Sometimes it doesn’t pay to get out of bed. I had had one of those weeks. In between supervising burial duty for my favourite pet and negotiating several familial and automotive calamities I had the chance to talk to the bloke who might end up Australia’s next Prime Minister (about his love of sport) and, of course, something just had to go wrong. Coming from a lecturing … [Read more...]
A football career… without peer!
Want a career in sport? One bloke thought that he could fulfil his dream of creating a sporting career through belting a tennis ball against a wall for hour after hour at his parents Hunter Valley farm with a cricket bat. His three younger sisters no doubt thought that their brother was nuts (as he sweated and swung his bat at the small yellow object time and time again), but … [Read more...]
Sydney Convicts – Rugby with heart!
The Sydney Convicts are one of Australia’s most continuously successful sporting clubs… and they are not just successful on the sporting pitch. Along with winning numerous rugby tournaments and competitions since they were founded in 2004 they have contributed as much to positive social change as any sports club anywhere. The Convicts are Australia’s first gay and inclusive … [Read more...]
Surfing is my feminist origin story – (in that I left for the arts swiftly, and remained angry)
We crowded around the TV in a sweaty demountable and watched footage of the high school surfing team. I saw stringy boys in black wetsuits ride wave after wave; I was waiting for footage of me, which arrived unexpectedly spliced into the year ten boy’s semi-final, although I wasn’t surfing. I was emerging from the water and onto the shore—like girls I had seen in Tracks … [Read more...]
Cheers for the English team at the World Cup – not! Well… not from this little black duck.
I was woken by my cat Portnoy at sparrow’s fart for his usual breakfast of Friskies and a stroll around his domain, after which he would retire to bed for the duration. Stumbling around in the pre-dawn cold and dark, it entered my head that I might switch on the tele and see what was happening in the World Cup. I arrived just as the nerve-wracking penalty shootout between … [Read more...]