Hilda Forbes (Gutteridge), 87 Years Young.

"Mark, would you like to meet Sam?'


It was at an invitational cricket carnival that these words were uttered to me and although I knew Sam was the guest of honour, it hadn't entered my head that I'd be given an opportunity to meet him personally. Upon being introduced it was clear that the elderly man had lost most of his sight and hearing and although he still cut a strong figure, frailty was obviously a concern. But I could tell by the animated way he held and fumbled through his worn manilla folder full of old scraps of letters, scoresheets, and black and white photos that this was a man not living in regret of a body that was failing him, but rather reveling in the telling of the stories of his youth. At one stage he turned to me and asked if I would read him a letter written to him in 1954 by a very firm friend. Although I cannot remember it verbatim, it read a little like this;


"Dear Sam. Good luck on your upcoming match with New South Wales, I know how dearly you would love for Victoria to win the Shield on your home ground. I must say that in all my time playing cricket, I never felt at ease at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The wicket plays decidedly slow and I always have trouble when trying to drive early in an innings. I hope you have better success than I and wish you the best in the upcoming match. Your friend, Don".


With a cheeky smile forming in his mouth as I incredulously read the words aloud, Sam asked me to turn the letter over. Before I could read what Sam had scribbled on the back, he spoke that which was written there to me from his own memory. "Don Bradman played 11 tests at the MCG with a batting average of 130! He made nine hundreds there me boy, and he wants to try to tell us he was ill at ease? I'd hate to think how he'd go if he felt comfortable; that's what you call a cricketer!".


In the ensuing hour the enormity of what I was experiencing was dawning on me; this man and the stories he told WAS cricket in the 1940's and 50's. Each story was just as fascinating as the last and many are now committed to my memory not to be forgotten. I was grateful he was unable to hear those trying to interrupt him with their own anecdotes or questions that betrayed just how little they understood of what this wonderful old man was trying to tell them. "Would you please be quiet?" I thought to myself as I strained to listen to Sam, "I could sit and listen to this man talk all day and not dare open my mouth for fear of interrupting or missing something interesting he might say".


The man was Sam Loxton, one of Bradman's "invincibles". However this was not the first time I'd felt about someone this way. I'd already had the pleasure of meeting someone every bit as remarkable, and I didn't have to concern myself with missing out on any of her stories...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I had been dating my then girlfriend Kristel for nearly three years when she turned 21, and a party was thrown where I felt the slightest bit uneasy at not knowing her friends as well as I do now. Coupled with the fatigue that came with playing a pre-season game of football in still very summer like Australian heat that afternoon, it was ensured that it would be a quiet celebration for me. I did manage come speech time to tell everyone how proud I was of her for (or despite) setting an Australian record for the quickest time from getting a provisional license to having an accident* but the best stories did not come from the guests, nor were they delivered during the speeches. They were told to two most unsuspecting guests who were transfixed upon every word this incredible lady had to say. My news to dad that the footy club had seemingly signed a star player soon became trivial compared to what Grandma Hilda had to say when introduced to her. Football was slightly less important than the events that followed in Britain following the invasion of Poland by the Germans in 1939.


We were told of how gas masks became standard issue in England that year, the request from the Government being that practice of their use was to be maintained regularly for if they should ever urgently be needed. There were Mickey Mouse themed ones for small children, and there were large box shaped ones for small babies in which the entire infant was to fit inside.


She told us of the Battle of Britain, the very real air fights to her (and very surreal to us) where the planes could be quite high to the point where you couldn't tell which ones were "ours" and which ones were a "blooming Gerry", and when one exploded in mid-air Hilda always gave a sigh of relief to see a parachute open.


We were told of the bomb that demolished three large houses around the corner from Church Road in Kent where she lived, the trees of her family's back yard covered with curtains and clothing and debris from these houses, the doors and windows of their own home shattered by the reverberations from the impact and most scarily of all, the realisation dawning that a direct hit on their house proper would render their underground shelter utterly useless. They would not be safe.


She told us of how she was conscripted into the Royal Navy. Just think about that sentence for a moment; she was conscripted into the Royal Navy. She didn't choose it, she was made to. Later, she was also made to travel to Australia with them, a voyage she had no desire of making but one that would shape her life when she met her future husband Bill. It's astonishing stuff, a story that belongs in our distant past but can live in our closest relatives.

