Masters Footy

It had to come soon. I am now old enough to be playing Masters footy. The Masters Games come to Alice Springs every 2 years and it is BIG. I didn't imagine it could be that big, but when about 4000 people show up in your neighbourhood, you certainly notice it.
The showpiece of the Masters was our footy game versus Darwin. Dawn Fraser also showed up for a swim and Daryl Somers was an official ambassador, fireworks, 2 concerts and lots of parties. These are the only 3 photos taken of me by someone else and they forwarded them to me. There were 1000 people at the game and I was amazed at how people got behind it. We beat Darwin pretty easily and I got quite a few touches. Our captain, 68 year old Dick Kimber, a local historian who also was seen on the SBS documentary series "First Australians" which is a MUST SEE documentary for ALL Australians, was named man of the match.

This is me, with the ball, having just taken a hanger over the Darwin fellas. In the background, you can see a lady in a red shirt and to her right are 2 fellas. One is Joe Clarke who I work with at Yirara and I have a photo of him in an earlier post, but next to him is Gilbert McAdam, ex St Kilda and Brisbane Lions player. Joe said he even mentioned me and was quite impressed i was playing for South in the local comp. The McAdams are all ex South players.

I am sprinting off the mark here, but you can see a Darwin player towards the bottom left who is ex-Essendon player Michael Long. He is not as fit as he use to be, but he still has the skills. It was great to be on the same field as him.

Some more photos of "Hurricane Alice" or "Desert Storm"

Are we a local yet?

This one of Belinda's friends who is always in for a pop in visit or text message conversation. Anita (Pathways Coordinator at Yirara; husband Sean is assistant in charge of Boarding House. These are their 2 kids Lachlan and Courtney)
Craig and Sharon Collins "popped in" for a visit. Gave us a ring from Tennant Creek and said they were passing through. A complete surprise, but a welcome one for us. What absolute legends!

Up on ANZAC Hill with the family and sister Karyn.
Lattes at the Flying Doctors.
Beautiful Belinda and serious Joseph.
The Modlin boys.

I didn't get too excited on Elijah's sports day. Until he WON!! First place in the sprint. Look at him proudly wearing his first place ribbon. He got to stay up past 7 o'clock that night!!


Finally I bought a bike. No hills around here. The boys love it!
Elijah's 5th birthday. On AFL Grand Final day. Birthday party was finished by 11am so I could settle down to my four 'n twenty pies, my beer and drumstick.

Belinda is VERY excited....can you see why? (A little too excited for my liking)

Tourist season is mad around here. They take my favourite parking spots and fill up my favourite restaurants and cafes. Being a teacher means I don’t have to rely on them for the majority of my income for the year, so I tend to be much more friendly to people who I can just tell are locals. I like to walk through the mall or shopping centres and say hello to people I know, indigenous kids who I chat with and then realise I should be asking them why they aren’t back at Yirara yet, and just trying to give off that air of “Watch out, I’m a local.” Belinda and I are trying to establish ourselves as local, but most of the word on the street continues to be that you have to see the Todd River flow 3 times to be considered a local. It has been extremely dry out here this year and we are now worried we will not be here long enough to experience the flowing of the Todd River. A teaching colleague of mine at Yirara (Dr K) from Kenya, arrived last year and saw the Todd River flow 3 times in a month. We NEED that to happen or we might have to write a letter to the paper advocating for our criteria to be adopted- at least we seem to visit most of the attractions- surely that counts for something?
We have now slowed down and don’t go to EVERYTHING that happens, but it sure is tempting. We have had our own private boycott of some events thinking that surely they will be on again next year and we’ll just commit to participating in the event and being “seen” at the event some other time. So I am sorry to the tireless workers and promoters of the “Alice Desert Festival”, you will see the Modlins next year.
(I wrote this 3 days ago and since then we have had “Hurricane Alice” or “Desert Storm” (media terms) come through on Monday 22nd September. Winds at 120km/h whipped through the place and brought a big dump of rain and hail. As you can see by the pictures, we had an incredible dust storm as well. Quite a bit of damage and we had water in the Todd...not really flowing, but we might count this as our Todd River flowing thingy.)

Water in the Todd River- How exciting!!

Desert Storm rolls across the Alice.

The Sunday Markets every couple of weeks. The sights, the smells, the frozen mango smoothies!!

A couple of photos of my Mum and Dad with the boys. Just to see if they are still reading the blog!! And letting them know it has been 6 weeks since they have been out here. Must be due for another visit!!

Football news and Football final

Footy season has come and gone for me yet again. For those in the know, Aspley Hornets Reserves won the flag this year without me. I may be destined never to play in a premiership.

We had our South Alice Springs Under 17s and B Grade make the Grand Final and the 17s lost and the B Grade won. I played A grade this year and we did not make the finals. Looks like ONE more year for me.

