late afternoon, most of the remaining crowd had gathered on the banks of the river near Mr Edwards’ houseboat business.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Specky asked as he and Brian pushed their way to the front of the gathering.

  ‘It’s the main event,’ grinned Brian. ‘It’s my old man’s Razorback Jack Kicking Contest.’

  ‘Sweet,’ said Specky. ‘So, let me guess. It’s a long-kicking contest. Right?’

  ‘Yep, sort of…’ replied Brian. ‘To enter you pay twenty bucks for three kicks to see if you can boot the ball over this section of the river.’

  ‘But that’s impossible. Look how far it is to the other side.’

  ‘Seventy-nine metres,’ said Brian. ‘The same distance, give or take a few centimetres, as Razorback Jack’s famous kick. I came up with the idea a few years ago.’

  ‘Has anyone kicked it over? What do you win?’ asked Specky, fantasising about winning the competition.

  ‘One week free on one of dad’s houseboats,’ Brian said proudly. ‘And no – no one has won it before.’

  One by one a dozen or so men and women attempted to kick the ball over the Murray River. A few competitors managed a respectable distance, but there was no winner and the footballs floated downstream.

  ‘I’m going to have a go,’ said Specky as he fumbled around in his pocket, looking for the twenty dollar note he had won in the game.

  ‘Speck, it’s seventy-nine metres. You might as well just donate the twenty,’ exclaimed Brian.

  ‘Well, it’s going to a good cause,’ said Specky, handing over his money.

  The crowd started to gather as he lined up his first kick. Some of them had seen what he was capable of in the high-marking stakes and they were curious to know if he could kick as well as he could mark.

  He ran in quickly, and as he approached the line he was almost at full pace. He leant way back, dropped the ball onto his boot, and kicked it as hard as he could. To his dismay, the footy wobbled badly off the side of his boot and dropped into the river about forty metres downstream.

  Specky overheard Carl Sharkey say to someone in the crowd, ‘I told you that mark was a fluke. I sure as heck know he can’t kick.’

  Specky took a deep breath. He tried to recall what Ben Graham – the former Geelong captain who was now the punter for the New York Jets in the American NFL – had told them at an AFL superclinic years ago.

  Kicking long distances is not necessarily about strength or power. It has more to do with timing. More often than not, the harder you try to kick the ball the less likely you are to succeed. You need to relax, make sure that you drop the ball correctly onto your boot, have a smooth kicking action, and then follow through with your leg once you have made contact. Build your momentum slowly, so that you’re not running too quickly at the start, and let the ball do the work.

  Specky lined up for his next kick. He had done the opposite of everything that Ben Graham had advised him to do.

  He started more slowly, building speed as he approached the kick-off line. But just as he was getting into his kicking stride, his left foot struck one of the hundreds of exposed gum-tree roots that covered the river bank. He stumbled and barely made contact with the ball. It dribbled over the edge and dropped into the water with an embarrassing ‘plop’.

  ‘That was useless,’ laughed Carl Sharkey, loud enough for the crowd to hear.

  ‘Are you all right, mate?’ asked Brian, running over to him.

  ‘Yeah, apart from feeling like a total loser,’ responded Specky, as he walked back for his final kick.

  He wanted to get it over and done with quickly. He was already feeling like a fool and didn’t want to prolong the agony.

  Specky grabbed the ball, took a couple of deep breaths, and without thinking too much about it started the approach for his final kick.

  Sometimes in football, as in any sport, a player can over-analyse things and confuse themselves. Specky’s approach to his third kick was almost perfect, and he didn’t even realise it. His run up was smooth, he was perfectly balanced and he had good speed at the point of impact. The ball drop for the torpedo punt was perfect, angled across his right foot, and contact was sweet. He had practised and analysed what he needed to do, but when it counted his natural instincts had taken over.

  The football flew off Specky’s boot and adopted the perfect spiral motion immediately. It started low, then climbed into the air, making a slight whizzing sound as its flight took shape.

  Specky was as amazed as anyone. It hardly felt like he had made contact with the ball. His boot had sunk so gently into the football, it felt like he was kicking a cushion. The ball kept going and going.