It was at this time I started thinking about just how good I had it living in a country that had never experienced, just how exactly comfortable my soft little life was compared to hers at the same age.


It was then that Hilda told the story that remains entrenched in my mind and I daresay will for all time.  Attending the cinema with her father at the height of the war, while the film was showing a notice appeared on the screen; "The Air Raid Warning has sounded. The performance will continue". Apparently this was a normal enough procedure until moments later it was replaced with "The Immediate Danger is sounding, the performance will continue". Not long after that there was an explosion that shook the building. Hilda said to her father "Come on dad, let's go!" to which he replied "sit tight gal, if it's got your name on it you'll get it no matter where you are. You're just as likely to walk into the flippin' thing".


I think it was at this time Hilda had been talking for two hours non stop to which she suggested we must have been getting tired of hearing her talk. "Not at all" was my dad's reply "I could happily listen to what you have to say all night my dear but tell me if I can be so rude, how old are you?"

"Why I'm 82 years old" came the reply to which my father remarked "no you're not, you're 82 years young". And he was right. Hilda beamed a smile to us, one she had been wearing for most of the night, and one that was very familiar to me because it was one that lit up the room, and it's one I'm lucky enough to see every day.


It was there beaming at me on my wedding night when dad in his duties as MC naturally related my marriage to Kristel being like a partnership in cricket. When one partner is freely scoring and batting well they have to support the other who may be having a tougher time of it. Alternatively, the partner who is struggling must try to hang in there for their partner who is putting the runs on the board. "And Mark," he boomed, "you had best be ready to struggle mate because I can tell you Kristel is going to be scoring most of the runs in your partnership".


Bloody fathers. Little were we to know that that one small analogy was to unearth another of Hilda's gems. A couple of hours later dad came to me with that incredulous look on his face, the one he gives when you can tell somebody had told him something truly astonishing and sure enough, Hilda had. The cinema was not the only place Hilda's father ever took her, he took her to the Oval in 1948 to watch the final test of that Ashes series. The final test of a certain Don Bradman. Hilda knew we were cricket tragics in the White family, indeed one of the first times I met her was in her Strathfield family home when she was perched in front of the TV as Australia were giving England their routine beating and me an opportunity for some routine lip service. Still, she hid this little gem from us for seven years and upon reflection, my best guess is because it was only another moment in Hilda's life. Family and friends were far more important things besides, and she failed even to give this story any mention in the little autobiography she wrote that helped jog my memory of her stories of the war and time in the navy.


Unfortunately, like bombs dropped from a German aircraft, cancer does not discriminate who it chooses to strike and as your life goes on, greater is the chance you will develop it. The diagnosis for Hilda could not have been more than five months ago but it was terminal news. So it was that Hilda Forbes, nee Gutteridge, passed away this weekend after an illness so vile it could suck the life and energy out of such a wonderful person so full of these qualities. But what it could not do is suck the life out of those that loved her. Long is the drive from Henty to Bathurst yet grateful are Kristel and I that we were able to make it to visit her on a couple of occasions before the inevitable happened and the sad phone call came. Hilda's legacy surrounded her in her death however; not in a hospice or hostel or palliative care centre, but in the unit made for her by her loving daughter Jo (one of Hilda's five children born within the space of four years!) and surrounded by her doting family where they denied this despicable disease its victory. They were there until the end, holding her hand, kissing her forehead and making sure she was as loved as she had ever loved them.

Hilda Gutteridge and Kristel White, 1998ish, all smiles as usual.

Fortunately we get to choose what we remember about people and it isn't in any of the stories above that you will find my fondest memory of Hilda, but rather at our engagement party nearly five years ago. One of my closest friends at the time, who has had no small struggle with health himself, was born and raised in England until emigrating to Australia at age nine. Somewhat of a misfit, with the English football that he loves being completely alien to a small farming community in rural Australia, it was with great delight he met someone from the south of England and they began talking. Attending to other guests as one must on such a night, I could only keep half an ear on the conversation but I had seen the hallmarks before; Hilda had weaved her spell once more. A couple of hours later he sought me out to exclaim that my grandmother (I'll claim her!) was the most remarkable lady and could you believe it? She supported his beloved Portsmouth football club as well! What were the odds?


