Thu Oct 1 2026
2-8 v JP Harriers
DC 1, JH, TK(gk), TW, AW and J The Prince 1
What did I see?
A grey day. The kind that settles in early and has no intention of leaving.
After driving 1.5 hours through the rain, I found a rockstar parking spot right in front of the venue. Around here, that’s less parking and more divine intervention.
I took it as a good sign.
Not because I’m an optimist. Just because on a wet grey day, you take any positive fact you can find and ride it as far as it’ll go.
I’d also just had a birthday. Fifty-three now. Another year on the books. Surely that meant I should perform better than last game. I felt a little cleaner. A little sharper.
Never mind. We are still young enough.
The golden age of the Old Lions.
I arrived at 5:45 and found one man cleaning the floor.
“Hello.”
“Wet day.”
“True.”
Neither of us wasted a single word.
The opposition arrived 12 minutes before kickoff. The Mighty Nannas arrived 10 minutes before kickoff. Years of hard work have elevated us from chronically late to merely fashionably late.
Special mention to JH, who drove a long way and still managed to appear one minute after the game started.
The game itself was harder than it should have been.
We moved the ball well. Sharp passing. Nice assists. Good intentions.
Harriers had more legs.
TW was outstanding in defence, cutting out passes and killing attacks before they had a chance to breathe. AW nearly produced a couple of backdoor masterpieces. JH unleashed a rocket that missed by millimetres.
The scoreboard remained unconvinced.
With three minutes left it was 0-6.
Then something happened.
J The Prince buried a beautiful mid-range shot.
One goal.
A pulse.
The mood changed.
The Brown Avalanche started rolling.
DC scored another with a minute left. Smooth. Effortless. Like he’d done it a hundred times before.
Unfortunately, time remains undefeated.
The comeback died with the whistle.
I managed three decent saves myself, but I also let in three that were within reach. Those are the ones that linger. The ones that sit quietly beside you on the drive home.
After the game we headed to the clubhouse.
Someone mentioned it was TK’s birthday week, or birthday month, or birthday financial year. Whatever it was, the bar manager handed me a free pint.
A good result at last.
The scoreline won’t remember much about the night.
The Nannas will.
PS
I had an interesting moment during the NSW holiday.
Everything was going well until my sister-in-law spotted a large shark fin while we were surfing.
A real one.
About 10-15 metres away.
Two people saw it.
Good enough for me.
The session instantly became an evacuation.
What fascinated me was the existence of two completely different realities.
Reality 1: There’s a big shark in the water. eyeballing it by own eyes in the water
Reality 2: People sitting safely on the beach have been informed there is a shark somewhere in the water and are now annoyed their afternoon has been interrupted.
I belonged to Reality 2 as I saw her running back to beach when I tried to get back to the spot. I was in pretty safe location.
I never saw the shark.
The locals, meanwhile, were remarkably relaxed.
“Yeah, we have sharks.”
“They’re well-fed.”
“No real problems.”
Comforting words. Possibly famous last words.
What stayed with me was a simple question:
If I actually saw it, what would I do?
Not hear about it.
Not imagine it.
See it.
Five minutes later we drove to another beach and went surfing there instead.
Problem solved.
Or maybe relocated.
Ever since, I’ve wondered:
Is it important to see what’s under the water? Or is knowing it’s there enough?
Sometimes those feel like the same thing.
Most of the time, they’re not.