Standing in the shadow of giants is no easy feat.
Particularly when you’re a “young’un….”.
Recently, on my way to see some rock and roll friends in inner city Melbourne, I found myself briefly lost and disoriented in the backstreets of those suburbs that seem to morph seamlessly into one another…..Fitzroy, Collingwood, Abbotsford, Brunswick.
And there I was, inexplicably, standing in front of the Brunswick Street Oval.
I stood there, transfixed, absorbed, in my “speak, memory” moment. For I knew that giants of the national code had trodden the hallowed turf of that illustrious oval, titans like that Brownlow Medal winner Kevin Murray.
My personal memories of this ground, however, centred around the “Bergers”, years before that illustrious club had transformed itself into Heidelberg United.
The one and only Fitzroy United Alexander.
“Alexandros!!”.
And I thought of a recent Greek show that I loved watching on the Greek national broadcaster ERT.
“Ta Kalitera Mas Xronia”.
And at that moment, I thought of a beloved uncle, and of a beloved Godbrother.
Of how, half a century before, a bunch of us little brats, “ankle biters”, stood in a bustling, chaotic players’ changing rooms after a stirring Fitzroy United Alexander home ground victory.
My incendiary memory of that locker room scene is piercing, perhaps even a mite problematic, though not too troubling.
The skipper, derobed, standing proud and glorious in nothing but his “birthday suit”, reporters pressing arcane transistor radios a bit too close to his countenance.
Gleeful, celebratory scenes, a brief Sunday moment of Achillean adulation for men who, most likely, would return to life that next, following day, a Monday, to jobs on the factory floor, in an automobile plant like GMH Holden in Port Melbourne or on the outskirts of Dandenong, at Fisherman’s Bend.
I can only hazard a guess, but as a little fellow back in ’73, ’74, watching stars like Pat Bannon and captain Nick Racovalis, alongside uncles shouting and bellowing exhortations to the boys in the pitch like “shoot !!, shoot!!”, was a peculiarly enchanting scene.
For sure, my fealty to the “Bergers” had always fallen way short of my adulation for that of the “Old Dark Navy Blue”, not that far away out on Royal Parade in that best part of glorious Melbourne.
Yet from close range, I witnessed so many in my tight knitted family purchase and savour a hilarious “spoof” vinyl 45, (mis) appropriating a well loved traditional Greek folksong, the lyrics altered to celebrate the feats of a litany of stars from that heroic line – up of early 1970s Fitzroy United Alexander players.
That round ball worship, in ways, helped sustain those elders that I cherished and worshipped as they reconstituted themselves for the commencement of that daily grind the following day at places like Bosch, Lucas Batteries, Trimview and Stegbar.
At some point in time, I gave this round ball side hustle and moderate love and fealty away. This time, a troubling communal expression of Vergina and Pella triumphalism, a fighting warrior astride a grey mare leading the freshly coined Heidelberg onto the pitch at their new surroundings in their more expansive outer suburban “home”.
I guess, for me, from that time on, distractions, diversions, life, an outreaching life, beyond a hitherto insular life, took hold.
And for that little period of time, going home, us kids crammed like sardines, thinking of the feats and exploits of Pat and Nick, and a bit later on, the likes of “keeper” Jeff Oliver and our own homegrown version of “Super Mac”, Gary Cole, following that slightly dark hued yellow playing strip, meant a bit more than something for us “band of brothers”.
