Diary of an AFL Legend Read online

  First published by Allen & Unwin in 2017

  Copyright © Text, Shamini Flint 2017

  Copyright © Illustrations, Sally Heinrich 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 9781760295141

  eISBN 9781925576634

  Text design by Sally Heinrich

  Series cover concept by Jaime Harrison

  Set by Sandra Nobes

  CONTENTS

  MY AFL DIARY

  AFL LESSON NO. 1

  AFL LESSON NO. 2

  AFL LESSON NO. 3

  AFL LESSON NO. 4

  AFL LESSON NO. 5

  AFL LESSON NO. 6

  PRACTICE MATCH

  AFL LESSON NO. 7

  LAST MATCH OF THE SEASON

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HAVE YOU READ ALL OF MY OTHER DIARIES?

  MY AFL DIARY

  I know.

  You must be wondering what I’m doing here.

  Under an AFL pack …

  When things had been going so well …

  The last time you saw me …

  I was happy.

  Dad was happy!

  Spot was happy!!

  The whole family was happy!!!

  A family that smiles together stays together!

  Dad has a new book. It’s called BE HAPPY!

  Dad says he learnt an important lesson from forcing me to play all those SPORTS.

  Despite his earlier books, PULL YOURSELF UP BY YOUR OWN BOOTSTRAPS (VOLUMES 1 and 2), he doesn’t want people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps anymore.

  And WHY is Dad happy?

  Because, I FINALLY found a sport …

  And WHY am I happy?

  No more getting hit …

  or kicked …

  or yelled at …

  AND BEST OF ALL??????

  NO MORE INJURIES!!!!!!!!!

  And yet, here I am …

  I guess it’s time for a new DIARY.

  (The Post-it notes are written by my sister, who reads my diaries without my permission.)

  But this time, I don’t mind if she reads my diary, even if I sometimes call her names …

  My name is Marcus Atkinson. I am nine years old. I am playing Australian rules football of my own FREE WILL.

  NO ONE FORCED ME TO DO IT.

  I have NOT been threatened …

  I have NOT been bribed …

  And Spot (my dog) has NOT been kidnapped by evil masterminds determined to make me do their bidding …

  I owe HISTORY an explanation.

  After all, my children …

  and my children’s children …

  and their children’s children …

  have a right to know why I decided to play AFL …

  SO THEY CAN AVOID MAKING

  THE SAME MISTAKE!!!!!

  After all, if only someone had mentioned to the captain of the Titanic …

  history might have had a happy ending.

  If only someone had told the Trojans …

  history might have turned out differently.

  And if someone had taught that kid in the supermarket how to spell … before he was old enough to get a tattoo … he might not look like such a clown.

  So why am I doing it? Why am I playing AFL?

  The SHORT answer is Spencer.

  Some of you might remember him from my Diary of a Track and Field Titan…

  Spencer is my cousin who does every single thing in the world better than me. And he’s come to visit again …

  And he wants me to play AFL.

  And then this happened …

  Spencer’s mum and dad are in darkest Peru (or was that Paddington?). Anyway, they’re very far away helping kids who need doctors.

  Spencer is an only child.

  Spencer is in boarding school and they’re not allowed to have pets there.

  Australian rules football.

  Aussie rules football.

  AFL.

  Footy.

  To make Spencer happy, I have agreed to play a sport that can’t even decide what it wants to be called.

  Maybe it won’t be so bad …

  It might even be fun …

  And quite safe …

  Who am I trying to kid?

  AFL LESSON NO. 1

  He clearly doesn’t know any girls. All the ones I know would take this lot with one arm tied behind their backs … in AFL and anything else as well.

  Well, obviously.

  You say cowards, I say sensible steps to avoid injury.

  So I’m playing a game that doesn’t know what to call itself and where the ball AND the field are both the WRONG SHAPE.

  What could go wrong?

  This?

  What happened to the sleeves?

  Did they run out of material?

