10. George

George Arnold owned the local Newsagency in Melton and was also the man who went out of his way to teach me the game of lawn bowls. I will never forget him as a friend and a mentor.

Little to my knowledge, Mount Cottrell was struggling to fill its pennant teams and George was on the selection committee. He rang me that Thursday evening and asked if I would be interested in playing pennant bowls this coming Saturday. The call was short and straight to the point. I told him that I was very interested but had the basic problems of bowls, bag, shoes etc. He told me to leave it to him.

I got home from school on Friday and George was in the dining room having a cup of coffee with Mum and Pop. I don’t know how long he had been there but I was about to get the greatest surprise of my life! George handed me a bag which contained my own set of lawn bowls. Inside were a set of Size 4 Heavyweight black bowls with a logo of a star surrounded by a shell. There was also a bowls measure, chalk, grippo, a bowls cloth, a white cap and a small white polo shirt. I basically had all the equipment I needed to play lawn bowls! That, and George had paid for my membership! WOW!

On Saturday morning, Mum drove me to the op shop in Melton South where I found a small pair of white trousers for $3.00. Mum paid for them and I got straight back home to dress up in my whites. I didn’t have bowling shoes, so I wore my black runners with a reasonably flat sole.

After dressing up, Dad took me out to the front lawn where he snapped photographs of me holding the bowl and pretending to roll it. Nanna also got in the photos with me. We still have them photos floating around in a drawer somewhere here at home.

12 noon came and George arrived to pick me up. It was a stinking hot day on Saturday 10^th December 1994. In fact, it was 42 degrees. We were playing a Division 4 match at Melton, which was the lowest grade in the Central Highlands Pennant Competition. I was playing lead against a guy named Len Kean. Some may know Len now as a member of Keilor Bowling Club nowadays. I befriended him pretty quickly because he was clever enough to bring a couple of frozen 2 litre bottles of cordial. What a life saver!

Even though I don’t remember the score from that day, I remember two key things – one, I played like a total muppet and hardly got a bowl near the jack the whole day. Two, we were absolutely belted across the two rinks and were never in the game. But what an experience, my first pennant game at 12 years old!

When George dropped me off that evening he told me to try and get down for Wednesday night social bowls as much as I could. I certainly needed to learn the game more before I could play anymore pennant. I was obviously so bad that the team was better off without me!

I met two friendly people named Rod & Lorraine Quinn. They offered to drive me from home to Mount Cottrell on Wednesday Nights and then back again. This was so I could play in Wednesday Night Twilight Bowls.

Twilight Bowls was mixed and usually had about 10 or 12 people playing. It was great fun. I was always playing leader and trying to do my best for the team by getting as close to the jack as possible. I met people such as Clive and Adele Brown, Nancy and Ernie Williams, Hughie Hoare, Roy and Shirley Doyle and many others. For $3.00, we got a game of bowls, a sausage sizzle and the chance to win either a Mount Cottrell Bowls Cloth or a club glass. I always wanted to win! The problem was, I was so bad at the game that I usually cost our team winning.

Twilight Bowls ran right through the Christmas holidays and I never missed a week. In fact, I played it right up until the end of the pennant season. Even through the start of Year 8, I always found time to get to the bowls club for social bowls and practice. I had to get better at this addictive game!

I use to turn up for school on a Monday morning after Social Bowls on Saturday and tell Robert all about the fun I was having. I told him about the prizes I had won, the people I met and the unlimited amount of sausages for the sausage sizzle! It was awesome!

In the end, curiosity got the better of him and he joined me for Social Bowls one Saturday in March. There was no doubt he had more natural ability than I did – he was a sports star with whatever he played. They put him leading and he was able to draw bowls near the jack all afternoon. This friendly competition was going to make us both better bowlers.

Our friendship was growing and we wanted to play bowls together. For this reason, we entered the Winter Pennant Competition for 1995 at Mount Cottrell – Robert was put down as a leader and me, a second. We needed two other people to join us to make up the side of four. Unfortunately for a number of weeks we checked the entry sheet on the notice board and no-one had put their name down to play with us. I don’t think anyone was really keen on wasting a whole winter playing with two young bucks that most likely would result in them losing every game.

