I Tackled a Giant in Tracksuit Pants (Part 4) – Mad Chaos: November 20, 1998

Worst Gridiron Team Ever

In 1993 I think I played Gridiron for the first time with Quentin. All I can remember of that year was us losing every single game without a point to our name. The very last game there was some controversy to the Saverio try on the dying seconds but they gave us so much help with those points. For the whole seasons we were pointless and on our last two plays we came through. There was this tall lanky dude who caught a ball, something that didn’t happen too often. With that caught ball he was tackled but that gave us 30 yards and a couple of yards shy of the line.

Saverio was next with the ball and as he weaved through two opponents and was tackled shy of the line he extended his hands and they awarded him a try. Still to this day I remember being two yards from his view and from what I had seen the ball was at least one yard away from the touchdown line. My guess is that the officials called it a touchdown so we wouldn’t be talked about as being the worst team and an example to be better off for the next fifty years.

A Flying Tackle

October 16th 1994 I recorded the start of Gridiron for the new season but from what I can remember I didn’t play the whole season because of my finger accident that probably happened in the same year (Actually I believe it happened in 1995). What I remember of our first flag game ever for Gridiron was Candice catching the ball in our touchdown area. Everyone assumed that he was running forward to bring it to the 20 yard line but as he kept running he yelled at me and said “What are you doing block me, I’m running it to the line”.

The next thing I knew, there was a huge guy three times the size of me just in his legs and I knew that he was going to get through me no matter what. Desperation called for desperate measures and as he came towards me knowing I was the only thing protecting Candice from him I leaped into the air with full force and with that leap barged the huge guy straight in the Chest. He stopped in his tracks but not because I landed him such a hard blow, because I was on the ground.

“Are you alright” the guy asked and getting up while short on breath I told him I was fine. In reality I think I was close to breaking a rib and for the next twenty minutes I was out of breath, breathing uneasy and requiring lots of water to relax me. For the rest of that game I was seen as the little warrior, still wearing tracksuit pants and some snotty shirt.

Trouble at Training

Nearing the end of November in 1994 I stopped working out completely and I gather that was due to over-training my body to the point that I had to take a long time off. That was also due to thought in my head that I was always getting injured in some way and that would prevent any real forward process in my workouts so I got stressed out and quit completely. Just to shed a little more light on the Gridiron case, 1993 was not the start of my Gridiron debut, it was definitely in 1994 that we began training with Quentin at Macquarie Fields High School.

On our first training session where I’ve already noted the date our group was approached by three guys, all westies and around 26 years old each. With their boom box still pumping tunes they approached me and asked me if I had a problem. Telling them that I didn’t he turned and smacked me in the head and not dazed at all I stepped back as I heard the rest of my young Gridiron friends scream out “Run”. The only ones that didn’t run was me, Saverio and this other guy who I can’t remember right now.

We eventually ran as the other two were unscathed and got out of their clutches. That day is not one to forget, my first real fight after Baker early in year 8 or 9 at school.

Letters From a Country Girl

Faith, she was known to me through year 10 and if you haven’t read of her already you’re about to know a bit about her. She was probably my first real female crush and I remember looking at her from Food Technology class as we listened to the teacher. To place it bluntly, she started writing me letters I think because she heard I liked her. The first letter was given to me around September as I remember we sustained a friendship for the last three months of the year.

After that she left school and didn’t go on to year 11 but I did. Faith wrote me at least six to ten letters spaced out over the time and each time she wrote me a letter I wrote her one back. She used to live in Bargo which was a fair way to travel just to get to Airds High School but I think she moved there after she left school. Faith knew I liked her and I gathered that she liked me but even though she gave me her home number and I gave it a call we didn’t make any arrangements after school.

It seems that for this period of time I attracted girls from the outback, with horses and shit like that. Looking at Clover would tell you that I was probably destined for a country girl because they would be pretty faithful, more faithful I think than all these City girls that parade in front of all kinds of men at Clubs.

The Summer of Love

1995, now we are getting there, the summer of love and once again this year is destined to once again be my summer of love. 1995 was the year that I got onto many girls and experienced many different flavors to my tongue but this was also the year of rebellion, where we drove around causing havoc, stealing gnomes and shit like that. You could say that this was an untamed year leading in contrast to what I believed was tame. Such a big change did happen though from 1995 to 1996 but it was one I was looking forward to.

All the time in 1995 I was getting onto girls I was really looking for Mrs. Right for me and I guess I found that magical touch from a magical person who now haunts my pages for all the wrong reasons. This magical person was indeed Jewell but she too brought peril to my name and greed to the days I held Lyssa in my hands. For all the time in 1995 that I stuffed around I was never to blame but in 1996 mucking around with other people was my downfall, one person in particular.

Phoenix Leaves Me Dangling

Nearing the end of 1995 was when my lips began their debut. Starting with people like Nutsucking Nadia and then moving onto Pavlina who I dare not exploit or care to explain, my last two of the year were Phoenix and lastly, Kathryn. Phoenix I remember clearly, being around me on New Years Eve and that was the night I believe that Miroslav came out with us and his then girlfriend Sabine. Also in my memory was the time that we took Phoenix and everyone else that hung out with us to Bradbury park and in the Cricket pitches we held a séance.

Pretty certain it was the same night, Phoenix and I were at my house getting it on, this was a week or just days after she broke up with her boyfriend. Of course we met through Pizza Hut in Campbelltown, when her and a bunch of friends came down and chatted with me. Phoenix dogged me because I liked her but she got back with her boyfriend and left me dangling. That pissed me off and that’s why I still have my attitude with her today ‘I don’t give a shit about her’ attitude.

My First Factory Job

For a little while in February 1995 I tried to pick up the habit again of bodybuilding but one month was all I could muster with my Holistic Training technique. Since then I didn’t work out way until my Diary first began in 1996. Now I’m not sure if I picked up the habit again before that but you can bet your money that I was doing some sort of bodybuilding at home. The reason I probably stopped working out in 1995 was due to the fact that I quit school after the first semester.

Lucky I was that I got myself a laboring job almost immediately after finishing up school. It was my very first interview and I didn’t have much confidence when I headed for my interview at ‘Meco & McCallum’ but I got the job regardless. It was nothing much, general hand where I got the shit jobs but even though I wasn’t there for more than three months they moved me up to spot welding and wood machinist jobs to cover for whoever was away. I was the next man up on any machine in that factory, whenever someone was away I’d take their machine and do their job for the day.

Because I was so enthusiastic I spent my first night working for twelve straight hours giving me only enough time to sleep and get back up. It was like that for the first week as I worked myself to the bone but then I started pacing myself. Making friends there was easy and work was fun but I didn’t like the conditions I was working in, it wasn’t me. That’s why I decided to resign after three months and after that I didn’t find work for a long time.

In that time I bettered myself with some government courses and I learnt some programs which helped me get a job later in 1997. For way over a year I was on Government pay and it looks like I’m going to be repeating my summer of love and over a year without work again, ironic.