At the end of the evening, knowing the odds were quite small, I asked Hilda if indeed she really did support good ol' Pompey and the answer she gave will never leave me.


"Well maybe I do, and maybe I don't. The most important thing is that I will support any small thing that will make somebody happy".

To say a nice word, in order to make someone happy, whenever it is possible. That is how I will remember Hilda Gutteridge, that is her legacy. Maybe it's time I set out about making it mine. Maybe we all should too.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


* Hilda would be frowning upon me right now if I didn't tell a story to bring a laugh. The Australian record for crashing a car after obtaining your provisional driver's licence is held by Kristel White and stands at 2 minutes 32 seconds. It was managed after she drove to my house, excitedly told me the news and in a rush to hurry off and tell her other friends, reversed my car out of the driveway, hit a stationary post, and ripped the entire front end off the car. When pressed on how she felt about the record, a tearful Kristel exclaimed "I'll understand if you want to dump meeeeeeeee..."


There was never a chance of that happening baby. After all, you have your grandmother's smile. :)

Stop the (Gravy) Train, I Want to Get Off.

Pretty big week hey? Everyone got their moral dignity pants on and had their tuppence to say about Ross and Harvs and of course, I have to do the same.

*Yawn*

It was a lovely distraction from the real issue that we should all be up in arms about but for some strange reason are not. And no, I don't mean the great Campbell Brown shown shirtless and somewhat prostrate in a pair of handcuffs  (although I don't doubt the "Browndawg" minded the distraction out west). What I felt slipped through the cracks was far more significant for the future of the game than boys being boys, and men behaving like boys.

Yet you all barely batted an eyelid.

It was in this space that recently I suggested the AFL would do well to have looked at the Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) of North American sports with salary caps in order to have implemented a fairer system for the handling of the signing of Free Agents by the two new "franchises", the Gold Coast Suns and Greater Western Sydney.

I also recently posted of my pride at one of our own, one of Albury/Lavington's favourtie sons, and how he was spreading the gospel of Australian Rules Football around the world. An impossible dream? Well, it could be soon enough.

Yes, the standoff between the AFL and its Player's Association to sign terms on a new CBA and their refusal to come to an agreement seemed headed for front page news but apparently some squabble about musical chairs with coaches was far more important. Let's think about that; it was far more important than the possibility of there not being an AFL season at all in 2012. Never mind. It's no biggie.

So, many of us didn't get to read the smug Matt Finnis suggest that our game isn't a game, but rather closer to a business and as such, the players couldn't agree to guarantee us five more seasons of AFL football. This is because such contracts never, ever exist in the "business" world where what may happen in three years time is unpredictable, let alone five.

Sure, the AFLPA should be given credit for backing down from demands for a percentage of league revenue but because nobody was paying attention to that, they all missed the odious and arrogant retort from Andrew Demetriou, a man who DOES get paid dependent upon the amount of money the AFL makes. Unlike the AFLPA, he made no retraction from his stance that the AFL's offer to the players was fair and equitable. He described their rejection of the deal as "disappointing" and I imagine many of us would be disappointed that neither side could come to agreement, if only we were paying attention. Especially disappointed with your refusal to budge Mr. Demetriou. Then again, we've come to expect nothing less from you. You're always right, even when you're wrong.

The only silver lining that I can see is that players and league alike have expressed that they would not be willing to strike over their disagreements and have promised that season 2012 is not in any danger of being compromised at all. Hopefully they are being truthful because they only need look over the Pacific to see the damage a lost season can inflict upon a sport. The NHL has been down this road, a season lost due to a player strike in 2004, and are only just recovering.

