Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Sport Boy's Sporting Weekend

Sport Boy and I took full advantage of our new-found proximity to premier sporting events on Sunday.
We snuck out of church early and drove up to Melbourne to go to the final round of the Australian Masters at the Victoria Golf Club. There was a certain (recently notorious) African American golfer playing and we along with thousands of other people were keen to see him in the flesh (pardon the pun). Despite multiple off course discrepancies, he is one of if not THE greatest golfer in history, the highest paid sportsman in the world, and a genius/superstar at his chosen sport. Although he started the day 10 strokes behind the leader and was for all intents and purposes out of contention, he finally found some form with the putter, burned up the back nine and finished with birdie, eagle to become the clubhouse leader on 7 under. 

 
The overnight leaders faded as if to script or according to their names, Gaunt and Bland and dropped down the leaderboard, leaving Victorian and crowd favourite Stuart Appelby to storm home with a round of 6 under to win the Masters.
Sport Boy and I followed Mr Woods for several holes then after some food and a mosey through the merchandise and sponsor's marquees sat ourselves on the edge of the 18th green to watch the last couple of groups finish. Appelby received a rapturous response from the gallery and very nearly eagled the last hole, his putt missing by millimetres. It didn't matter, he was two strokes clear and could have two putted from less than an inch and still won the gold jacket.
 





 
Golfers have a reputation for shocking fashion sense.
As you can see, it is fully deserved!





Phase one complete, Sport Boy and I dashed back to the car and headed for Aami Stadium to see our team, Melbourne Heart play top of the table Brisbane Roar in the A League. Traffic, a poor sense of directionand lack of parking  meant we didn't get there till late in the first half, at which point Heart were leading 1-0 in a high quality game. Brisbane are not on top for nothing though and always looked more threatening in attack. Sure enough they equalised mid way through the second half and should have taken the lead when awarded a penalty but the Heart keeper saved the (poorly taken) spot kick to keep it 1-1. The home fans were the ones "roaring" at that point and Melbourne had opportunities to score but failed. Late in the game Brisbane took theirs to win the game 2-1. 








We went looking for suitable (gluten-free) food on the way home but after crossing the West Gate Bridge I drove through Williamstown, Newport, Sunshine and Altona without finding a Red Rooster. Just as we'd given up hope I tried one more exit and we found one tucked around a corner. Hunger dealt with we headed for home. Sport Boy was asleep before we were half way home, fed, happy and content after a great day out.


On Saturday morning I braved the rain and cold to cruise some garage sales. I found a bargain at one, a set of golf clubs for $20 including several Cobras, the weapon of choice of my favorite golfer, The Great White Shark in his heyday. I've been thinking about playing golf again, not in a big way, when I used to play every week, but just an occasional hit. We live less than a kilometre from Ocean Grove golf club so it's pretty handy.
The garage sale proprietor and his family are moving to France to live next week so he was keen to get rid of stuff. I walked out with an armful of free books too.

A little later I paid $5 for an odd-bod bunch of old clubs at the Anglican Church fete. I figured Sport Boy might like to come and have a game with me.


While fossicking around the fete stalls I came across this reminder of "home".

This week I have today and tomorrow off and am working Saturday and Sunday. Mrs Holt Press and I are hoping to go up to Melbourne tomorrow for a look around. Once I finish blogging and paying some bills I may  go and try my "new" golf clubs this arvo.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Marcus,

sorry fot the offtopic, but I couldn't find your e-mail to send this to you.

I have seen your comment on the blog mentioning Score'n'roar and one of it's heroes – Nipper Lawrence http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2008/01/score-n-roar-short-run-soccer-comic.html. Please read on and see if you have any info or know a better source for getting the right information. I would appreciate help. I have tryed with 26pigs and Britischcomics already but they couldn't provide me with more info.

Anonymous said...

For years I have been trying to track down the continuation to the story of character Nipper Lawrence, an story that ended abruptely here in Croatia (printed in 70-es and re-printed in 90-es).

I was able to find the information that the story appeared in Score’n’Roar comic, joined with Scorcher on 3rd July 1971, which then joined with the Tiger comic on 12/10/74, also regular in Roy of the Rovers Monthly (1993-95). Author (the writer) was Tom Tully and the artist was Solano Lopez.

I was trying also to contact mister Tully himself to ask him this but found the information that he now lives very secluded somewhere around Glasgow and is very hard to track down.

The best I could find was the information of some guy from Australia claiming that he read Nipper until his late years in the comic (even becoming a manager), and that Nipper appeared again in Roy of the Rovers as part of the England team (I found also a picture). I have also found some of the Score’n’roar and Tiger numbers with Nipper, but the latest episode was around ¾ into the duration of the story that I read in Croatia. Latest Tiger & Scorcher that I found was 25-01-1975. From what I heard, Nipper was continued to be released until ’78 or ’79.

I also found some episode synopsis from Roy of the Rovers publication but that was just a reprint of the first few episodes.

So, I presume I have to find Tiger & Scorcher from 1975 to 1979.

Do you at least know if it is true that Nipper had a continuation after the incident with coach Hacker?



The story that I read in Croatia ended with Blackport falling into 2nd divison and by Nipper founding out from the newspaper journalist that his new coach (Norman Hacker) is actually a very bad guy. The last chapter told us that the original Nipper story continued to be printed in England.

If you cannot help I still thank you for reading the e-mail.

Best regards,

Dado