  That’s okay. I can fix that.

  AFL, a sport where people will laugh at me BEFORE I get on the field!

  AFL LESSON NO. 2

  Which means – you guessed it – not to handpass it all.

  Why didn’t I guess that?

  It took a while …

  But eventually, I got the ball to go in roughly the direction I was hoping … NOT!!!

  AFL LESSON NO. 3

  Behind?

  Behind what?

  Behind anything??

  This is easy! Watch Marcus, King of Stealth, score some points!!!

  Seriously, who makes this stuff up?

  STUPID RULES.

  AFL LESSON NO. 4

  STUPID RULES.

  AFL LESSON NO. 5

  Shepherding?

  Being a shepherd?

  If I’m a shepherd, Spot can be my sheepdog!

  Maybe this game isn’t so bad after all!!

  Dad’s book is called BE HAPPY!

  But what makes ME happy?

  So much for the pursuit of happiness ...

  I asked Spencer …

  How come his pursuit of happiness comes at the expense of mine??

  I asked Dad …

  It’s easy to be happy if you’re Dad and you only see what you want to see.

  Note to self: Asking Mum what makes her happy does not increase MY happiness.

  I asked all my friends …

  I’m beginning to think that Dad’s BOOTSTRAPS books were less of a disaster than this new one.

  AFL LESSON NO. 6

  In other words, my team is bottom of the league even before I, Marcus Atkinson, walking disaster at sports, has played a match.

  No one seems to be happy …

  PRACTICE MATCH

  What sort of game has eighteen players?

  What could eighteen players possibly do?

  It’s a good question.

  I’d definitely like to play the ‘curled up on the sofa’ position.

  Or maybe ‘lyin
g on my back in the park when the sun is shining and the birds are singing’…

  Or ‘sitting with my arm around my dog while fluffy cloud animals …’

  Eighteen kids on the field and still NO goalkeeper?

  STUPID RULES.

  Half.

  I’m good at maths.

  I understand fractions.

  Half an apple.

  Half a cake.

  My glass is half-empty.

  Forward.

  Yep, no problem with that word either.

  I know how to walk forward, run forward and skip forward.

  Flank.

  I think that mean the side of a person.

  Three words that each has meaning …

  UNTIL YOU PUT THEM TOGETHER – HALF-FORWARD FLANK!!!!

  And then it is JUST NONSENSE. IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE IF YOU MIX THE WORDS UP!!!!

  I didn’t realise I was yelling out loud.

  The match began.

  I did my best. I really did.

  But sometimes my best just isn’t good enough.

  I gave away ninety-nine free kicks.

  Seven for travelling …

  Apparently, you have to bounce the ball every fifteen metres or you’re ‘travelling’. Why? You need to travel a lot further than that to get to anywhere interesting … like the desert … or the mountains … or the sea.

  Anyway, I tried bouncing the ball but it doesn’t bounce the way it’s supposed to because the BALL is not ROUND!!!

  Eleven fouls were for tripping …

  Apparently you’re not allowed to grab someone around the ankles.

  There’d have been more than eleven but most of the time I missed the tackles.

  Three free kicks were awarded against me for high tackles.

  Apparently you’re not allowed to tackle someone above the shoulders.

  There would have been more high tackles except I can’t reach above the shoulders of most of these guys.

  Thirteen free kicks were awarded against me for tackling a player without the ball …

  Also, six free kicks were given for throwing instead of handballing and three for intentionally kicking the ball out of play …

  Apparently, anything that actually makes sense is not allowed in the game.

  I gave away thirty-one free kicks for entering the protected space.

  Apparently you’re not allowed within ten metres of the mark.

  Don’t get me started.

  All but one of the others was for arguing with the umpire.

  Apparently, there’s an interchange area and you can only get on and off the field there.

  Aside from free kicks, I also dropped the ball …

  which led to goals for the other team.

  I failed to catch the ball …

  which led to goals for the other team.