Strangely enough, the situation in this case was reversed; player salaries had spiraled out of control due to the lack of a salary cap and as such, the richest clubs in the league were paying in some instances three times as much on wages than what the poorer clubs could afford. The owners of these poorer clubs, losing millions of dollars due to their inability to ice competitive teams, were dying slow deaths. Eventually, even the wealthy clubs agreed the madness had to stop; they were cutting each other's throats throwing more and more money at free agent players. So the league and the owners demanded not only a salary cap to limit the spending but to tie that salary cap to the revenues raised by gate takings and TV money that the league negotiated. Sound familiar? The players, knowing they would earn considerably less under such a system, went on strike. It was a strike that lasted well into the season proper before the brutal reality that there was not going to be a season came to fruition. And for what? The players to accept the terms outlined by the league the following season. Those Ferrari leases weren't going to pay themselves, so little Jean-Paul Canucklehead and Magnus Puckardsson decided to take the $4 million per season on offer instead of the $9 million they once earned. Boo-hoo-hoo, you're a breakin' my heart.

Except that they did break the heart of not only me but millions of Canadian ice hockey fans. Not that they needed worry about that, those that truly loved the game were always going to come back. Yet hockey is Canada's national sport and not that of the US, the nation that gives home to 25 of the 32 clubs of the NHL. So what happens to Joe in Atlanta who has never seen his hockey club play a playoff game in the history of his fair city? Well, there are many sports he can spend his money on. It was Joe, the casual fan who went from having a passing interest in his team to having none at all when he didn't get to watch them for 12 months. Only now are these type of fans returning to the game.

Can you see where this is going?

Sure, you and I will return to following the AFL (won't we?) should the inconceivable happen and we lose a season, but aside from the damage done to newly established teams and markets, who would also suffer most from the AFL locking out its players? I'll give you a little hint: they may not be so keen to practice their drop punts in Reykjavik next season.

So here is my most sincere, heartfelt plea to the powers that be on both sides of the rift: Can you please lock yourselves in a room, sit your fat-cat arses down, engage on some dialogue that is people talking to people as opposed to sniping each other through cocky, self-righteous media statements, and not emerge from said room until you have agreed to terms on the next three to five AFL seasons. Don't worry, if it takes some time we will make sure you have enough caviar and bottles of Penfolds Grange to get you through but let us make one thing clear. Crystal clear.

Should you balls this up and make the outstanding efforts of Brett Kirk spreading our game to the world redundant then I will never, ever attend an AFL match again nor buy any AFL related merchandise nor be a club member ever, EVER, again.

I, and the collective footy world, are putting our faith in you blokes. Please don't let us down lest I not be the only one who gets off the train. THAT, is what you call "disappointing" Andy and Matt; biting the hand that feeds you.

I had best leave you now as my blood pressure has probably risen high enough for one evening. Should you be attending a preliminary final this weekend I wish your club that is not Collingwood (sorry guys!) the best of luck and who knows? Should you be in Melbourne to support your club and want to tell me I'm wrong over a beer or several you can hit me up on twitter at @White_Ox and that would be great. Until then, stay well good people,
Whitey.

The Cat's in the Cradle - To Boldly go Where no Man Has Gone Before...

"Hey Mate, have you seen what Kirky's been doing for a living these days?"


"Yeah dad, I follow him on Twitter. He's been traveling the world from country to country as an AFL ambassador or something. Even been to Scandinavia I think, bloody cold place to go to teach someone how to kick a drop punt!"

*Obviously Deflated* "Oh, you knew? What's a Twitter?"


"Atwitter is when people are excited about something and chat incessantly about it, you taught me that when I was about five I reckon. Seriously though don't panic mate, when the world is run solely by computers I won't leave you behind you old dinosaur".

"It's pretty amazing though, isn't it? You'd think the AFL would be covering all his expenses and that of Hayley and the kids, probably pays him a decent wage for it, and all this to go see the world showing people what Aussie Rules Footy is. Not a bad gig if you can get it!"


"He'd be king of the kids wouldn't he? I wonder where he might have picked that up from..."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The idea that there would be such a place as a "Lavington East Public School" is a bit of a laugh, twenty years ago Lavington was barley large enough to be anything more than North of North Albury let alone its own suburb. And yet, L.E.P.S. was my public school, it was the one where my father committed 25 years of his life, and it was where another little tacker a few years my senior began to grow into the man he would become. The footballer however? No so much, and not one of us could have imagined that at the time.

