Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life is an apt metaphor for the hitherto direction of my life in the early 1970s. The Anglican church had embraced happy clapping, rock gospel, singing nun 6 or 12 string style and the post service home cooked sausage roll was on the endangered list. You felt that the church was run by Fairport Convention even though church services themselves were still played at 33 and a third. As the only male in my Sunday school, led by the acoustic guitar welding Miss Bacon, I loomed as the new big thing. Once she’d cured me of miming to the hymns and purged my penchant for inappropriate nick names targetting the back hill farm girls in the entourage, I emerged as a pint sized Billy Graham in the Sunday School lead church services. Despite a capacity of only 20 – 30 fans, most services were sell outs.
To old timers, I was the Michael Tuck of the new wave penecostal movement. I could hold a tune whilst hymming, read a psalm and make it sound conversational – like it spoke to YOU and YOUR specific sins – and lead the congregation in prayer with the conviction of a MudMan using his sense of the stars to lead him out of the darkness of the jungle. Given a few more months I’d a been rappin’ in tongues.
All this before the age of 12. The world at my feet, or hands, as the psalm went.
Things started to go pear shaped at the club in the form of an unspoken love triangle between church volunteer Malcolm, Miss Bacon and the young enigmatic Father Noel. Father Noel once preached to the Leongatha congregation in a Melbourne guernsey oblivious to the the eternal conflict of selling your soul to the demon. Old time regulars at the 6am service muttered and shook heads at the post game fellowship over a cuppa and home baked Anzac biscuit and or passionfruit slice.
Then I discovered Bowie as Ziggy. My fall building as I wagged school to listen to the Rolling Stones new album Goats Head Soup. The final nail in the coffin was discovering my brother’s extensive collection of Penthouse. I knew I needed something to replace the void, and once again – I turned to Glenferrie.
Father Noel left the love birds to it and bowed out for more monastic things at the Phillip Island parish. His selfless act central to the genre of the unfulfilled that players after big game disappointment draw on to punch through to win the flag on their next attempt.
Confused by the ambiguities, I become a bit of a loner seeking solace in the big Victoria Railways diesel bound for big smoke games mostly featuring North Melbourne. In ’75 my Hawks had fallen to them for their first flag. One year on, and in my hour of need, could my lads drink once more from the ultimate chalish?
I had a new hero – the exciting number 25 John “Bomber” Hendry, an early model up and about Tim Rogers who could kick, take marks and construct goals. A big leap and a long looping left foot like the smell of incense and myrrh to the faithful’s nostrils. It wasn’t just the Church where the old ways were going the way of (in the parlance of the day) “button up boots” – a kid just couldn’t cut it anymore with a mum or aunty knitted guernsey – cable or no cable. They dragged you down in the wet, lacked team uniformity and compelled cats high on lanolin to follow you home. The wall then fell on sown on plastic numbers. You can imagine how “hip” and “now” I was as Mum gently navigated the new frontier ironing on Bomber’s number onto my new off the rack long sleeve guernsey. A strict wool temperature policy had to be adhered to. I was gutted when I lost it years later outside the Bessemer bricked outhouse at Waverley Park. 
This was a game the Hawks were never going to lose after the stain of 1975, despite the tough rivalry between these teams. They went after Roo Brownlow winner Keith Grieg, smashing him one times, one of which earnt a report for Leigh Matthews. They were never headed and won comfortably in the end by 30 points. Peter Knights claimed his first flag, having missed 1971 due to injury.
Some firsts and lasts from this game included 2 field umpires officiated for the first time in a grand final and Hawk legend and coach John Kennedy bowed out after 3 flags. While not the first time the game was telecast live on TV, it was the 316th time my request to be relieved of lawn mowing duties was denied.
The Hawks kept the Kangas goalless in the last quarter with Peter Knights marking everything, Ian Bremnar a freight train in the back pocket; Alan Goad and Barry Rawlings providing drive in the middle; Hendrie and Michael “Gladys” Moncrieff putting the glaze on the doughnut up forward.
The game was tinged with sadness with critically cancer ill former Captain Peter Crimmins hanging onto life to witness the victory. Peter dies three days later after a post Grand Final by the players to his bed side to cradle the cup he’d so desperately sought as Captain. He’d been overlooked for the grand final side the previous year whilst in remission.
Despite all that he faced, Peter found the strength to send his teamates a telegram that coach John Kennedy read aloud prior to the team – “Good luck to you and all the boys. It will be a long, hard, 100 minutes but I am sure you will be there at the end. Regards, Peter Crimmins.”
And this year, David O’Halloran, indefatigable Hawk half back flanker in this game has died.
As for my little church, well it was shifted into town and integrated into a Christian College. You can still smell that smell. Churches, be they oval, square or oblong, just have their own atmosphere. I believe in happy endings and can inform that Malcolm and Jean are still together.