To our surprise, a man named Les Delaney who played at Flemington/Kensington, as well as Ernie Williams from Mount Cottrell, put their names down to play with us. It was so exciting – we had a team! Our team was called “Composite” as we had members from two different clubs. I couldn’t wait for the Winter season to start in May.

It was time to make a mark on the sport.

9. Dust

In late November 1994, about 4 weeks before the Year 7 school year was about to end, a new chapter was starting in my life. Mum returned on Thursday night with an “Open Day” flyer to Mount Cottrell Bowling Club in Rockbank that she had been handed at Bingo. Mum remembered quite vividly how interested I was in the game as a youngster, watching Jack High and Qantas Jetabout in the caravan of the Chain Valley Bay Caravan Park. She brought the flyer home for me and encouraged me to go next Sunday with her.

It was the first Sunday in December and despite hardly sleeping the night before, I was raring to go for my first try at lawn bowls. I hopped in the car about 10:00am with Mum and we headed off to the bowling club. We got onto the freeway and turned down Mount Cottrell Road – apparently the bowling club was down there.

We drove at about 30kms an hour on the bumpiest, pot-hole filled, rough dirt road you had ever seen. Quite simply, the dust was disgraceful and the car vibrations were unbelievable. After about 10 minutes driving, I told Mum to turn around and forget about it. We had no idea where this club was.

To my surprise, Mum kept going and a minute or two later we came to a gate on our left hand side which had a tiny little sign stating that this place was “Mount Cottrell Bowling Club”. Woo hoo! We had arrived.

One single synthetic green situated 50 metres from the club house was filled with about a dozen people – some trying bowls and others providing basic instructions. I was an arrogant little twelve year old. A man who called himself “George” walked over to Mum and I and introduced himself. He started to explain bowls to my mother; the bias of the bowl, the weight of the bowl and basics of taking grass and making sure you reached the jack. I rudely interrupted saying that Mum had brought me here to try bowls!

George was pleasantly surprised, but looking at a scrawny little 12 year old probably didn’t excite him as much as my 31 year old mother. George was a very friendly man, even to me. He took me onto the bowling green, showed me how to place the mat, roll the jack and then explained the basics of the bias and grass. All I wanted to do was bowl, not listen to a lecture on the game.

I checked one more time with him about the bias and then decided it was time to put my first bowl down. I will never forget holding the Size 4 Heavyweight Classic Deluxe bowls with a logo of an old-fashioned car. It was the first lawn bowl I had ever held.

My first bowl was heavy and narrow, my second touched the jack, my third was a wrong bias and my fourth landed right next to the jack. A small crowd of club members gathered around as I played at least another 5 ends. They were smiling, clapping and even at times cheering out when I got one close. There was no doubt that 12 year olds were extremely rare in lawn bowls in the mid 1990’s, especially one who seemed to have an understanding for the game itself.

We went into the clubhouse and had some sausages in bread. Mum bought me a can of coke and George sat to talk with us. Membership was $50 for a season and I totally freaked out. $50 was a massive amount of money to someone my age and I knew Mum didn’t have that type of money to throw away on bowls. Don’t forget that I also would have needed a set of bowls, white bowling uniform, bowls rag, chalk, shoes and a bowls bag. Even today, bowls remains one of the most expensive sports to get started. Although disappointed at the time, I knew that bowls was a sport that we couldn’t afford for me to play.

Money was the enemy.

8. Kurunjang

Melton provided the freedom a young family needed in the early 1990’s. It had affordable housing, all the basic facilities and schooling fit for all levels of education. I was enrolled at Kurunjang Secondary College, which was to our information, the best public high school in Melton.

The first day of high school was supposed to be the scariest day of my life. I was starting at a new school with people I didn’t know, teachers I had never heard of, in a huge maze of portable classrooms. Wow this was gonna be difficult.

My first day will always be remembered for one thing. I was the only one to turn up at the school! With a huge bag full of every school book we bought, I turned up to school unsure of what subjects I had on day one. My bag weighed a tonne and I was ready to learn.

After walking around for about 10 minutes, I decided the office was where I had to go. A friendly female teacher with a smirk on her face, politely told me that the Primary School was starting today and that high school was due to begin tomorrow. How embarrassing!

