Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking

Every year, our hockey club has an annual ball. A star-studded, black-tie happening. It caps off the year and formally acknowledges the efforts of those largely unsung heroes of amateur sports. It's like the Brownlows, with a dash of style, the Oscars with actual meaning. I've even hosted a few, taking up the ebony mic for the greater good of reading out names and practicing my beatboxing.

Apart from the bottomless beer jugs, the highlight of the night is always the team write-ups which appear on every table as an almanac of the year's play. Every team submits a little entry to the club's history, giving narrative to the great Australian sporting story played out every weekend. 

For some strange reason, our team always picks me to do ours. I barely barely understand the rules of the game. Let alone who does what. My mental instruction booklet on hockey is just a flash card with the words RUN! and HIT! written on opposite sides.

With that in mind, here was my round up for the Cows hockey season of 2012:

Some might say that it’s height of arrogance to get Grand Final winning shirts made up before the great match has even been played. Some might warn against the gob-smacking hubris necessary for having those shirts emblazoned with Grand Final-winning nick names like “Dream Crusher” and “Skull Fucker”. Those same nay-saying individuals would also be of the opinion that getting a “Cows Grand Final Winners 2012” tramp-stamp at the Four Roses before the season had even started was foolish, infantile, ill-judged, big-headed and just plain stupid. 

Those people have never met our coach, one Alex “Fairy” Kay-Oswald aka “Moose Jaw” aka “Stringbean Sally”. 

This was a man who, at the first training, looked his charges in the eye and declared, not “I want to win a premiership”, but “WE ARE GOING TO WIN A PREMIERSHIP”. Then he showed us this infected-looking tat on the small of his back and assured us that the Japanese characters translated into “Wagyu Kamikaze Rising Sun Karate”. This means (obviously) “Cows Grand Final Winners 2012”. 

And win we did. 

The End. 
Oh. 
More details? 
First, imagine PSY joined Survivor and did a cross-over mash-up of “Gangnam Style” and “Eye of the Tiger”. That’s pretty much our theme song. We trained as though our honour was at steak (intentional spelling). No one ever complained. No one ever missed a game. No one ever missed a goal. While other teams were out there talking tactics and practising their little training drills, Alex’s Cows were doing push-ups. No-handed. (Yes, that means we can all do them with our genitals.) We did sit ups when we needed to sleep. Our diet consisted of nothing but the crushed up hockey sticks of the teams we regularly obliterated on the field. Think about that, next time you’re sipping your little protein shakes and nibbling on your little energy bars. Cows eat their vanquished foes. 

Our finals campaign was nothing short of a master class in showmanship, skill, dexterity, low-altitude aerobatic stunt flying and how to really rub your victory in the sooky faces of your opposition. In the end, it was only fitting that the medal winning goal was scored in Golden Goal extra time, on the back-stick, with the sun in Hammo’s eyes and about nineteen Brave Brown Bears ready to pounce. The ball struck the back of the net with the finality of a guillotine coming to rest on the block. But, you know, with more fireworks and that. 

The Cows did indeed win the 2012 Grand Final, and all future grand finals ad infinitum amen, such was the magnitude of our triumph. But it was not without the bittersweet tang of an ending Autumnal romance (Ash, Bailey, that reminds me, did you get those shots like the doctor said?), for this is to be Supercoach Fairy’s final year with the Cows. He is going away on Secret Business in Canberra, which he thinks we think is at some flashy, big-deal government job, but we all know that it’s to live out his dream of becoming a porn auteur; writing, directing and starring in his own line of independent adult movies. He’s got the tat. Just keep an eye out for “Fairy’s Frolics” Volumes 1 to 9 coming soon to your local outlet (which, incidentally, is the tag line). 

In short, he’s an inspiration to us all and will be missed.