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Most weekends you'll only find seven names on the list for the Pine Rivers Hawks cricket team in Queensland. But that's okay because those seven blokes always bring their seven sons so they have more than enough to take the field.

Two of them, Darren Reilly and his son Jake, 13, open the bowling. Darren, who played before bigger crowds in his AFL days with the (then) Brisbane Bears, says Jake reminds him every morning who has taken more wickets.

Also in the team are Bruce and Chris Stone, Brett and Ashley Mears, Russ and Matthew Dunne, Peter and Matt Bartlett, and Randy and Ryan Kay.

“The kids enjoy it. They try to run us (dads) to death but I think it’s the dads that get the most out of it,” says Darren. “To be able to play sport with your kid is just terrific."

pine-rivers-press. whereilive. com. au

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia, Happy Spot, Cricket

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Sydney to steal the Australian Open tennis tournament?

October 12th 2008 04:14

Barrie Charles Robran MBE, the best Australian rules player ever

I am not a man given to strong opinion or repetition of sentiment, but I think Melbourne, Victoria, should be cauterized, razed and raked into the sea. I loathe and detest and abhor Melbourne, and I am furious that my thesaurus doesn't have more synonyms for the sentiment.

All this started when I was a kid in Adelaide, South Australia, and Melbourne kept pinching our best footballers. In those days, before the national league, before sponsorship deals running to millions and before television broadcasting rights running to gazillions, clubs relied on gate takings for revenue. Melbourne, the bigger city, had bigger footy crowds, and used their fatter wallets to pinch our stars. The best footballer ever, Barrie Robran, told them to stuff it of course, but a lot of others headed east and we never got to watch them except on grainy black and white highlight packages.

But all that was nothing to what happened in 1995 when Melbourne stole our car race. Adelaide had hosted the Formula 1 Grand Prix since 1985, and the city loved it. And suddenly we discovered that it had been stolen from us, the result of clandestine negotiations between the Victorian government and the Formula 1 people. Just like that. I loathe and abhor and detest the Formula 1 people too.

I have never been able to explain to Victorians just how much that hurt South Australians.

Until now. Until the news reported this weekend that Sydney has launched a secret bid to steal the Australian Open tennis tournament from Melbourne. This news elicits disbelief and shock. The Aussie Open is a major part of the Melbourne social and sporting calendar. It's inconceivable that someone could take it away.

I know the feeling.

FOOTNOTE: I don't really hate Melbourne. Not any more. I moved here last year and it's a great place to live. I refuse to go to the Grand Prix on principle, although maybe I should because another news report recently said both Moscow and Beijing want to steal Melbourne's spot on the F1 calendar.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia, Sport

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Give us our game back Andrew 2

July 11th 2008 06:06

It is stunning that, in the five days, seven hours and 24 minutes since we posted this advice to AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou, he hasn't called us to discuss the issue. Not once!

We have, on the other hand, today determined that great brothers think alike. Coodabeen Champions and Aussie music stalwart Greg Champion, who has the Champion family's allocation of fame all to himself, was only today made aware of my plea on the part of Tasmania for an AFL franchise.

Turns out Greg has already been down this path, his own plea having been penned some time ago and actually performed live in the island state. As a song writer, Greg's weapon of choice is verse over prose, and so here, with his permission, is another prod for Mr Demetriou to forget about the wilds of western Sydney, where they wouldn't recognise an Aussie rules ball if it bit them on the jock strap, and concentrate on Tassie, where the game is as deeply rooted as anywhere.

THERE IS A VERY SPECIAL STATE

Words: Greg Champion
Tune: House of the Rising Sun

There is a very special state
They call Tasmania
And they’re way down there
Down south somewhere
Off the bottom of Australia

The people there are quite similar
To folks like me and you
They love their footy
And now they’re saying
We want a team in too

They say don’t overlook us
Don’t write us off too soon
This is the state that’s given you
A talking doll of David Boon

We’ve got some ok stadiums
We know we can pull a crowd
And we promise that we’ll try and make
Our siren sound real loud

And if we get a team down here
We guarantee that we will
Not put any matches on
Anywhere near pulp mills

What other state has got a bigger
Chocolate factory
No other state has brought the world
Fresh King Island brie

Now Hobart’s population
Is smaller than Geelong’s
And the island’s population is
Two and a half Wollongongs

It’s a lovely place to visit
And it’s a lovely place to stay
But will they get their football team
You’ll have to ask Andre

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia/NZ/Pacific, Australia, Sport, Australian football

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