Specky Magee by Felice Arena Page A

boundary or dribble them through along the ground with the ball turning like a Shane Warne leg spinner. Like his two heroes, ‘The Bombay Bullet’ loved to kick goals — running cartwheels and several back flips were his preferred methods of celebration.
    There was only a minute or so of the game left to go, and scores were still level.
    ‘I’m free!’ yelled Specky, rushing towards an open space right by the edge of the centre square.
    Paul Solomon, known to the rest of Specky’s team as ‘Smashing Sols’ for his hard-hitting tackles, had possession of the ball. He drop-kicked it directly into Specky’s chest. Specky knew he didn’t have the time to pull up his socks and execute a controlled kick. Instead, he played on, twisting and baulking his way towards the forward-line.
We all know that footy is a physical game, and ‘Smashing Sols’ loved nothing more than laying a big tackle or delivering a tough, fair bump. His dad, a former legend of the local Eastern Suburbs League who was renowned as one of the toughest players ever to pull on a footy boot, was always telling him that you only got hurt in football if you put in a half-hearted effort. ‘Sols’ never went at the ball half-heartedly, and he never got hurt.
    Rushing over from the other team to knock Specky off his feet was a fierce-looking back-pocket opponent.
    Fortunately, Specky caught a glimpse of him before there was any chance of the two of them colliding. He delicately hand-balled over his opponent’s head into the hands of Danny, who was running all over the ground, as a good rover should. Specky gracefully side-stepped the back-pocket player and continued to run forward. Danny then hand-balled the ball back to Specky. It was a brilliant fast-action one-two manoeuvre by the two friends.
A lot of young players don’t like to hand-ball, preferring to kick the ball at every opportunity. But used effectively, hand-balling it can create many goal opportunities. Danny and Specky had a great understanding on the field, and often found themselves hand-balling to each other. Each night, after training was finished, they would hand-ball the ball to each other 100 times, with both their left and right hands, before they went home. During the game they mainly used low, flat hand-balls that spun backwards through the air, like a drop punt—these were called ‘rocket hand-balls’. They could also float hand-balls over their opponents’ heads, and could even hand-ball along the ground to each other if they were caught in the middle of a pack.
    Specky took a bounce, looked up, and saw he was still too far out to kick a goal. The only team-mate who was free and available for him to boot the ball onto was Simmo. Specky had no choice but to kick it to him. The ball drifted high into the sky, directly above the clumsy full-forward. Simmo’s knees rattled with nerves, while sweat trickled down the back of his neck. The full-back for Redleaf, who’d left Simmo in order to chase the ball, was now charging back towards him. Specky and the rest of his team anxiously looked on, hoping Simmo wouldn’t blow it again.
    ‘Come on, Simmo, you can mark this one. You can do it,’ muttered Specky under his breath.
    Just as the ball was in his reach, Simmo closed his eyes, took a deep breath and hoped for the best. Redleaf’s full-back took a huge leap and dived towards Simmo, grabbing him around the neck. The ball slipped through Simmo’s fingers as he and the full-back went crashing down to the ground. The umpire blew his whistle, and awarded Simmo a free kick, directly in front of goal.
    Coach Pappas, the supporters and Specky’s team all let out a huge sigh of relief. Specky sprinted over to Simmo to give him some words of encouragement before he took his kick.
    ‘Don’t be nervous, mate. Do it for your dad,’ he whispered into his ear. Specky wasn’t sure why he said what he had, but by the touched expression on Simmo’s face, he knew he had somehow said