Hard Cuddles. James Harding

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СКАЧАТЬ and started attacking my calf. I felt my leg compress and I saw the dog shaking his head from side to side. It was as if time stood still, everyone was watching what was happening to me, but no one seemed to be able to do anything. It was all so quiet and serene. Very much like an out-of-body experience. I don’t recall any pain. After the dog had bitten me, he raced off. I thought it might be a good idea to jump off my bike and see if there was any damage to my leg. Upon first inspection, everything looked okay as there was no damage to my track pants, not even a hole. I continued wearing them for years after the attack.

      When I jumped off the bike, the situation hit me like a fishmonger’s prices at Christmas. I sat down on the footpath and lifted up the track pant leg and saw that the dog had made an upside-down u shape incision on the whole of my calf. As I lifted my pant leg further, the bottom of the u-shaped skin flap had caught in the elastic and come off. So all I saw was bloody, pink flesh the size of the back of my calf. I knew then and there that this was one of those life changing moments.

      People started screaming and running around not knowing what to do. One of my kinder friend’s father happened to be working in the street and chased the dog with a shovel. As I sat there on the nature strip holding my calf to my leg, the owner of the dog ran out to me with some tea towels and started to secure them around my wound. I guess I was in shock because I didn’t feel anything. But I remember being calm under pressure, a skill that would serve me well during my life. Blood started to seep through the first tea towel and drip onto the ground, so the owner wrapped another one around it.

      I could see the fear in the dog owner’s eyes, he was terrified. The man couldn’t bring himself to say anything, he just stared at me. There was blood all over the footpath by this stage and poor old Jerusalem Joe had turned pale. He decided it would be best if he rode home to tell Dad. I recall people talking about an ambulance because of the blood loss. There was quite a crowd now and all of them where freaking out. I recall the sun setting at the bottom of the street as I watched for Dad’s car.

      Then he turned the corner in his white Falcon station wagon that he was so damned proud of. Such an overwhelming feeling of safety and relief washed over me. Everything was going to be all right now, even though my leg was torn apart and my calf was hanging by a piece of skin. I felt safe because Dad was there. He took charge and got me into the back seat straight away. I can’t remember him saying much, he didn’t need to. I knew he had the situation under control. That’s a special feeling, an unwritten understanding between Dad and me; he was my protector and he would do everything in his power to make sure I was always safe. A special bond, more friends or mates, than father and son.

      We arrived at our local GP, I am not entirely sure Dad had completely grasped of how severe this attack was. When the doctor removed the tea towels and revealed the bloody mess of what was once my calf, now a mangled mess of pink flesh and muscle sinew, he was repulsed and said ‘This dog needs to be shot.’ The doctor stitched the bottom of the wound to hold the calf to the leg, a temporary patch up, until I could get into surgery. A call was made to Doctor Graeme Southwick, a specialist plastic surgeon and I was raced to Cabrini Malvern, then transferred onto the Avenue in Windsor. Doctor Southwick walked into the room with an air of cool grace, ‘I am Doctor Southwick the best plastic surgeon in the country and I will be operating on your leg’ and just like that he took control of what turned out to be a disastrous afternoon for all concerned. Poor old Jerusalem Joe must have felt terrible.

      Not long after that, we sued the pants off the owners of the dog and received a tidy little pay day for myself when I turned eighteen. For the record the dog was not put down, the law at the time was a dog had to bite three times and I was the dog’s second victim. Blood and guts no longer held any fears for me, once you have experienced something like that, you get a new perspective on life.

      VICTORIA PARK INTIATION

      ‘There was something about the place…Everyone, from the players to the supporters, walked taller there, felt more confident and brash there.’

      — Peter Daicos

      The first time I went to Vic Park was 1991. It was a cold, overcast, winter’s day and from the moment I stepped into the black and white sarcophagus, there was an overwhelming smell of beer and urine steaming from the old fashioned piss troughs, I just loved the joint.

      I was just ten years old but I can recall the day like it was yesterday. My old man had lined up some tickets with a Greek bloke at his work. The deal was we were sitting next to the Sherrin Stand, in the old fashioned boxes with Peter Daicos’ parents. Daics is, and always will be, my hero, so you can imagine what this meant to me. The old fashioned boxes consisted of a veneer chipboard partition with a door on hinges and a latch to lock it. Ridiculous, because it didn’t separate you from anything, the box only went up to chest height. But any Collingwood supporter reading this will laugh and know exactly what I am talking about. The Greek let us down, my little heart was broken. I had prepared an autograph book and was severely disappointed when Dad broke the news to me. Mum pulled him aside and told him in no uncertain terms, ‘You better take this kid to the footy, now Chris.’

      So off we went, caught the Frankie line into the city, which was exciting enough. Then we changed platforms to catch the connecting train out to Victoria Park station. Now for any opposition supporter brave enough to come out to the cauldron to face the Pies on our home ground, you have my upmost respect. No words can describe the hostility. To give you an example, some years later I was chatting with a heavily tattooed English bloke out the front of the G while having a smoke. I asked him how he ended up following the Pies, he told me that he happened to go to Vic Park by chance and when he heard the noise and hatred of the opposition by Collingwood people, he said it was the closest thing to the soccer crowds back home and he fell in love.

      When you walked down the platform and made a sharp left near the petrol station, there was a guy cooking hot snags, bread and sauce on a barbie. The smell hit you when you got off the train. Dad grabbed me one of them, then he grabbed me a record, sixty cents back then, we entered from the old gates at the corner of Lulie St and Turner St and headed to the other end, where all the ferals would stand and get blind drunk.

      As we made our way to the other end, under the stand the noise reverberated around the ground. It was like nothing I had ever heard. The swearing alone was sensational. Dad was always strict with the colourful stuff when I was young. I had no idea you could string so many swear words together. Matt Preston, from MasterChef, who is a full blown Collingwood tragic recalls being taken to the chandelier bar at Vic Park. The chandelier bar consisted of a fluoro light under the stand. It was just chaos, the overpowering smell of beer and fast food, the game hadn’t even started.

      We took our position behind the goals. Dad pushed me up to the fence with all the other kids so he could watch me, I nestled in behind the point post with my record and waited for the Pies to run out.

      As I looked around at the people through a haze of cigarette smoke, barely able to see over the fence, I could not help but feel I belonged to something special. All the supporters were tense and anxious with excitement, smashing down beers and waiting for the mighty Magpies to run out onto the hallowed turf. As they ran out the noise level intensified. Opposition players within earshot of the boundary were bombarded with insults about their mothers’ carnal activities. Can you imagine a ten-year-old listening to this? I fronted up at primary school on Monday with my newfound vocabulary, I had my peers eating out of my hand. People would say to me you have the gift of the gab James. Wrong, wrong. I was in the outer at Vic Park when I was ten years old, you cut your teeth there and you can survive anywhere. It must have been an amazing feeling to be a Collingwood player running onto Vic Park. That day we were playing Richmond, our arch enemy from just down the road.

      The game was a real shoot out. Daicos up one end going berserk and Jeff Hogg for Richmond up the other doing the exactly the same. This is when footy was pure; no taggers, no tactics, just see ball, СКАЧАТЬ