Like many big bloke athletes, a mate of mine (who, incidentally, was the hard man power forward for my high school basketball team), considered himself a tactical mastermind. Not too many years ago, Big David was still playing in the back row for the Warialda Wombats regional Rugby League footy team. As a student of the game and a serious thinker to boot, David used to look for … [Read more...]
Golf – The best origin story?
For many years I thought that the funniest sporting origin story I had ever heard was the “Fractured Fairy Tales” version of the origin of golf. According to Edward Everett Horton, the Fractured Fairy Tales narrator, golf was invented by a very clever King who came up with the idea of belting a little ball into a hole. The sport he created was so difficult that he, initially, … [Read more...]
The ancient art of cheating at golf
For about the last eight years I have been a regular hacker on the golf course at Mullumbimby. In that time, my game has not improved one iota. And to be brutally honest, I would have to say the same of the blokes with whom I play. Big Fella, a left-hander (“there’s me and Phil Mickelson,” he’ll boast, before hooking his drive into the brown-snake infested rough), generally … [Read more...]
The Queen – A sports lover with no time for uppity colonials…
Now that HRH, Queen Elizabeth II has departed this earthly domain we, her subjects, have been left to lament the loss of a remarkable woman. For weeks we have heard the personal testimonies of hundreds who had met her or "knew her personally" and countless stories of her acts of kindness have been recounted. Selfless, dutiful, witty, humorous, resilient, steadfast and dedicated … [Read more...]
How Socrates (nearly) openned the batting for Australia! A true cricket tale.
I was in the second year of an overseas posting working for a multi-national publishing company in Maidenhead, England. One day the Managing Director of the U.K. Publishing house I worked for stopped me in the foyer as I was leaving the building. I was about to start a three-day road trip visiting university towns in the North of England to jag some new authors for the … [Read more...]