Track and field- a showcase of a sports carnival- the mullers and packers union of australia style- with all the grace and faded glories, the fanfare and pageantry, and very much in honour of an athletic home-made pride and a well stocked tuck-shop...
on ya marks get set
!go
A big stopwatch of a mullers and packers union of australia welcome back to youse sports lovers, aficionados, officials and time keepers all.
Pitch that tent, set up that trestle table and fold out those chairs, mark out that 400metre track and rake that sandpit.
Homage to a sports mad childhood.
When we were kids we played across the backyards of the 'hood a little known game-we called it 'olympic games'. We set up obstacle courses and events and played for the ribbons medals and trophies we had garnered across our sweet suburban sports ovals and clubs.
When I was a kid we did little A’s.
Little athletics.
At school as well as for the Nepean and later the South Sydney district clubs as under 12’s.
Back
when South Sydney fielded a junior club that fed into the Randwick Botany Harriers
senior athletics club -12 years and over.
Winter was cross country running out along the Castlereagh road, the Fisher's ghost** run in Campbelltown and later Parramatta and Centennial Parks, with training held in the old Cumberland hospital site.
In summer
we ran the city to surf.
And
ah the walk. We did the walk. Race walking. Heel and bloody toe man.
Arms loose bent elbows kept close to your
sides, pushing and propelling like pistons-forcing the legs to keep pace.
Torso extended shoulders down and wide, and the knee straightens as it passes under your pelvis.
Feet
barely touching, scraping through the surface of the turf. Heel and bloody toe.
Stay on the ground at all times- just scraping
through the turf as you straighten and flick forward your knee.
Four cautions and you get a report. Three reports and you're disqualified. They hold up cards, call out your number, issue a caution and make a report.
Even if you cross the finish line first you
don’t quite believe the victory until the officials’ have tallied up the
caution and report slips.
Thrilling.
Cautions and reports are given for bad
technique and violations of the rules that govern the sport.
Four cautions and you get a report. Three reports-you’re disqualified.
Flagged off the track by an official.
Try that at speed over 800 or 1500 metres
or more at the oval and the sports ground.
Laps and circuits of Centennial and Parra Park in autumn winter early mornings and dusky twilight meetings.
Staggered and handicapped starts over the
season depending on age and race event clocked times.
Selling homemade cakes and toffees and
raffles to keep the club going.
Loving every breath taking moment of hijinks and sports.
Winter track and field at its finest.
Ice cream sandwiches, the occasional devonshire tea in the rotunda, playing chasings and exploring swampy duck ponds and riverbank full of fiercesome looking eels.
I loved the field
in track and field. Threw a javelin, a discus and a small cannon ball of a shot
!put with some medals and distinction.
I love the long jump and long distance running.
I was a frustrated
but valiant hurdler.
The weaponry of the jav and the discus and the shot sees me keen the first time I ever remember seeing the older kids compete.
Like archery.
To throw and hurl
and let fly an arrow, a spear, a disc of some weight, and a small cannon ball.
To reach your target. To hit your mark. To find and keep your measure.
To reach your target. To hit your mark. To find and keep your measure.
Sports mad me.
There’s ceremony ritual and pageantry in the athletics we did as kids.
We are out there to win-make no mistake there and none of us make any bad bones about it.
We are all out
there to win.
Tempered by the
underlying ethos of personal best the pursuit of excellence and the spirit of
fair play.
And the repetitions of training-you know the drill.
And the repetitions of training-you know the drill.
Then by god! It was
every fella for themselves!
Running and jostling a crowded start and pacing the herd. Jumping a crouch start sprint, the thwack as a baton is passed palm to palm and on the run, and who would dare ever to forget the leaping backwards over a high jump bar and landing a loosely backward somersault in a squishy fosby flop.
Taking your place on the dais with a well earned first second or third.
Taking your place on the dais with a well earned first second or third.
Across all obstacle.
Faster higher stronger.
** see the legendary fable of Fisher's ghost here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher's_ghost
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-7Vu7cqB20
** see the legendary fable of Fisher's ghost here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher's_ghost
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-7Vu7cqB20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEy5OOS1eAI
A humorous cartoon from the 1936
Berlin Olympics
suggests the use of propaganda techniques
and blanket coverage in years to come.
Cartoonist for the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung.
fini
from all of us @ the mullers and packers union of australia-us lot here- victoriously raising a cheer up and over our heads from us up high on the dais to youse there at home-how good's that my little betty cuthberts' and ron clarkes' all? a medal tally we do well to remember on and off the paddock swathed in a crown of olive bay wreathes of leaves we step back shake hands swap jerseys singlets and trakkies and retire to the mpua dressing sheds and clubhouse
and
ah as we are wont to say at the mpua hq as we rejoice in victory and consider our losses:
Up ya Bums!
and
ah as we are wont to say at the mpua hq as we rejoice in victory and consider our losses:
Up ya Bums!
*** the mullers and packers union of australia retains any and all intellectual and creative copyright in this and all or any subsequent and previous posts..the mullers and packers union of australia also respects acknowledges and sources to the best of it's ability all and any other copyrights in play that are used in the commission of the creative goals of the author and the mullers and packers union of australia and all who sail with her. ***
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