  Motormouth Mick and Ivor Richards, were the only two people assembled on the other side of the river. They were the officials. They had a couple of fishing lines in the water and were nestled into their deck chairs. In the five years the competition had run, they had never had to adjudicate on a winner.

  They both stumbled out of their chairs, their mouths wide open, as the ball headed straight for them.

  Motormouth Mick dived behind an old tree stump, putting both hands over his ears, shouting at the top of his voice, ‘INCOMING! INCOMING!’

  The ball started to lose altitude as it got closer to the river bank. It was going to be touch and go. Ivor Richards was jumping up and down with excitement and Motormouth Mick was still taking cover as the ball thudded into the side of the bank, some two metres short of the magical seventy-nine metre mark.

  The crowd let out a collective groan. Brian, Ernie and Mr Edwards ran over to Specky.

  ‘That was unreal, mate. How did you do that?’

  ‘There were shades of Razorback Jack there, young Specky,’ beamed Ernie.

  Specky was suddenly embarrassed by all the attention.

  ‘I can’t explain it. I didn’t even try and kick it that hard. It felt like I was kicking a cushion.’

  ‘Kicking a cushion? Yeah, right, Speck,’ scoffed Brian. ‘Mate, that’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard you say. That was as close as anyone has ever got. You should have seen Carl Sharkey’s face.’

  ‘Well, that’s all good and well, boys,’ interjected Mr Edwards. ‘But there’s one more thing you need to do…’

  Brian’s dad pointed at all the balls floating down the river.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Brian, gesturing for Specky to hop into a canoe so they could paddle down river to fetch them all.

  ‘Dad and Ernie must be rapt. That was the biggest turnout ever,’ said Brian, scooping up the footballs one by one – they had all been washed into a bend in the river by the swirling current.

  ‘Yeah, it was sensational,’ added Specky, looking back over his shoulder to see the crowd leaving. ‘The whole weekend was.’

  The kicking contest had marked the end of the day, and the streets and the river bank were soon as deserted as they had been when Specky had first arrived in Rivergum.

  ‘Hurry up, boys!’ shouted Mr Edwards. ‘It’s time to take Simon home.’

  As Mr Edwards and the boys drove along Allan Street they noticed Ernie and Coach Sharkey having what looked like a heated argument in front
of the Commercial.

  ‘That doesn’t look good,’ muttered Brian’s dad, stopping the car and hopping out.

  ‘Everything all right there, Ern?’ he asked, approaching the men with Specky and Brian a few steps behind.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine, Tom,’ said Ernie. ‘But Carl here has lost the plot.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ snarled Coach Sharkey. ‘I’m giving you good advice. Merge with Bradford or Pomona or call it quits altogether.’

  ‘I’ve said this before, Tom,’ said Ernie, moving forward and pointing at Coach Sharkey. ‘He’s out to kill the mighty Redfins. He still can’t stand the fact that he lost the flag to us.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ snapped Coach Sharkey, shoving Ernie back.

  ‘Hey!’ barked Brian’s dad, getting in between them. ‘Enough of that!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah… nothing’s gonna happen.’ Coach Sharkey shrugged. ‘It’s bloody ridiculous that he thinks I’m carrying some twenty-year-old grudge. We – and I’m speaking for all the clubs in the league here – we are sick of Rivergum wasting our time. They’re pathetic and they should get out.’

  ‘That’s crap,’ snapped Brian. ‘If we had a full side yesterday, we would’ve beaten you guys.’

  ‘Brian,’ warned his dad, not wanting him to get involved.

  ‘No, Brian’s right,’ said Ernie. ‘Carl got a little nervous. Didn’t ya, mate? He knows it’s true.’

  Specky watched intently as the tension built between the two coaches.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ scoffed Coach Sharkey. ‘Any time you have a full team, you call me and I bet you anything you still won’t beat us. In fact, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?’

  Specky wondered what this bully had in mind.

  ‘How about we have a re-match,’ he continued. ‘Outside of the league’s fixture. A private one-off showdown.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ said Ernie.

  ‘If Rivergum wins – which you won’t, but if by some miracle you do – I will donate twenty thousand dollars out of my own pocket to your club.’