I rang home and no-one was there. I suppose Mum and Pop were still at the Primary School dropping my sister off for her first day. I had an idea. I was going to stand out the front of the high school and wave down the green ford station wagon as it made its way back home. If I missed it, then all I had to do was get back to the office, re-dial home and hope to God that someone was going to be there!

To my luck, Pop’s car cruised past the front of Kurunjang and I flagged it down. I literally was all dressed up with no place to go, except back home to relax one more day. I did feel like a moron. I mean who turns up to school one day too early? Maybe a day late, but then again I was a nerd and really couldn’t wait for school to start.

At 6:30am the next morning my alarm once again woke me from my slumber. It was a Thursday morning and only two days separated me from my first weekend of homework. My school bag was no lighter than yesterday as I wanted to be prepared for whatever subjects came on that day. The funny thing was that no-one else in the school had the same idea as me. They simply had a folder full of blank paper and their school diary. How was I supposed to know?

My first day involved Art, Humanities, Graphics and Maths. I hated art. I couldn’t draw to save myself. I was a word king, not a picture guru. That and my art teacher was a real bitch. All she cared about was drinking her coffee and yelling “shut-up” at the top of her voice. I never had a teacher like this before. In my last school I was always known as a goodie-goodie and teacher’s pet. A new start meant I had to earn this label all over again. I certainly wasn’t going to bother with art. I’d manipulate my way to an A somehow, but it certainly wasn’t going to be by be-friending this teacher.

By the weekend I had racked up about 3,000 hours of homework. I always did my homework, came to class prepared and never fell behind in any subject. I was dedicated to my school work and took no short-cuts on even the smallest details. This was my way of proving to my teacher’s that I was here to learn and not to muck around.

I didn’t make any friends in the first few weeks, but after a while I started to notice those kids who were as isolated as me in both the classroom and yard. It was time to introduce myself to anyone who cared to listen.

Not a lot of people know this, but I made a best friend at school that lasted for many years. This red-headed, tall sports star was neglected just like I was by the others. He too was the oldest child in his family and also the first to start high school. Although not a complete nerd, he certainly tried his best with every subject. The fact that he was sporty, friendly and tried hard in all of his subjects would mean we would get along fine. Robert Doody and I became good friends in late February of 1994.

My mid year report at school was a shambles. I was devastated at the fact of getting 2 B’s and a D amongst all of the remaining perfect A’s. I was a straight A student so any marks below that alerted concern to my parents. The two B’s were in Art and the D in textiles. That’s right, textiles. Quite simply, Leeroy and sewing machines didn’t see eye to eye. That, and I made the teacher cry once because I cut a huge roll of material the wrong way. You would think this woman had to pay for the material out of her own pocket. God help us all.

The highlight of Year 7 at Kurunjang was making the school football team for Year 7’s and 8’s. I was tiny, thin and had no natural ability with football – but man could I run! After spending 3 quarters and 20 minutes on the bench, my coach finally let me on the ground. When your school is 0 and the opposition are about 250, it’s not the greatest feeling running on the ground thinking you can make a difference.

It was absolutely pelting down rain, was about 7 degrees and we were kicking into a howling gale. After yet another goal was scored against us, the ball came back to the centre. Our ruck was mauled and got a free kick. He belted the ball on his boot only to travel about 15 metres – as I said, this was a howling gale! To our luck, it landed on the chest of Doody who turned around and ran. He bashed the ball well inside the 50 metre line and it tumbled to about 15 metres out from goal. As the ball hadn’t been down there the whole game, there was no-one within site. It was a foot race between me and a dude from the other team. Remember, I had no ability, but I could run.

We sprinted nothing short of 30 metres side by side toward the ball. I shut my eyes as I slid to kick the ball off the ground. Mud covered me from head to toe. As I opened my eyes I was past the goal line, just short of the fence. I wiped the mud from my face and turned around to see the goal umpire waving a single white flag. I had kicked a point! We were off zero finally! The siren sounded and our team all ran down the field to pick me up and carry me off the field. Despite having my shorts wedged fair and square up my backside, totally freezing and covered in mud, I was the hero that got us to 0.1.1. Apparently this was the first time our Junior footy team had scored in years. What a highlight! What a crap team! HAHA!

We lost by 258 points, but memories of that day will always bring a smile to my face. It was quite simply the greatest ever point scored by a Kurunjang Junior footballer.

Well that’s my story – and I’m sticking to it!