  I missed kicks or did not kick in the direction I intended …

  which led to goals for the other team.

  My passes were intercepted …

  which led to goals for the other team.

  Not even when I had to do a whole week’s homework in a night …

  Not when I hid in a chest for three days without eating when Hulk was annoyed with me …

  Not when I’d had nightmares about wild animals and didn’t sleep for ten days …

  The AFL field is bigger than

  a basketball court and

  a tennis court and

  a swimming pool and

  a soccer pitch and

  a rugby pitch.

  Why would anyone invent a game with a field this big??????

  If Christopher Columbus had discovered an AFL field, he wouldn’t have bothered to find America!!

  If Stanley and Livingstone had been crossing an AFL field instead of Africa, they would never have met!!!!

  No young man would have needed to ‘go west’ if he’d had an AFL field to begin with!!!

  I had to warn everyone!

  There was NO WAY Spencer would find out the truth!!

  AFL LESSON NO. 7

  Fortunately, I was too injured to train so I just watched the others.

  Spencer looked out of sorts. He wasn’t his usual self.

  Is that what it looks like when I play badly?

  Thanks, Gemma.

  Thanks, Gemma.

  Thanks, guys.

  One week to go.

  One week to live.

  That’s not a long time to do all the things you’ve ever wanted to do.

  LAST MATCH OF THE SEASON

  Spencer and I got dressed in our sleeveless uniforms. He had an enormous breakfast.

  I nibbled on a slice of toast.

  By which I meant I wanted sit on the bench as long as possible and watch the team play.

  Spencer was amazing!

  There was no ball that he couldn’t catch … and call a mark.

  Despite this, the score was close. The rest of the team wasn’t great – after all, without Spencer, they were on the verge of the wooden spoon.

  I stayed on the bench.

  It was almost the end of the fourth quarter when things began to go wrong …

  The score was 96 to 93. Thanks to Spencer, we were winning.

  The ball came sailing across the field. Spencer leapt high into the air … and was tackled in the air by three players!!!

  He hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  They carried him off on a stretcher. He waved to the crowd. They chanted his name.

  We were down to seventeen players.

  There was one minute on the clock. We were winning by three points.

  I ran onto the pitch. My team-mates weren’t looking so good.

  We had a free kick from the foul on Spencer.

  The other team kicked long.

  They had no choice – the clock was running down.

  One of their players ran with the ball towards the goal. I flung myself into a tackle.

  Their player was almost within kicking distance. If he scored, they would get six points and win the game 99 to 96.

  And Spencer and the team would get the wooden spoon.

  I sprinted down the field.

  There was no way I would get there in time.

  He kicked for goal …

  And hit the post!! Just two points in it now. 96 to 94.

  At least we got the kick.

  As long as they didn’t get the ball, they couldn’t win.

  We just had to run out of time.

  I picked up the ball very, very, VERY slowly. There couldn’t be more than thirty seconds left of the game.

  Apparently, you’re not allowed to do things very, very, VERY SLOWLY in order to run out of time and win a game. Go figure.

  The player who tackled me lined up to kick again. There was no way he was going to miss the goal …

  Maybe our goalkeeper would save it!!!

  Eighteen players and no goalkeeper... EXCEPT ME!!!!!

  Just as he kicked, I ran to the posts and leapt into the air.

  I just got my fingertips to the ball …

  BUT I couldn’t catch it, stop it or deflect it.

  The ball sailed between the posts.

  Game over. I slumped to the ground. 96 to 100. They had won.

  I had let the team down.

  I had let Spencer down.

  I should have stayed in the bathroom.

  We won, 96 to 95. WE WON!!!

  No wooden spoon for us!!

  About the Author

  Shamini Flint lives in Singapore with her husband and two children. She is an ex-lawyer, ex-lecturer, stay-at-home mum and writer. She loves AFL!

  www.shaminiflint.com

  Have you read all of my other diaries?

 

 

  Shamini Flint, Diary of an AFL Legend

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