The A Grade final was an excellent match between town side Pioneer and community side Yuendemu. It was a battle of structure and strength versus speed, skill and incredible natural ability. Yuendemu Magpies took out the game in emphatic fashion. All square at half time and they just put on the after burners about half way through the 3rd quarter and controlled the game superbly. Some of the Yuendemu players have the ability to play AFL football and one name to possibly to look out for is an ex-Yirara student Liam Jurrah. He went to Collingwood VFL side for 2 months, played four games. He is lean, fit and took an absolute screamer to virtually seal the game for the ‘Pies and is a freak. An AFL club would be silly not to at least try and draft him, and could easily take a few of his mates with him.

For me, footy training has continued as I prepare for the upcoming Masters match for over 35s. I am playing for the Central Australian Legends and we play the Darwin Buffaloes. This match is happening very soon and there are rumours that Michael Long and Michael Mclean will play for Darwin...could be another T.I.A moment though. Report to follow very soon.

Bush Sports 2008

This is a 2 yearly event Yirara runs to help promote the school. We are possibly going to push for this to be an annual event because the amount of work involved is enormous. We invite communities to bring in the littlies and showcase what Yirara has to offer. I ran the 2 day sporting event- Athletics on 1 day and then Basketball, Soccer and Australian Rules on the other. We had 4 players from Richmond also attend. A big concert on the last night and fireworks for the kids. We involve our 12 and 13 year olds, but we have kids come who are between the ages of 6 – 13 year olds. Very cute to see the little ones playing basketball and mixing it on the footy field with the older kids. I was very tired after the 2 days, but certainly worth the effort and seeing how much the kids enjoy it. We had 2 days in a row of 35 degrees and it sapped all our energy and dried out the skin…need to cleanse and moisturise a bit more.














What a thrill for this kid. Getting his age champion award from me!








The winning Bush Sports team from Areyonga.









Some of the Yirara fellas with Richmond players











I love the sound of my own voice. This is work!!











Kids from Papunya










This lad is from Finke









Richard Tambling with Troy.

Ayer's Rock Footy Academy Trip

Went on my first trip with the Football Academy out to Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas). We stayed at Nyangatjatjara College (another one of our remote campuses). You will need to ring me for the pronunciation of this school or talk to Tammy Wolter about her experiences out there. We took out 20 fellas from our school and combined with fellas from Docker River and Imanpa communities. This trip help me see the Footy Academy at work and get to know the guys who run this a bit better. Also, it was invaluable for my relationship with some of these older fellas. They are hard work at times, but footy is a great leveller and common ground which helps. Actually, starting to build some good bonds with some of the fellas and talking to them. Yirara's answer to Buddy Franklin- Junior Doolan. He is quite the character, but unfortunately he is now no longer at the school. He was suspended for Term 2, came back, but just did not toe the line. He has been at the school for awhile, but football was about all he did. Not sure what his future holds.
This is Joe Clarke. He is one of the Footy Academy employees. For more information on the Clontarf program, I would look on the internet for the background and what they do. Joe is a cousin of Darryl White, so we get along very well as Brisbane Lions supporters. He is an incredible ally and friend. He knows many of the kids' families and this can carry a lot of weight around the place. He knows what most of the kids are saying in language, so this is an asset as well.
After a hard game, the fellas love a photo.
This is Mick James who is in charge of football operations at Yirara. An ex-Carlton player, we worked out that we actually played Teal Cup against each other in 1988 in Canberra. Victoria beat us in the wet and slush that day.

Joe and I love this photo of Mick training the fellas. Have a look at the fella yawning. That is Junior who i mentioned earlier.
There I am umpiring.
Great balance and skill.
Franklin is poetry in motion. A beautiful kick, quite quick and a good bloke. Also has picked up basketball very quickly. Very troubled early in the term, but we get on really well....hope he comes back to see out the year.
Michael is a Mutijulu (traditional owners of Uluru) local who is at Yirara. (I have a picture of his Dad down the page). Good footy and basketball player.

Franklin and Q.B (Quinton)
Franklin, Glen and Zephaniah.
Richie is the Recreation Officer at Mutijulu. He interpreted for Sammy (traditional owner) who took us on a tour around the base of the rock. He told us some traditional stories, particularly showed us the boy areas and the men areas. He told us where the women sacred areas were, but he is not allowed to tell us anything about them. He has two sons at Yirara (Michael (photo earlier) and Justin).

All the fellas at the base of the rock. No climbing allowed today...too windy. Sammy referred to the chain that goes up the rock as the "white man's scar". The thing about climbing the rock is quite interesting. They ask you not to climb it because people have died climbing up it and coming down. It is not that death is not handled well by aborigines, but it has quite a spiritual realm to it. Quite spooky i guess. Some of the fellas sleep with the lights on because of certain spirits "out there". It is something that seems to deeply sadden them that people have died on it. The sacred areas are around the rock, not necessarily the rock itself.

This is the cover on our upcoming rap album. MC Sammy and Russ T.
Harold, Clarence, Rodney, Lane, Adam, Quinton.
Some rock art at Ayer's Rock. Sammy told us that Bus Drivers use to bring buckets of water to splash on the rock to bring about a good looking photo. All it did was wipe off the newer work and exposed the older works that could be thousands of years old.
Me with Clarence and Anthony.

Q.B and Michael
I have more photos, but this should give you a bit of an insight into a footy trip. Trying to keep the word count down.