Saturday's ago we got a call from my brother back home that Warrnambool that Dad had taken himself into hospital and was to undergo surgery for a bowel obstruction which we thought was a pretty routine sort of a thing for a hospital to perform.
4 - 5 hrs later the doctors knew there was nothing they could do and at midday Sunday we all got the call that whenever we decide to turn the machines off that he would drift away in his sleep.
I grew up with 3 older brothers, 4 and half years apart from oldest to youngest.
Mum and dad separated when I was 5 and a half but dad was always around with his specific role from then on to drive all us boys (and later a younger sister), to and from all sport and work shifts.
In 1988 I went down to training with my brothers not really to train or anything but just to tag along and Ray Harrington asked me to join in training with the under 14's, the youngest team available to play for at the time even though I was 7 and a half and no more than 25kgs at the time.
In the 90's basketball hit it big in Australia including our house so the old man required for a few more sporting trips with all 4 of us boys taking it up at the Tinhouse in Warrnambool.
So at 1 time the old man would drive 4 boys to and from footy training 2/week on potentially different nights, basketball 1 a week each, to and from work (3 out of 4 of us boys worked at Maccas on the other side of town at the same time for a short period) on all different days of the weeks plus the odd indoor cricket game as well.
Dad would take us where we wanted no questions asked at his own financial and personal expense and was fitting that one of my brothers said at his funeral last Friday that there was definitely times he forwent feeding himself to make sure we had boots, shoes, shorted etc as well as he having enough petrol to do so.
We obviously took this for granted as kids.
At some point, and the earliest record we have is in 1991 although I'm sure it could go back as far 1989/1990 he started to take out football stats each game we played.
I can't place it personally but I was always big into reading the player stats in the paper such as Greg Williams' kicks and handballs (usually 35 - 40 per game), Justin Madden's hit outs (45 - 50 per game) and my personal fave, the old school full forwards stat line of 8 kicks, 7 marks, 1 handball and 6 goals and 2 behinds.
I'm thinking I put him onto it but it's too long ago to remember now.
In the good old days some Saturday's would look like this:
8am: Pick Up
9am: Under 14's
10:00am: Under 16's
10:30am: Under 18's
12pm - Reserves
2pm: Seniors
6pm: Home time with Ollie Trollies and the VFL around-the-grounds on the radio!
At certain points of time there would have been 1 of us playing in each grade on these days with juniors sometimes playing away from the seniors/ressies/u18's and he'd drive us from 1 to the other.
It was a mammoth day only made easier when lower junior grades started and junior footy moved to Sunday's but still that just meant that it was 2 days choc-a-blockwith footy, not 1.
It was a huge task that fed and solidified out love of footy that continues to today.
We all received plenty of messages from those we played with at Dennington mentioning his constant appearance at games and his aforementioned stat taking which became a bit of a talking point straight after games and of which I'll post a few of later this week.
I've always thought of trying to get him up to Melbourne to watch one last game of mine before I retire (if that ever happens) but he hated coming up to the city and it never happened which I'm now sad about.
Instead I'm trying to get my 3 other broken down brothers to suit up for an over 35's game next season as I don't think we've ever played a game in the 1 side ever but we'll see how that goes with 1 living in Newcastle.
To my #1 football fan, Dad, I love you.
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