Not that Pete didn't think that Brett Kirk was anything but a player capable of playing at the top level. Many were the afternoons he spent watching Kirky play for North Albury after his first de-listing from the Sydney Swans. I would come back from University on the Friday night to largely do as we do to this day, talk garbage about footy and cricket and life over a few beers, and make donations to the Keno coffers. But during this time dad was like a broken record; "I can't believe Brett can't get on an AFL list Mark. You can't tell me he's not at least as good a player as some of the blokes who run around in Melbourne. He'd be no star, but he dominates the Ovens and Murray competition. Surely he could have a solid 50-100 game career, I don't understand it!".

And dad would have to have been blinkered in that respect. He had no choice. It wasn't that he had a major hand in Brett's football, the closest he ever would have got to "coaching" was taking Kirky and his Lavi East teammates to their various intra-school matches. But he had something better going, the opportunity to teach a well grounded and intelligent kid during years 5 and 6, and the opportunity to play kick to kick with the young fella who had the uncanny knack of consistently winning the footy off his classmates.

It must have worked two ways though, for you see Kirky's immediate future after leaving High School was not having his name read out at the AFL draft, but rather attending teacher's college at Charles Sturt University in Wagga. To become a primary school teacher. I can't say if it was the sessions of kick to kick, the games of T-ball, or the everyone vs Mr. White games of basketball held on the school grounds that convinced Brett that his preferred choice would to be a teacher. What I do know is where he decided to complete all his practical placements for the University; under the watchful eye of Peter White at the school they both loved so dearly. No, dad did not have a hand in shaping Brett as a footballer. He merely made the transition from mentor to mate.

I won't ever forget the day dad came home in as close to a rage as he gets. Soon after Brett got his second opportunity from the Swans via the rookie draft, someone he knew had made the mistake of suggesting to him that Kirky was overrated, not nearly up to the demands of AFL football, and would be delisted before he played his 20th game. That was an affront to my old man and it was personal; you do not talk about his mates like that. Not being one to get himself into arguments, Pete suggested to this man that perhaps he'd like to wager a carton of beer on Brett playing 100 AFL games. Stewing at home dad suggested to me he knew he'd likely lose the bet but it was the principle of the thing. "Even if Brett only manages twenty games it will be a fantastic achievement, better than anything that prick will ever do in his life!"

And although dad was right, he was also very, very wrong. I don't think I need elaborate on Captain Kirk's career as I think we all know exactly how his football career turned out. We still shake our heads in disbelief.

Although less so at what he has become today. As we all know time waits for nobody and even to us, some of his proudest supporters, it had become apparent that Captain Blood had lost a half a yard of pace, didn't quite get to as many contests as he once did and although he was hardly a liability, it was hardly a surprise to see him announce halfway through the 2010 season that it would be his last. And in 2011, his life's journey was to come full circle; he would be a teacher at last. He would spread the gospel of the AFL to parts of the world that had likely never even known of the game. He would teach them all to kick, to handball, to tackle, to look after your mates and to enjoy every minute of it. He would be the king of the kids when the chance presented itself and although the odds of the AFL ever catching on abroad are likely slim, they are no worse than the odds of Brett Kirk captaining Sydney to a premiership or representing Australia in International Rules. Others have doubted Brett Kirk before, I would hope they refrain from making the same mistake again.

If anyone can make taking footy to the world work it is Captain Kirk, boldly taking Australian Rules Football where no man has taken it before. Sri Lanka, India, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Croatia, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Turkey, Iceland (yes, bloody Iceland!), Israel, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Canada and the United States. I'd love you to have a win there Kirky, I think the AFL could handle a Kobe Bryant or LeBron James nominating for the national draft! To get the biggest sports market in the world to take to the best game in the world? That's one almighty final frontier.

So best of luck to you Brett, Hayley, Indhi and the kids from me, Pete, and the family. We hear the AFL have chosen you to present the premiership cup this year. Remarkable, maybe they're doing a lot more right than I give them credit for after all.

Enjoy these finals everyone and best of luck to your respective sides. Hopefully they'll be lucky enough to receive the cup from a truly remarkable person. We're pleased just to have been lucky enough to have known him. See you later everyone, it's time I came down from my soapbox,
Whitey.